{"id":2846,"date":"2012-12-06T07:58:18","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T12:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westwoodvalley.com\/?p=2846"},"modified":"2012-12-06T07:58:18","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T12:58:18","slug":"my-musical-evolution-part-350-the-90s-from-columbia-house-roulette-to-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wrharrison.com\/musicalevolution\/2012\/12\/06\/my-musical-evolution-part-350-the-90s-from-columbia-house-roulette-to-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"My Musical Evolution – Part 350 The 90’s From Columbia House Roulette To Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aol\"<\/a>In 1997, I got my first Windows 95 computer and it was just a matter of time before I\u00a0took one of the 3,264\u00a0AOL CD’sthat I got in the mail every week and tried it out.\u00a0 That was way back when computers had dial-up modems in them.\u00a0 It\u00a0has been so long ago and not worth remembering but\u00a0I think the big deal was speeds of 52K or something. There was also a BETA \/ VHS thing going on between Flex and some other now irrelevant technology.<\/p>\n

It is a little\u00a0mind boggling to consider how far we’ve come in 15 years.\u00a0 Not only in technology but\u00a0in our use and expectations of the web.\u00a0 Back in 1997, people were just beginning to get online and\u00a0the web\u00a0had not yet evolved into the marketing juggernaut that\u00a0it has become.\u00a0 Back in 1997 it was more like the frontier or wild west.<\/p>\n

Most of the content seemed to be amateur pages hosted in\u00a0areas like Geocities. Lots of fan stuff. In\u00a0my early days on the web, it was purely entertainment, an alternative to TV. I was always amazed that no matter how obscure a topic, I would be able to find stuff.\u00a0 I’d spend hours tying up the phone line link hopping. I’d search something like Freakies Cereal\u00a0<\/em>then follow a link from that page to another and repeat. An hour later, I’d be someplace completely different. It was interesting.<\/p>\n

I can’t help but smile when I think about the content of the early days when the world first began to connect in large numbers. All those bright banners on black backgrounds and the endless supply of animated GIF’s. It really was a curiosity more like a freak show than the tool it has become.\u00a0 The internet community as a musical resource was a year or two away at this point but it was too long after I got online that I made my first internet purchase.\u00a0 I found an old out of print book from my summers in Vermont called Moonlight, Cobwebs And Shadows.<\/em>\u00a0 A cool little book with supernatural themes and old colonial style artwork.\u00a0 I’ve added a link to it at the bottom of the post.<\/p>\n

I was still playing Columbia House Roulette.<\/em> I’d get completely random stuff and check it our. Most of it like No Doubt, Green Day, Smash Mouth <\/em>and such were great winners. The others all had some redeeming value even if it would take some time to realize it. Soon, though, I’d quit Columbia House and BMG for the last time and turn to the internet for most of my musical research and purchases.<\/p>\n

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That cool old dial-up sound
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