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Old 06-06-2007, 12:36 AM
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Re: History of Aural Moon

Okay, the call from CyberSpace has come over the cosmic bananaphone loud and clear. Sorry I've been so busy - I've been meaning to come back and say hello more often. I'm making it a solstice resolution, but let me start now: hello! (Sorry for the length of this - it just all came out when looking back on how Aural Moon was created, and what it means to me).

Throughout my life, I've been creating online communities for people to get together and support each other in their mutual interests, including online bulletin boards like Mac for the Mind and the Endeavour Starflight Simulator. At the same time, I've been a musician all my life, and have always felt the strong desire to share music with others. I think that's the motivating force behind anyone who makes music - the deep-rooted instinct to share with others that inner vision of the world that demands to be let out. I've been a laser performance artist for my entire adult life as well. Yes, I am/was that guy who performed the Pink Floyd or Rush shows you've seen in the planetarium - at least the good ones! Molding undulating colors, directing impossible visual patterns, strobing the visual to the auditory, and casting sinusous light paintings live to music is still one of the most amazing expressive experiences one can have.

In the summer of 1999, I was working out of my house in Boston, while also working from my office at the Boston Museum of Science. One of my good friends growing up in Pittsburgh (who really got me into the planetarium business when I was a teenager - thanks Greg!) was doing a great downloadable 80s radio show called Simply 80s. Before there were podcasts there was internet radio, and before that, there were... podcasts! It was a blast to listen to, and suddenly, all those memories of wanting to DJ came flooding back to me. I suddenly felt a great need to share music with others that had followed me throughout my life. At the time, I had no idea that what I felt was "real music" - real modern music that you didn't have to turn your brain off for - had started to make a comeback right about then.

I started trolling the internet in my Netscape 4 browser to see what progressive rock was out there. Keep in mind, this is long before many bands had their own web pages, let alone any visions of the e-commerce world to come.

To my shock, I discovered the amazing progressive music being made around then - Anglagard sent chills up my spine, Porcupine Tree was an incredible lyrical force to be reckoned with, Gordian Knot was some grungy thinkfeel fun, and others like Figleaf and Nebelnest were on the scene jamming with a fire, and intent to speak with a voice that had died decades earlier. And if that wasn't enough, the FM dial and MTV was featuring Radiohead shattering the airwaves with its progressive epic Paranoid Android. All of this music spoke to me - I didn't think there was anything out there that would come across the void of the decades when some of my favorite music was being made. I don't know how I would've found it all if it weren't for the net. Progressive music was indeed alive, growing, and searching for an audience. I felt like I had to give it a stage to play on.

I gathered up as many free mp3s as I could fine - most thanks to "The Reverend" and his ftp collection of free mp3s that bands had given him to promote themselves. Aural Moon was born June 22, 1999 with this Usenet post:

Davin C. Flateau
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Hide options Jun 22 1999, 2:00 am
Newsgroups: rec.music.progressive, alt.music.yes, alt.music.genesis
From: "Davin C. Flateau" <d...@world.std.com>
Date: 1999/06/22
Subject: New prog netshow: Aural Moon - now up!

We're proud to announce the first edition of a new weekly prog netshow:
Aural Moon!

http://www.live365.com/avian/

(insert fanfare here)

Our first few shows are going to be a musical response to the many, many
questions I answer about people just getting into progressive rock and
don't know where to start. It's a sampling of some mainstream stuff,
but don't worry - we will be diving into some "more obscure" music soon
enough.

Aural Moon "show 0" includes Yes, Genesis, Rush, gentle Giant, King
Crimson, Mike Oldfield and others.

So, welcome neo-proggers yearning to learn more, and paleolithic
proggers who want to join us at the beginning of what's going to be a
fun trip!

(The mp3 streaming features of the site aren't working due to server
side problems - so it's Real Audio only for a bit. 20.7k mono - the
best modem-caliber I've heard yet!)

