Some people believe that free music studio software like Garageband is equal to having your own fully-equipped studio. Well, think again. Garageband is free. A music studio cost a fortune and not many people can afford it. My point is the comparison and delusion. In fact, it's outrageous, egregious and preposterous. I listened to Mike Oldfield's "Boxed" recently (a 3-cd with quadrophonic remixes of "Tubular Bells", "Hergest Ridge" and "Ommadawn" along with Collaborations) and stumbled over this image (if you double-click on the image to the left it will open with higher resolution). The image depicts the artist surrounded by instruments in his home, Througham Slad Manor in Bisley, Gloustershire, shortly after he'd moved there in 1975. Some may see a young millonaire showing off with his many expensive instruments. However, I see a young millonaire who understands that every instrument is unique and have its place and role. Many of the instruments used on "Ommadawn" are shown here, except for harp, mandolin, banjo, spinet and electric organs. The Oldfield story is sad. Mike Oldfield released Tubular Bells in 1973, when he was just 20 years old. The following two years "Hergest Ridge" and "Ommadawn" were released. And then the creative forces were depleted. This is the worst thing that can happen to an artist. To know, deep down inside, that you never again can recreate anything new at the same artistic level. This hasn't stopped Mike Oldfield from releasing 21 studio albums after the classic trilogy. It only serves to illustrate the epic fall. Well, life could be a lot worse. To be dependent of Garageband, for instance. In fact, if I had been a depleted musician I can't think of anything better than to live in a grade two listed manor with a recording studio in the barn and with crawling distance from the village pub.  

 

You can accuse me of many things. However, being sensitive to trends or showing off as an early adopter isn't one of them. I started this website when everybody else had moved on to other self-confirming social media. On March 1, 2014 I launched this website and the first blog entry I ever posted had the dramatic title "So it begins...". Since then I have posted a biased and website-focused blog post every year. The second blog post (2015) had the expectantly title "So it continues...". Here, I discussed the past, present and future for the site. The third blog post (2016) had the prosaic title "And so it goes on and on and on and on and on...". Here, I did some merciless following up on ambitions and promises. The fourth blog post (2017) had the patronizing title "The necessity of content gardening". Here, I stated that a website, with proper content gardening, could live forever. The fifth blog post (2018) had the technical title "Ratchet effect through organic growth”. Here, I speculated how web indexing and algorithms drove traffic to unprecedented levels. Today, it's time for a new blog post to cherish the website. A lot of water has flowed beneath the bridge since 2014. The visitor counter indicates 100 813. This is far more than I could ever dream of. I'm happy as a clam in mud at high tide. But, at the same time I feel the gravity of the situation. I'm paralyzed and have a writer's block. There's no upcoming news at the moment. In fact, all three categories (articles, lists and blog) in the module "Upcoming News" the start page are marked "to be announced". I had to come to a temporary stop before I plot a new course. Of course, it's more holding on to a steady course. As Zebulon Macahan (mountain man, trapper/trader, and scout working for the U.S. Army in the Indian Territories in the television series "How the West Was Won") so elegantly phrased it: "The world might be changin', but I ain't". The future for the gothic country genre isn't bright. It's important to document the genre before everything falls into oblivion.      

Assessment

You can compare a website with a business or industry cycle. There are four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. In business sales typically begin slowly at the introduction phase, then tend to take off rapidly during the growth phase. After leveling out at maturity, sales then begin a gradual decline. Where, on a progress curve, is the website today? I would say the maturity phase. The content of the site has grown, but the growth rate has slightly decreased. Anyway, in 2018 I wrote more articles, made more lists and wrote more blog posts than the year before. Should I be worried about the growth rate? A decreasing growth rate is expected when the most of the important artists and bands are covered. No need to worry. We have reached the saturation point.      

Visitor statistics

From zero to 100 000 visitors in 1 814 days, which is equal to five years. From zero to 10 000 took 264 days. But, after 50 000 something happened. The web indexing and Google algorithms seems to have begin to kick in. The step from 50 000 to 60 000 visitors took only 131 days. The average number of days for another 10 000 visitors has since then been around 130-140.
 

Department statistics

As mentioned above, the content of the site has grown, but the growth rate has decreased over time. But 2018 was a far more productive year than 2017. I blame it on a dysfunctional work-related situation. I run this site because it's fun. If you feel obligated to write an article, list or blog entry and don't have either the time or the inspiration, it shows. Now, everything flows. I wrote three new articles last year, listed three more artists in my prestigious table, made ten new lists and wrote 30 blog entries. Not bad, not bad at all if I may say so. After all, this is one-way communication.

