New writing in Gulf Coast on the lost era of local music scene websites and more
Looking back on Just Another Scene and the internet in the late '90s and early '00s — and my first poem to be anthologized in a new book you can pre-order from Saraband
For nearly 20 years, I’ve been eager to write this essay that’s more or less an elegy to a lost era of local music scene websites — and local music: “Ghosts of Scene Sites Past” was just published in Gulf Coast. (Throw down a like/fave and/or reshare on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, BlueSky, and/or Threads.) If you were in Boston or around New England in the late ’90s and first half of the ’00s and played in a band or simply enjoyed seeing live music, you may remember my website Just Another Scene (dot-com). Well, for Gulf Coast’s latest “Karaoke: Encore!” portfolio of new music writing, I reflected on what made for such a special era of “local scene sites,” excavating those early days of setting up shows in D.I.Y. spaces and how independent music dovetailed with the new connections enabled by developments across the consumer internet.
Also, a new collection of nature poetry:
If you’d like to order a copy, I’m also thrilled to share that my poem “California Redwood in Killarney” (New Irish Writing, May 2024) will be included in a forthcoming book: Green Verse: An Anthology of Poems for our Planet, edited by Rosie Storey Hilton and published by Saraband. It will be available in Ireland and the U.K. later this month, with a U.S. edition coming in the spring. So if you’re in Ireland, England, Scotland, or Wales, please ring or stop by your local independent bookseller to ask if they have Green Verse in stock — or if they could order a copy using ISBN “9781916812246.” If you’re elsewhere, Amazon.co.uk and Waterstones ship overseas.
Only a short note for now from Co. Kerry at the moment, with more coming soon.
- Sean