Boards
Kaisers and shit
I asked Kaiser Chiefs, one of the biggest bands in the UK/world, whether they fancied taking over the site whilst I was in Iceland trying to sneak a few nights sleep, catch about 43 bands and was talking about a conference (alongside a nice lady from Pitchfork and Antony from the Hype Machine). They wrote all their stuffs last week and it's going up this week. During this week things are business as usual with a week of KC content. No sinister plots to balance the scales with Robert Wyatt or anything like that, the piece just happened to come in as Robert was available for a chat last week.
Things like this Kaisers takeover mean a) traffic for DiS b) media coverage of DiS to market the site to potential readers who then may discover some of the bands we champion c) make it much easier for DiS to score big features with notable acts because as it stands we get lumbered with an interview with the drummer from Radiohead.
This may be the first of many takeovers (am already talking to a few much more beloved by the noisy 5% of the sites near half a million readers per month) but it's a trial. New editor, new site (lots of which has been much more broken than anticipated and my focus has been on hearing what the problems are and managing them).
I think a lot of the accusations fired at me in the past 48hrs, especially re: my writing, I raise you this which I'm proud of http://drownedinsound.com/events/28782 and one of the all-time most read articles on the site http://drownedinsound.com/releases/11023 but I'd also contest that I've never made a big thing of being a writer and my main passion is sharing music I love with people who might love it and finding ways of using technology to bring passionate people together. I think after eight years of DiS the past few weeks have been some of the hardest and worst weeks and I'd like to thank all of those who've been much more supportive and understanding at this time. I've been working 18hour days (including when I've been off sick) and a lot of other people behind the scenes are working equally hard to ensure that DiS stays alive, a little positivity wouldn't go amiss.
That's my tuppence on the matter,
Sean