Most visited pages

The last three years the five web pages stated below has been the most visited. Naturally, the start page is the most visited page. However, the order of precedence has shifted over time. Lo and behold, the second most visited page is a simple list. On November 10, 2018 the list "10 essential gothic country albums" passed the Artist page. Obviously, I've created a canon of must-have gothic country albums. I consider this as a sign of that I'm influential and normative in the field. I have always dreamt of becoming the high priest of something.
 

Flaws

I take some pride in that the website is up and running twenty-four seven. My webhosting provider experienced some minor problems and the site was down for a couple of hours, that's it. A unexpected event occurred in September 2018. Ten "Viagra spam mail" senders had registered themselves on the site as users. For a couple of minutes ny heart stood still. Apparently, the site was open for everyone to register (but they did have any access to do anything). Anyway, I put a stop to that. I also want that everything to be correct. If you stumble over any obsolete or incorrect information or, even worse, dead links don't hesitate to contact me and I will fix it.  

Reflections

I recently got an e-mail from Delhi, India. Apparently, there's a progressive web solutions company there who create stunning websites and do web marketing at very affordable price for clients all over the world. You should have done your home work. The site is non-profit and free of advertisment. This is the way it has been and will always be.

Future

My work here isn't done. I will go on untiringly within the limits of family, work and other duties. 

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (King James Bible). Well, now is time to regress to childhood. When I grew up my entire room was wallpapered with posters from the Swedish idol magazine "Poster", which existed between 1974-1980. The magazine was founded by Hans Hatwig, a German publisher who began his career in pornographic publishing. The poster standard measure fit my walls perfectly. Moreover, I used to spend hours in planning and rearranging them. However, Black Sabbath always had a prominent place as well as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Other posters (like BTO, Kiss and Angel) were short-lived and quickly placed in the poster junkyard. The constant rearranging caused a lot of wear and tear since the posters were attached with needles or/and poster putty. All of the posters are now long gone. I don't regret getting rid of them except for the poster on the left, which isn't from "Poster" (the grainy image is taken from a book). This is the story. I noticed the poster in a local record store in the small town where I grew up. I was determined to have it and I nagged and nagged. The shop owners were reluctant, but finally they caved in and let me have the poster. If they only had known what happened next. I didn't take good care of it. I should have mounted and framed it. Needles and poster putty caused a lot of damage and made it tattered and fragile. I got rid of it together with the rest of the posters in a thoughtless and careless act of trying to leave adolescent idolatry and become a responsible adult. Of course, it didn't take. I have never seen my precious poster again, until I found a picture of it in a book about rock photography (read more below). 
   

The poster photo was taken by the legendary Swedish photographer Torbjörn Calvero (1949-2016). Mr Calvero could easily be mistaken for a rock star himself. He fraternized and took photograps of everybody that were somebody in the 1970s. I recommend the photo book "Från Abba till Zeppelin Calveros 70-tal" (Swedish only, but the photographs speaks for themselves) Publisher Prisma, Norstedt Förlagsgrupp AB (2008), ISBN 978-91-518-5163-1. The photo depicts Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin in his Full Dragon suit. The suit was first worn throughout the five shows at Earls Court, London on May 1975. Contrary to popular belief the suit wasn't only for the 1975 tour as it was seen many times throughout 1977. Anyway, I love the photo of the legendary guitarist with his Gibson Les Paul and bow literally bathing in stage light. This was the 1970s and rock photography peaked. Needless to say, nothing was considered to be too bombastic in the 1970s. On November 4 1977 the movie "The Song Remains the Same" premiered at China, Stockholm (no longer a movie theater). I was there. The movie is a 1976 concert film. The filming took place during the summer of 1973, during three nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with additional footage shot at Shepperton Studios. The film premiered three years later on 20 October 1976 at Cinema I in New York, on 22 October 1976 at Fox Wilshire in Los Angeles, and at Warner West End Cinema in (and a year later in Sweden). It was accompanied by a soundtrack album and a DVD was released in 1999. Promotional materials stated that the film was "the band's special way of giving their millions of friends what they had been clamouring for – a personal and private tour of Led Zeppelin. For the first time the world has a front row seat on Led Zeppelin." It was really front row. Singer Robert Plant's trousers were so tight that you could tell his religion. The concert footage and sequences are fabulous, but the rest of the movie is just unbearable. But, I thought it was the greatest movie ever when I stepped out from the movie theatre so many years ago. To the best of my recollection there were no female moviegoers, which always is a warning sign. What can I say. I have put away childish things, like poster putty. However, I miss my beloved poster. Maybe I didn't treat it quite as good as I should have. Anyway, please come back.   

