jazztalk.net

As far as I can recall, in my early posting days, I posted on what was then known as the Usenet and later "News Groups." Back in those days, I don't recall many sites on the "regular" internet that had discussions.

I think I posted most on a usenet Skiing group and alt.music.jazz. The first "regular internet" site I posted on regularly was jazzcentralstation.com

Et tu, Sparky?

I bought my first PC (and therefore my first connection to the internet) in late 1996. I started literally in the dark...I was on some freaky service, I can't recall what it was called, but it didn't last long, it was mostly people trying to hookup or look at porn. Within a few days I shoved one of those ubiquitous AOL cds in , and I spent the next several years on AOL, which sucked in retrospect (I can still hear my modem endlessly dialing trying to connect at a whopping 28Kbs).

hmmm that would be 94 or 95, and it was Jazz Central Station -- where I met the core group!

I began in 1994, I think, but at the time the only game in town was Compuserve, so not really the Internet. I had heard about a brilliant new application called Mosaic, but couldn't figure out how it all worked. I bought a Dummies-style book about the Internet and it drove me crazy because they didn't explain until the appendix that you had to have an account with an Internet services provider. I was paging through the book saying, "But how do get ON the Internet?" In France at the time, Compuserve was about the only option.

So I joined Compuserve and discovered the world of message boards. They had a jazz board that I was all over. Then the OJ Simpson trial hit, and I noticed that on the very active jazz board there seemed to be no African-American voices at all. So I found and joined the African-American Culture forum, where I was among the very small white minority. That was an eye-opener. The chasm between black and white America was clear. I would go back and forth between the (white) jazz forum and the AA forum, as it was called, and realize that there was no mutual comprehension happening at all. I would try to present one side's point of view to the other side and get beat up by both.

Anyway. I don't recall when I jumped from Compuserve and got into the REAL Internet. Once there I frequented rec.music.bluenote and rec.music.indian.classical, and one day stumbled on Jazz Central Station. The rest is history--trivial, obscure history.

steve(thelil) wrote:As far as I can recall, in my early posting days, I posted on what was then known as the Usenet and later "News Groups." Back in those days, I don't recall many sites on the "regular" internet that had discussions.

I think I posted most on a usenet Skiing group and alt.music.jazz. The first "regular internet" site I posted on regularly was jazzcentralstation.com

Et tu, Sparky?

Yeah, I was a usenet user too. rec.music.bluenote, for my swinging inclinations. Various BBSs. In the "modern" (browser) era, JazzCentralStation, BlueNote and onward. Always known as BeBop.

The world wide web became an actual common thing while I was in college, but I didn't really get into online discussions until after I started working ca late '95 or '96. There was usenet before that, but I didn't access it much for leisure purposes.

The first place where I had an online presence was a film discussion forum. I think it was for Film.com, but there might have been another place before that. After Pulp Fiction was released, every nerdy dork thought they were film buffs or they could easily pass as film connoisseurs. So the conversation was lively and I'm certain both stupid and pretentious.

That said, in my 'cineaste' days, I did see some fine movies such as Louis Malle's 'Murmur of the Heart', which had this amazing soundtrack by a fellow named Charlie Parker. I was still in college when I bought a Charlie Parker compilation and then records from musicians I had randomly heard of in the media - Coltrane, Miles, Mingus. A year or two later, and I found JCS.