Avian


It was a lot of fun to produce - if time consuming, especially given how primitive the tools to record, edit and encode audio were back in the 20th century. I think we only did a few downloadable shows, before Live 365 changed over to some new-fangled "streaming" audio technology, which sounded like you were hearing an Edison wax cylinder recording through a tin and string. But it was LIVE. Oooo - it was suddenly radio! My new 15 pound cable modem was heating my house, sitting on my desk, so I had a high speed internet connection to do the streaming. Aural Moon as we know it was born!

Our first big thing I got an audience for was when Yes' much anticipated album The Ladder was released. I got Yes' record label to leak out an advance copy of the album to me for broadcast, so we had - really - the world premiere of the entire Ladder album before anyone had ever heard it! We had a giant audience, and quickly filled up our live365.com servers, and for that event, we were the most popular internet radio station on the planet earth. What a rush!

It wasn't long after that when we needed better reliability than live365 had to offer, so we went with streamguys to serve us. Yes, we've been with streamguys for _that_ long. For better and worse, for sure. Really, they've been great. And given the complete volatility the internet has experienced, for two entities to have such a long term collaboration is really remarkable.

The year 2000 was the biggest step forward for Aural Moon. At the time, I was doing everything - finding music, ripping it, DJing, all the technical work, all the website work (including three new complete websites during this time) - burnout was setting in, and I didn't want that to happen. I wanted us to grow. There was so much more music out there to showcase, new and lost, and so many great shows and talents I wanted to bring to the station to facilitate it all. There had to be one of our listeners on the website who would be foolish enough to help me out by helping me steer this ship. But could we do it virtually? Was there someone dedicated enough? The call for a Program Director went out.

The musical Gods must've been in a damn good mood, as Jim Brennan answered the call. With his hard work, tireless energy and support, and his huge musical knowledge and library, we were ready to evolve the station into what it has become. The music library exploded with incredible tunes that made people take notice, and that freed me up to expand the station technically. More listener slots, better reliability, better computers, NEARFest sponsorship.

It was the addition of a shoutbox to the website that got the community going. That blossomed over the years to a huge worldwide city of progressive rock enthusiasts that I've been incredibly lucky to call my friends. Aural Moon is as much about the community - you guys - as it is about any set of bands, genres, or track mixes.

In 2001 (I think) I established the relationship with our good friend Tom Gagliardi to be the exclusive net radio partner for the simulcast of his show The Gagliarchives, the gold standard of terrestrial progressive rock radio shows. Tom has been a great partner with Aural Moon, we ran his show of course until just last month (thanks Library of Congress). But we continue to work with him even to this day! (announcement coming soon)

We had so many shows and new music coming in from Jim, myself and other listeners, that we had to bring someone else on board to help with the technical aspects. Roger Dot Lee took that role and ran with it - we couldn't have run the station without him. Ditto for VAXMan, who also stepped in with even more technical (and financial) help with the website, and the incredibly important job of monitoring the station and website during its daily operations, something that had been sorely needed for a long time. And most recently, RogorMortis has been aggregating all the progressive rock news from around the world, making the AM website a great place to keep up on all the news from the music world!

And we wouldn't be anywhere without our on air staff. The most soulsplitting, wild, mindblowing music, some of it literally dug out of the blackness of obscurity, reaches your ears due to the very hard work of these folks every week, for years on end. The guys at Gnosis 2000 (departed), Cozy, Sean McFee, Paul Kurzweil (departed), Tommy Wingo, Tom Gagliardi, Rick and Roll and Moses. If I've forgotten anyone, please forgive me - and thank you!

In 2005, I gave up primary control and responsibility of the station to Jim. I could see that life had a lot in store for me over the next few years, and I wanted AM to have a full time leader who could ensure its future both logistically and financially. Jim has done an incredible job, of course, and I was right - life has been pretty hectic! But I still keep my hands in things - including producing and maintaining the website you're enjoying now, and maintaining the streaming technology.

I have no doubt that AM will always be here on this planet. We've come so far, and grown so much as a community for it not to live forever. It started out as my desire to share great music to other people, but it has blossomed into a way for thousands of people worldwide over the course of almost a decade to enjoy the art of music together, in a collective, sharing experience. That will always make me smile.

Happy upcoming 8th Birthday Aural Moon.
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