Monday, August 18, 2008

So, THAT Happened...


It will be obvious to anyone who is familiar with this blog, or even to new visitors who check the dates, that I shut down FEMALE FRONT in early 2007. That is to say, I stopped updating this blog and the radio stream at Live365, although both are still available to view and listen as a sort of continuous archive (more on that shortly). I also pulled the plug on the companion website, femalefront.com (aka arhythmius.com).

It was a very difficult decision for me to cease what was not only a passion of mine, but also essentially my only creative outlet. There were two major circumstances that led to this decision: One, I was able to spend less and less time on a project that frankly deserved more and more of it. I wasn’t on top of it the way I needed to be, and the quality was suffering as a result.

The second reason was the real clincher: I moved office locations in my day job, and the new location blocked (and continues to block) the web domain live365.com. Meaning, I can’t listen to my own station, or any of the other outstanding stations hosted by Live365, during the day while I’m at work. This defeated the purpose of running the station, as far as I was concerned.

The thing is, I and many of my fellow broadcasters at Live365 started our stations because we wanted to listen to music that we liked, but which nobody was playing. So, we had to take matters into our own hands. The other side of the coin was the fact that we could share this music with the rest of the world in real time, which one can not do with an iPod.

So, yes, I was and remain passionate about FEMALE FRONT as a cause; but if I can’t enjoy the fruits of my own labor and expense, then 50% of my motivation is removed. In my case, this was enough to be the deciding factor. I'm sorry if it sounds selfish, but if I can't enjoy my station, no one can!

The FEMALE FRONT radio stream is still available to Live365 “VIP” members at the same location:
www.live365.com/stations/arhythmius. VIP membership costs only a few dollars a month, and gives you an ad-free experience: No in-stream ads (on privately-run stations), no banner ads and no pop-ups on Live365 web pages. Plus, VIP's can listen to archived streams like mine. The playlist is exactly as I left it in 2007…over 20 hours of excellent music, rotated randomly.

Of course, this blog and the previous incarnation are still here, and I intend to leave them up as long as possible (forever, if I can arrange it).

Although the companion website is history, you can still view it using the wonderful Wayback Machine! Visit the Internet Archive at
www.archive.org, and in the Wayback Machine search box, enter “arhythmius.com” (without the quotes, and with no “www”). Be patient – the Wayback Machine is slow, but it really works!

Like the logo? You can still buy your very own version of it applied to some great merchandise, at the Female Front Greymarket! T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and even ladies' underwear -- we stack them deep and sell them cheap! Or, just enjoy the "From the designer" descriptions for each product (somebody's got to).

Finally, I would like to thank all of the amazing artists that inspired and continue to inspire me. I apologize that I was not up to the task of keeping FEMALE FRONT up and running, but if I get an opportunity to resurrect it, I absolutely will. Thanks also to the listeners; it’s quite an ego boost when people pay attention to something you’ve done, and respond in a positive way.

The mission for FEMALE FRONT still exists, so put the word out any way you can: Because Radio Needs Women.