A look back at the history of Vivascene and our fifteen years of writing music reviews, music news and insights.
It’s hard to believe, but Vivascene is celebrating its fifteenth year of publication this week. As founder and editor, I would like to express my appreciation to our readers, our contacts within the music industry, and our technical support team that have made our journey such a great experience.
We began the site in Calgary, Alberta, launching on September 10, 2010. A local firm, Combine Design, created a customized WordPress site and a logo. Their team was thrilled, they said, to be working on a site devoted to music. They recommended a photographer, Dwayne Norman, who turned out to be not only talented with images, but musically astute as well. He became our Visual Editor. For my part, I contributed 30 articles that I had written about artists whose music had inspired me. The entire project was a labour of love.
Within a few short weeks we had several hundred readers, which was more than I ever imagined. Then one day, early in 2011, I received an e-mail from a large record company. They liked our stuff, they said, and asked if we wanted to meet and review some of their up and coming artists. Dwayne and I traveled to Toronto where a new British group called The Vaccines were making their North American debut at the Horseshoe Tavern – the very bar where The Rolling Stones had played. The Vaccines put on an exciting performance and were gracious in granting us some interview time prior to going on stage.
After the show, at 2 a.m. in the morning, I wrote up the review while Dwayne formatted some great pics of the band playing. We published at 4 a.m., and met with the record company for breakfast. They must have liked us; they gave me an armload of CDs to take back home. We’ve stayed connected ever since.
Two thousand reviews later, having written just about every genre and time period imaginable, there are still so many artists I’ll be exploring in the months and years ahead. What you will also find is more articles devoted to exploring insights about the craft and the dedication of the artists themselves. Young audiences are discovering just how great the music was a few decades ago. I’m encouraged by the many comments I’ve received regarding Vivascene’s articles about musicians such as Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, Stan Getz, Bob Scaggs, Gene Pitney and Dion.
What’s past is prologue, someone once said. Or perhaps that writer meant “analogue”…
Thanks for reading,
Brian
