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What a year! Spare Bricks Webzine turns one year old. By Rick Karhu
Spare Bricks Webzine first went online July 1999 (the exact date is forever lost to my faulty memory, although I believe it was July 5). I know most publications usually hold off celebrations until magical milestones like issue number 50 or ten years or whatnot, but in a medium like the world wide web where sites have all the longevity of your average sandcastle, I think one year is more than appropriate. Spare Bricks was conceived in late 1998, when I struck on the idea of asking participants of a few Pink Floyd forums to contribute regularly to a webzine. I wanted to see if it was possible to distill some of what made internet discussion forums like Echoes and alt.music.pink-floyd so special into something more like a magazine. I wasn't sure how well-received the idea would be, and I almost didn't pursue it. However, once the idea was brought up with others, the enthusiasm was instantaneous. Contributors offered tons of ideas, re-shaped or rejected most of my initial concepts, and created their own niches; the results are something I am enormously proud to be a part of. We did not set out to be a site for current or breaking Pink Floyd news (although the excellent, now-defunct Steel Breeze was featured and we are still seeking a way to feature news). That was not our prime goal. Our goal was to take our mutual admiration for the band Pink Floyd and create something that other fans could read and enjoy and, most importantly, relate to.
And where else could you find all that with no banner ads? Spare Bricks has also tried to remain a non-commercial webzine. We've had offers, been enticed. We've been asked to feature Pink Floyd contests and Pink Floyd merchandise sellers, promote certain music magazines on our front page, and have even been invited to join a professionally managed network of music web sites. All of these offers came with varying degrees of goodies and benefits and all of them have been politely and firmly refused. I'm especially proud of the fact that we've resisted the temptation to clutter the site with banners and commercial interests. As long as I have any say in the matter, Spare Bricks will remain that way. That too is one of the webzine's strengths. There are too many sites out there trying to sell you something, trying to get that elusive click-thru, trying to tap the vein of the consumer's life blood. We're not in it for that. We're here to share our love and passion for a band that has time and time again proven itself more than worthy of this kind of admiration and discussion. We look forward to doing this throughout the next year. Hopefully, you will too. • • • This issue we've decided to focus on Animals. Try as I might to come up with a suitably rational editor's note outlining the many reasons why we decided to go with this theme, I just couldn't bring myself to it. Who would want to take on the tiresome task of running down each point? Let's just say, given the old hypothetical question about "What X would want with you if you were stranded on a desert island?" (where X is some categorical concern like book, movie, album, etc.) I would chose Animals in a heartbeat. In lieu of a rambling list of reasons, I'll just say the album, for me at least, from start to finish, kicks serious ass in ways that no other Pink Floyd album does and it deserves to have an entire issue devoted to it. P.S. This issue marks the first time Spare Bricks has appeared without the always creative (and somtimes bizarre) input of Brian "_pink" Davis who mysteriously disappeared of his own accord, apparently deciding that he needed to see more of the world around him. Wherever it is that he's wandered off to, we wish him the best and look forward to his return. You certainly don't meet enough people like _pink in one lifetime. So until then... ...goodbye. |
We
made it! We're one! 
I
have felt from the beginning that the webzine's strength is its personality.
Any magazine or site out there could try to stay on top of every breaking
tidbit of Pink Floyd news (and some do so with admirable enthusiasm)
but none of them could boast distinctive columns like the often rambling
and always entertaining RoIO Review, Richard Mahon's video column as
well as his definitive look at Gilmour's gear, Patrick Keller's KAOS
Theories, collectible columns exhaustively penned by Daria Wells and
Mike McCartney, and too much more to list.