The break up of the short-lived but promising gothic country band (The Sterling Sisters) was announced in a simple text message, read more here (opens in a new window). It was, prematurely, time to move on. Frontman George Cessna pursued a solo career and formed a new band, Snakes. Product declaration: rock 'n' roll. I didn't follow them any further. The drastic change in musical direction was only partially true. There's still a distinct gothic country streak in the music. In March 2018 Snakes released their latest album "No More Songs About Wildflowers". I will now walk you through the album. The first song is "River Dream/Roll On". I really love the first part of the song, which has a floating and dreamy sound. The second part, however, is brutal and merciless rock 'n' roll to the bone. The same could be said about the second song, "Wasted Days". However, the third song "Flora" stands out with its epic arrangement and poignant lyrics. In the fourth song "The Banjo Song" we are sent back to the barren desert landscapes of rock 'n' roll again. The band apparently mixes and gives. The fifth song "Godnight Irene" is a cover by blues legendar Leadbelly. Their take on the song is one of the highlights on the album. An extra plus for the old-school organ arrangement. The sixth song ”Instrumental” is a short instrumental filler. The gothic country quality is restored in the seventh song "The Morning Song". The eight song ”Preaching For The Choir” is plain and loathsome rock 'n' roll again. The last three songs are outstanding. The ninth song ”Thinking Of You" unfolds slowly. The tenth song "Nothing On My Side" with organ and pedal steel fulfills my expectations on how modern gothic country should sound like. The eleventh and last song on the album is "The Cheasapeake Hospitality Waltz". As mentioned in many other articles the closing song is important. When the song ends after some distant yodeling you know it's over. Nothing to add or withdraw. And finally, the overall assessment: This is a rock 'n' roll and country album. I'm a purist and formalist. For me, it's either rock 'n' roll or country. But, this is a very good album. I like the attitude and casual brilliance. However, this would be an extraordinary album if the rock 'n' roll parts had been left at the door. A minor negative remark is the annoying format fetishism with vinyl and cassettes. It's time to combat age discrimination in the gothic country genre. We, the elderly, still prefer cds.  

This extreme long blog post is another piece in the puzzle of how I became the Ambassador. The Swedish shool system definitely had something to do with it, directly and indirectly. The post is divided into four separate tableus (I know, it's pretentious, but so am I).
 
Tableau I. The institutional context 
The overall aim for the public school system in Sweden is to ensure that all children have access to the same high-quality standard of education. This objective is equally grand as appealing. Equal oppportunities is a prerequisite for social mobility, which in turn is the cornerstone in every modern society. I grew up with Lgr 69 (curriculum for the compulsory school). Social engineering was the dominant paradigm at the time. The Picasso-inspired book cover of Lgr 69 signaled change. And change was about to come. The school bureaucrats at Skolöverstyrelsen, SÖ (Board of Education) were ideological, zealous and meticulous. SÖ withstood a comparison with the original; Gosplan, the State Planning Committee in the former Soviet Union. I was in my pre-teens, but I still managed to observe the low-intense clashes between the idealists coming out from teacher training college and the existing cynical old-school staff. The idealists spread the gospel, but the cynics didn't want to be saved. They just kept on doing what they have been doing for the last decades, namely teaching. However, Lgr 69 started to kick in, slowly but surely. The classroom was hitherto the exclusive domain of the teacher, with no or little transparency for others including the principal. On the other hand, you were allowed to listen to LPs on art lessons, while you were pressing watercoloured maple leafs on paper. The times were liberal. One liberal teacher became so dissatisfied with the sex education films that was provided that he showed some porn instead. The principal told him to stop doing that. No reprimands or consequences. The times were really liberal. Not all children could concentrate, adjust or endure. For this heterogeneous group there existed observation classes (obsklass). These classes were primarly intended pupils with normal intellegence, who had such psychological characteristics that they preferably shouldn't be taught in an ordinary class, but at the same time were not in obvious need of other special education. Some school critics thought that observation classes in fact were used to monitor and isolate difficult elements from the ordinary class. More progressive pedagogy was to come. In 1974 came the SIA report in nearly 1 000 pages (Skolans Inre Arbete, translation: School's Inner Workings). This was pedagogic technocracy (or technocrazy). The school shouldn't just be a school. The basic idea was to focus on the conditions in the community, which the proponents meant to be the cause of unwanted behavior among school children. Their behavior was largely a consequence of living conditions. Only by changing these circumstances could their unwanted behavior change. These intentions ultimately resulted in a proposal to equalize differences in school children's background variables via integrated shool day. The latter was a combination of teaching and so called free activities in the compulsory school. Parents could rest assure that their kids had supervision and the same hours every schoolday. What can I say about all this? It was musical chairs in the school sector, but the bulk of the time I spent in a classroom like everyone else. The future wasn't exactly mapped out. However, I became good at team work and set theory displayed on a Flannelgraph.  

