Pretty much the title of this post tells you all you need to know really. So after a very long hiatus of about 15 months :oops: MASSIVEATTACK.IE and I'd like to think better than before. As for what happened, well... I might go into that at some other stage. Lets just say it was the perfect storm of personal stuff hitting at the same time and then my old hosting provider going tits up and giving everyone on the network a day to backup and get off. It was a case of just not feeling it for a long time after that, a bit burnt out on Massive. Down; but not out of the game.
As for this new site, I've spent quite a fair chunk of time making it. It's a blog/wiki/forum/social network all-in-one, all perfectly integrated into one whole. All actions done across the site - making a forum post, editing the wiki, leaving a blog comment etc... all get reported back to your activity stream - think of it as a mini version of a Facebook Wall.
For the first few months at least, I'm going to try and keep to a 1 blog post/3 wiki pages a week schedule. In terms of blog posts while I'll be doing the standard news type posts when they come up, I'm also doing it a bit more on the personal side - could be me reminiscing about a particular Massive Attack concert I attended, or some of my favourite MA tracks or the story about how I first became a fan etc... Could be boring for many people, I know, but hey its my blog... even though I'd be open to anyone who wants to write a blog post and have it featured on the front of the site.
Believe me, I've got plenty of ideas for blog posts. It's just a matter of finding the time to write them. I think, if I stick to that posting schedule ,the site maybe in about another year's time will be a decent info resource on Massive Attack.
On the wiki end of things, there's only three articles in there at the time of writing - Unfinished Sympathy and Protection and Teardrop (the 3 classic MA ballads, so to speak) but they will be more coming on the way soon. Alot of the info from the old site will be incorporated into the wiki eventually (along with some other stuff I've half-written in the last year) and I think will ultimately be presented and organised better than it ever was before.
If you've read so far, if your so inclined leave a comment below and tell me what you think of the new version of MA.IE. In particular I'd like to know how everyone's finding the page loading times - are they slow, acceptable. The server probably needs a few more tweaks to it, until I can get it running optimally; there's only so much that can be done in a test environment. Plus, I wrote a fair amount of custom PHP code in the makeup of the new site, so undoubtedly they'll be a few bugs in there. Hopefully, nothing site breaking, but if you notice any peculiarities, let me know and I'll take a look at them.
As for the old forum, I still have the database of it, so I will probably stick it up as a read-only archive in the next week, but as far as I'm concerned the new forum is where its at. Talking about forums in general, its hard in this Facebook age to get much conversation going on them. The new forum is there if you want it and I like the way I've set it up (what with it being linked to the blog and wiki), but I probably will be focusing most of my time on the blog and wiki side of things, at least for the first few months.
Finally of course, you can be angry at me for fucking off for the last year and leaving the whole thing in limbo until now. If your going to leave any negative comments below about that, then your welcome to do so. I won't be moderating them, because I probably deserve them for fucking off. I needed to get a few things sorted out first in my life and elsewhere, but the site's back now and I'm committed to it. So hopefully that's that baggage out of the way. Now I can get more productive elsewhere on the site. Cheers...
Mezzanine will be 20 years old now this April. I don't know about you but I definitely feel a bit older having typed that. Mezzanine was my gateway drug into not only Massive Attack but into alternative and electronic music in general. Bear in mind I was in my earlier teens at the time, but Mezzanine really shook me up the first few months I listened to it and changed my opinion of what music could be.
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery.In music terms, that would apply quite aptly to the cover version. Massive Attack have certainly done a number of covers of other bands songs in their time, but as for this post I will be making a top 10 list of my favourite tunes other bands/artists have made out of Massive Attack tunes.
Just a quick update to the bootlegs area of the site. I've uploaded a lossless audio rip of the Four Walls EP. Not that I don't expect anyone to be unaware of it but, that's the recent Burial remix crossover thing that came and went last year. Only released on limited edition vinyl, (not even a official digital release), and now being flogged without remorse at an online auction site near you.