In light of the Covid circumstances, I was offered the gift of time (and health). An abundance of time over the course of the first 6 months of Covid-19, with the forced lockdowns, to focus on the design and format of this website. After many years of wanting to make my own online journal, a readily available resource, a sort of anthology of my favourite music,  movies, books and whatever else that is dearest to me, and after countless web design concepts, sacrificing hours on end towards an ever-mutating code, I have finally conceded it was time to start posting. I got through the basics of Wordpress and managed just enough to make this possible on my own. This idea had many iterations and countless lives and deaths, just like a piece of software that is out but continuously tested and changed, many web domains were registered and loaded with test content, pieces of news that were news for 1 week until they weren’t, some album and movie reviews, unique events happening… while I was playing with the design side of things and foregoing the publish button. It felt like I would never get anywhere with it.

Living in London for nearly 20 years always served as inspiration for this website, this one I am happy with now. Engaging with so many kindred souls, getting to know so much about the inner circle of the contemporary fashion and music scenes we inhabited. And a blog to document it all was always a fantastic idea, but the relentless push for the right design, and the best code (and a persistent dose of writer’s block) always pushed the finished product to “someday”. First came Blogger and Livejournal in 1999, and by the time Wordpress CSM was developed in 2003 I was already working on my own website with the ever fluid html. This first iteration was registered as todayistheday.co.uk. The name was in honor of the Nashville, Tennessee Experimental Noise/Metal band Today is the Day – fronted by the mercurial Steve Austin – such was the impact the 1997 release ‘Temple of The Morning Start’ had in me.

I connected with some of my favourite musicians of the time, asking for advice and a quick set of interviews emerged with Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))), Chelsea Wolfe, Mogwai, Jucifer, Magik Markers, Liars to name a few, only to lose it all a few weeks from releasing the site due to a drive crash. In such dismal circumstances I gave up. The only stuff that remained, apart from code fragments and images in other machines, were 2 mixes I had put together of my favourite albums of the 80’s, separating them in UK and US bands. So, here they are, Mix 1 and 2. This mix was originally put together sometime in 2003, together with Mix #2 – Top 20 Albums of the 80’s (USA). The idea of compiling my favourite tracks in mixes was back with renewed excitement, some 15 years after the teenage thrill of trading cassettes in high school. At the turn of the millennium, the digital realm was entrenched in everything I did, so the time had come to rip all the cds and convert them to mp3s so I could feed a chunky Archos AV player station I had bought in the pre-Ipod era.

Experimenting with Audacity and realising it featured crossover and fade in/out commands was the ticket to creating this and the #2 mix as an ode to the past, the most special of decades, the 80’s. My feelings for the albums featured in these Top 20’s haven’t changed. These are still the bands that I consider to be the most significant during these forming years. These albums changed the course of my life. Most of them are among the very first records I ever heard and/or owned. They all relate to special moments during my growing pains, the parties and gigs, the girls, wanting to form a band, to influence others. This is why they are special, they were lived, experienced in loco, with the psyche of the time, with the fashion of the time, the politics, the fears, the ingenuity and honesty of life before selfies and social. I am glad I was there.

01/05/2020