My One Wikipedia Article

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but sometime around junior college my knowledge of rock music eclipsed everything else. Growing up I listened to classic radio and watched 80's-era MTV because that's what my parents were into.

My Uncle David was another influence, as he's pretty much always been into music (especially the weird, lesser-know variety). My Uncle bought my parents their first CD player, back when they were as big as VHS players. We only owned 2 CD's initially--"A Decade of Steely Dan" and "Revolver." I love both those records (excuse me, CD's) to this day.

In High School I got into blues music via Cream/Eric Clapton. My Mom and I used to listen to a radio program called "The Friday Night Fish-Fry" which was all classic rhythm and blues music. Music and reading were pretty much neck and neck in my life as "the most important thing," but that changed once I started going to shitty music clubs to see indie rock bands.

Anyway, I both pity and envy the kids of today. The music business/record industry/radio have undergone a dramatic change. The classic rock station I grew up listening to in KC is off the air...and most kids don't own CD's anymore. On the other hand, it's easier than ever to find killer music online.

I like two websites above all others when it comes to trolling for new artists: Allmusic.com and Wikipedia. Allmusic is a blog that features TONS of artist bios and album reviews. I use it to really dig into a band or artist's back-catalog. But sometimes I want a little more than Allmusic can offer, so I dig around on Wikipedia.

Sphere-puzzles are a bitch to put together...

Everyone knows that Wikipedia is THE ultimate encyclopedia written for the people BY the people. Many don't trust it, but for a guy like me it's perfect (I mean, if I'm looking up Pink Floyd singles do I care who wrote the info? It's not like I'm performing heart surgery with this info). Wikipedia even notes on their website that when it comes to matters of "pop culture" Wikipedia's "good" (the reason being that's all 99.999% of us specialize in anymore).

However, sometimes I there are gaps.

For example, a totally awesome power-pop band from the 1990's called Jellyfish. I'm pretty confident that, unless you last name is "Wendleton" and you're reading this--you've never heard of them.

But. Jellyfish. Is. Amazing.

So back in May of 2006, when the band's greatest hits CD came out, I bought it (sure, I own the band's only two albums, but there's a couple of cool unreleased/live tracks on there I wanted). I was messing around on Wikipedia and saw that the CD was listed in the band's discography...but sadly there was no article ON the album itself.

Instead of saying "that's too bad," I read the Wikipedia tutorial/rules and WROTE the article myself. This is the approach I take to my fiction writing too, by the way. I think up a story, and if I can't read it elsewhere, I write it. It's a good way of doing things.

So I wrote the entry. Kind of a strange world we live in when the encyclopedias are all dead...and guy's like me are writing free, informative articles online.

It's not a big deal (or very long, I could only write what I knew and could prove) but here is my one and only Wikipedia article.