Retrospective: The Why of IA

It has been a full year since Joe and I came up with the idea of a local music blog. We had no idea what we were doing, but we knew what we liked and we wanted the rest of the world to know about it. We had our growing pains: file servers not cooperating, problems finding music to go with the posts, finding the time to post as much as we would like... just to name a few. Our loyal base of readers has grown tremendously, since our quiet beginnings. We have had a lot of support from local music fans and local musicians. The people of DC, Baltimore, Austin and beyond, have made this an enjoyable year. We would like to thank all of you. This site would never have made it this far without you.

Why did we start this? Pretty simple. The state of the commercial music industry was painful to listen to. Who really gives Paris Hilton a recording gig? Why do limited talent bands that all sound the same get the majority of the radio play and the pub in the industry rags? Why are some of these local bands that have so much more talent than the big money makers still playing 100 person clubs at home and attracting single digits in other towns? This was and still is our main reason for writing every chance that we get.

Throughout the day we will post our favorite finds from the past year. On 8/10, we will celebrate with a party at Rock and Roll Hotel in Washington, DC. Le Loup, Bellman Barker, Lejeune, Jette Kelly and all sorts of guests, have been nice enough to help us start our second year in style. We love our readers so much, that we have made it free before 9pm. Other than that, it is business as usual at IA. We still have a lot of work to do.