Hi. Welcome to Antiquiet. Sorry we’re only getting around to properly introducing ourselves now. We were kinda jerking around with this site for a few months… Then we suddenly settled on a direction and went for the jugular with that Josh Homme piece. The past few days have been a wild ride. And we’re just getting started. Next week Johnny will be interviewing Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe / Brides Of Destruction / Sixx:A.M. This guy has earned a few merit badges you don’t see very often. Not only has he actually been dead, but he’s also one of the only artists to win back ownership of his music from a major label after massive worldwide success, despite signing his name to one of the shittiest record deals ever signed. Oh, and he pissed on some ants that Ozzy Osbourne subsequently snorted, which is a story almost as legendary as the time he spent a night injecting Jack Daniel’s into his veins with Tommy Lee when they ran out of heroin. Lord knows we’ve all been there, but Nikki’s just got a way of talking about it…

Some of you have asked some questions about… well, who the fuck we are and where we came from. So I’ll break it down. This site is an independent collaboration between myself and Johnny Firecloud. We started working together in 2000 when I was running a fansite for the band A Perfect Circle. It got a lot of attention at the time, and definitely rocked a few boats by being one of the few fansites out there that truly existed for the fans and not just as a vehicle for a couple of pimpled fanboys to meet some rock stars. We pissed off pretty much everyone: at the label, at management, and of course the band at times… We posted shit we weren’t supposed to, we told it like it was and we didn’t kiss anyone’s ass. And it worked. It was successful. The fans formed a strong, positive community around it, and ultimately noone could take us down because the fact of the matter was for all our shenanigans, we were supporting the music more effectively than any other site dedicated to the task, with this radical concept of supporting the fans that the bands (or at least the labels) wouldn’t exist without.
Ultimately, it collapsed as we struggled to keep up with the costs of running a site that we were too stupid or stubborn to run advertisements on. Whoops.
But connections made while working on that site eventually led me to Los Angeles, and a job at Universal Music & Video Distribution (that’s the big one). That led to a career in online marketing. And Johnny and I basically became BFFs along the way.

So I’ve been in Los Angeles 4 years now this month, all up in the shit so to speak. I’ve had a lot of fun and I’ve definitely learned a lot, but I’ve also seen a lot of bullshit. The entertainment industry is big in this town, and its primary commerce is art. There’s a certain kinda shamelessness that pervades the whole operation. Noone seems to ever have enough money. Everything is up for sale. There is nowhere that an advertiser won’t try to place an ad, this I guarantee. Guys: Have you seen a TV screen in a urinal yet? Playing commercials while you shake your dick out? I have… soon enough it won’t just be an LA & NYC thing.

It’s almost enough to drive anyone crazy. And it’s definitely enough to make a couple dudes like us react. We’re going to attack everything in sight. We’re going to cut through all the bullshit to try and find some of the substance we all miss so dearly. But we’ve already promised this in our little manifesto, so let’s just get on with the show.

We appreciate your attention. We’ll try not to waste it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 12:27 AM and is filed under Editorials. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can comment, or trackback from your own site.