Tableau II. The work experience program (PRYO) 
Lgr 69 also emphasized on work experience programs. Politicians and school bureaucrats have, for some reason, always been very concerned about the link between school and working life. This concern is hard to comprehend since working life, like death, is inevitable. But politicians and school bureaucrats got their will through. In 9th grade you spent two weeks in PRYO (praktisk yrkesorientering, translation: practical vocational orientation). The purpose with PRYO was to orientate and to test "the disposition, interests and other conditions required for the professions in question". PRYO should give the pupil an increased understanding of working life, work environment and work tasks. Along with other study and vocational orientation, PRYO was aimed to contribute to the pupil's maturity for vocational choice and be a basis for independent decisions in future choice of study and work assignments. Social engineering at its finest. You could choose any kind of work as long as an employer were ready to take you on. I could choose whatever I wanted, but I was unimaginative and procrastinated the whole thing. At the time, I was convinced of that my dream job was to work in a record store. The student counselor, constantly pregnant in a velvet one-piece, did nothing to talk me out of it. However, there were no vacant internships in the small company town I grew up in, however in the nearby sleepy locality (3 200 inhabitants). It wasn't so bad. I got an excuse to ride my moped, a red Puch Dakota 1969, 10 km (6 miles) everyday for two weeks. The workplace was even sleepier. The small combined radio/TV store was located in the ground floor in an apartment building, with devices and a small section of vinyls in the front and a workshop in the back. Business was slow. The were hardly any customers. I kept the few vinyls in order and made some erratic dusting. After the first day I was bored stiff and there were still nine more working days to go. Not much action. A turning point came when the owner ripped off an old woman. She brought a lamp, which she depended on for her reading. The cord had loosened. It took less than a minute to fix. I thought the owner would fix it for free and make some goodwill, but instead he charged the old woman 50 SEK ($6), which was a lot of money in those days. I was shocked and appalled. I felt compelled to create justice. And so I did. An eye for an eye. And some cassettes. My encounter with small business didn't end well. This work experience program made it clear that this was nothing for me. But the time I spent in the dead-alive store wasn't a complete waste of time. I ate my lunch meal in the nearby school and socialized with a girl I happen to be interested in. After a while, we became a couple.
      

Tableau IV. The bureaucratic maze 
The Swedish school used to be good. We have a serious problem in Sweden. We don’t understand the proverb "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it". And when we fix things that actually work we tend to go from one extreme to another. Sweden went from bureaucratic regulations to one of the most liberalized school systems in OECD in just a couple of years. In short: in 1991 the responsibility for public schools was transferred from the national (state) to the local government level (municipalities). In 1993, a nationwide universal voucher program was introduced. The voucher system led to an emergence of a school market. Three of the companies that run schools in Sweden are actually listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. School researchers dispute about the causality, but it’s a fact that school results plummeted, school segregation increased, equality of education decreased, grade inflation arose (as a side effect) and the status of teaching staff fell rapidly. Add grade reforms, new curriculum, new wage system and more. It's not strange that it's hard to evaluate the effects and causality. Now things are improving, but from a low level. I'm thankful that I went to school long before this epic downfall. I learned a lot of things that I don't remember. I got second-rate grades in compulsory school, in upper secondary school and at university level. "Mediocrity is always praised" said my first boss and I marked his words. Somehow, I've managed to nestle me through the bureaucratic maze which characterizes the public administration. It's an irony of fate that I later ended up in school bureaucracy on the national level. We didn't connect. It became, by far, the shortest period of employment in my life. There is learning in everything that we may regard as wasted. What I learnt from this work experience is to be yourself whatever the cost.