Three Years at Substack

Can you believe it? I can’t!/CAN! It’s been three years, my brain hurts a lot…It’s been three years….Thank you for reading my rambles on Substack:

Linked In just told me it’s been three years for me at Substack. Three years ago I wouldn’t have even been able to spell ‘L-i-n-k-e-d I-n’. Three years and one week ago I had a chat with my friend

Emily Writes

— the upshot of it was her saying, “don’t be a cunt all your life, get on the fucking Substack you absolute jerk”. Or something like that. Anyway, if you’re reading this you’ll already know…I did.

Emily’s Substack was great. (And it still is!) She was instrumental in pushing me towards this platform, and has been a support and champion since — so what I’m really saying is, this is all her fault!

I was a burnt out blogger, with nine years at Stuff under my belt as my personal Tour of Duty. I’d also, since late 2011 been pulling double-duty publishing all manner of reviews, a podcast, some blogs, and my own creative writing over on my own website, Off The Tracks.

So, in 2021 I started the more structured newsletter-writing here at Substack. Mondays being for movies. Wednesdays books/writing. Fridays for music.

And I’ve kept that schedule for the last three years. My new regular ‘homework’.

I love that you like this newsletter. Or love it. Or tolerate it. I love that some of you have gifted it to others, or share it from time to time. You drop a comment or a like, you engage with it over on Linked In, or on Instagram. When I started “Sounds Good!” I was still on Twitter (does anyone really call it X?) and Facebook. I now don’t even have a Twitter account, I done got that all sealed over. And though I have Facebook I am two years effectively clean, keeping it for the Messenger, yo. And not missing Facebook use at all.

Writers tell you they have to do social media — for the audience. But I would argue that your writing should be for you as much as it’s for anyone. If you are pushing your writing on social media and staying there because of that (and I can say this only from personal experience and learning the hard way) then you are trying to serve more than one master. And it isn’t actually worth it. It’s just more (and more) homework.

A while ago, last year, I decided to fold my Off The Tracks into the platform here at Substack. There is no Off The Tracks out on its own anymore. I still post reviews of albums and things from time to time, I pump out the poems and sneak in a short story now and then too, but it’s all here - or available here. The full Off The Tracks archive (something around 11,000 posts) is available to paying subscribers.

I’ve made a commitment this year to reviewing gigs — as many as I can get to, and ones that I’m (hopefully) interested in. The mainstream places don’t care for reviews anymore, but the public record is an important thing; it should be documented that some famous people came to play in your town…Some of those reviews will be for paid subs only, some will be for all to read.

To subscribe remains $5 a month, the cheapest it can be on Substack. Or just $30 a year. A bargain I reckon. And I would love more of you to pay for a sub, sure, but I also get it that life requires many payments for all sorts of things. And also there are better Substacks and better writers, and better things to spend money on. So I don’t push you to pay, and I like to make a lot of things available for free. But sometimes I’ll have a go at pushing the paid sub, then feel like a real heel instantly.

cringe!

Thank for being part of this newsletter and the Substack community. Thanks for caring about books and movies and music and TV and poetry and playlists.

Thanks for reading if and when you do. Thanks for sharing if and when you have. Thanks for paying if you do — or did. Thanks for contemplating that, if you’ve contemplated that. And, well, thanks!

Here’s to three years. You’ve got to call out and celebrate your own milestones and ‘birthdays’ on platforms like this, and in life in general. Everyone’s flinging their curled up balls of shit at the World Wide Web and hoping for some coverage. So there’s just an insane lot out there to take. Well, anyway, here’s one more.

Love ya. X

R.I.P. Damo.