When I unofficially stopped updating this blog, I was under the impression that it would fade off into the ether as a relic of a part of the internet that absolutely no one pays attention to anymore. I was wrong. People still talk to me about it. Folks still ask if I'll ever update it again. Younger punks thank me for sharing these things that they thought they'd never get to hear. Older punks thank me (or chastise me) for saving the things that many of us thought were lost to time.
I started the blog because my partner at the time got diagnosed with breast cancer. Between the doctors appointments, care-taking, organizing rides and a myriad of other unexpected things that happened in those times, I needed a way to refocus my brain so that I wouldn't doom spiral into a empty shell of my former self. (Jury is still out on the verdict of that being successful or not). To be transparent, I dove into finishing every single Tony Hawk Pro Skater game that you can possibly get for the PS1 and PS2. I also learned how to digitize the hundreds of tapes that lived (and still live) on shelving in my room. Many of the tapes were released in editions of less than 20. Some were even less than that. Many of the tapes were commercially available. Most of them shared a vision: They were made by people in my life who had almost nothing at their disposal. Tons of the music was recorded on the shoddiest of equipment because none of us knew any better. We didn't know how to find a reasonable studio for years. A lot of us grew up in rural areas, light years away from coastal cultural centers and didn't understand how to make our bands sound like the stuff released on labels like Very Small, Secret Center, Vermiform or one special record on Roughneck. It didn't stop us from trying or from putting our entire hearts into it.
For most of the years that I was writing this, I was drunk. I was very bitter and depressed. I said a few mean things that I truly regret. I said a few mean things that I still stand by. A lot of truly amazing people died and I still miss them every day. I deleted a few posts for wildly petty reasons. Some people cherry-picked the bands that went on to be famous and then reposted their demos on youtube in some kind of cool-guy contest, claiming that they had the tapes, but I know better. None of this is cool. A majority of the bands on this blog are geeky little twerps and hicks, playing their shit that no one except their friends wanted to hear the first time around...and it was brought to you by this geeky little hick twerp who now lives in one of those coastal cultural centers.
I stopped doing the blog for many reasons and here are a few of them: I ran out of steam. I didn't want to live in a nostalgia world or become a parody of myself. Friends kept dying and it felt SO FUCKING AWFUL to keep writing eulogies for them. I got a nice 70's stereo receiver that wasn't able to communicate with a computer. What we do should be secret and I fucked up.
There was an erroneous belief that I lived and breathed this kind of punk 24/7. This blog acted as a conduit to get it out of me and start to look forward towards other things. Getting the stories onto the screen and into other brains helped to put a lot of it behind me. It was a bit like public therapy. I do wish that some of this stuff was less of my perspective and more of the others who also participated in these scenes, but not everyone wants to revisit the past. I don't blame them.
I wanna say thanks to the people who have said really nice things about this tiny, dusty corner of the internet. I also wanna say thanks to the people who have said mean things about it, because well-rounded perspective is important. It feels good to talk to younger people who found inspiration and light in the hundreds of songs and stories collected on these pages. If you run into me at a punk show, let's hang out. Yes, I do still want to hear your band's tape.
Many of the download links are still active and that will be true for the foreseeable future. Look around and find what works for you.
I have been at this address since 2008 and I'm not going anywhere. Drop a line.
Greg Harvester
PO Box 40786
San Francisco, CA 94140
I'm working on a region rock-related project that should be done by next year and then I hope to put that era behind me. You'll find it at Remote Outposts when it's done.
For the inspiration behind the name "Remote Outposts", link on over to remoteoutposts.com. At the bottom of the page, you'll find links to whatever is going on. I have a film photo newsletter that is updated regularly. It is only punk in the sense that I am a punk.
The new ADD/C LP is so fucking good.
Thank you for everything.
