CHAPTER 1 - Appletime!
I still wanted Sputnik..... and
I was still searching for the key or a sign of what to do...
I'd studied computers at University before I joined Generation X...all
those years ago in the early 70's I was doing a degree in Mathematics and
Computers..... when I was there, I was the best programmer by far in my year...
we used to program in machine code, one of the lowest level programming
languages but one of the hardest... I designed operating system
programs..but when I left with a first class honours degree I did not get
a job, but signed a record deal, less than a year later, with Generation X and
forgot everything I had learned... all those dreams my mum had of me
becoming head of IBM.!.there were no Lara Crofts in those days, no home
computers, just dreary business world.. so I left it all behind.....
Then In 1995....I went out and bought an Apple Mac
computer and the first thing I did was log ot to the internet... My
girlfriend says that was the day she lost my attention...
It was a new world... Mac User and Wired
magazine became my bibles... I tried to learn everything I could about my
computer but it was a lifetime away...but then I got through and suddenly
netscape navigator burst into life and I was in Cyberspace...
Well you would wouldn't you!... once some one had
explained the fundamentals of search engines, of course the first thing I
searched for was...SPUTNIK!... and suddenly in front of my eyes was
a list of Sputnik sites.. that had existed for years and years and I had never
known... Can you imagine what it was like... all these years my baby had
been dead, ridiculed, buried without trace, but there it was alive in the
computers and hearts of fans all over the world... I could read things
about myself even I'd forgotten... it may sound sentimental but I was
overwhelmed...it was alive in Cyberspace - Sputnik lived, was talked
about, listened to, traded, dreamed of... the business had told me never
again will we help you... EMI had deleted the records even , as if to wipe out
my past... yet here it was...
I realised that the internet could change
everything... you spoke to, played to, connected to, gave your art and heart
directly to the people who wanted to listen and no one could stop you or tell
you no... it was amazing... I gazed at the screen.
But I was still lost in space, because no one else knew I was there... we had no
flag to wave in cyberspace - to say hey look it's us.. we are alive... we
care about this thing... it didn't die...I want it more than you'll ever know.....
I set about learning to program again, learn html...we needed our own site...
and Sputnikworld was born...I sat for weeks with the manual learning
pagemill 2, the only program I had... hours typing, for I'd soon realised
I had the possibility to create something really special... I'd looked at
loads of other peoples sites by now... Mike Edwards of Jesus Jones was a
year ahead of me in computer terms and he helped me... BAD had a
site and I watched how they did it...I hated my brain for being slow... shit I
was a genius when I was 17... had all these years in rock bands slowed my mind -
all those Peruvian trips?... I felt like a sloth, pouring through manuals
instead of playing guitar... surely I could build a site and I had the
thing all the other sites lacked... it was content..... content was
king... I wanted to tell every detail of the Sputnik story because it was an
incredible story... I wanted to tell what it was like making the records...
what we thought and why we did things, where we fucked up... I could
create the dream fan site because I was the greatest fan of Sputnik ever... and
after months I uploaded the first Sputnikworld site... I thought it was
great... of course it was amateur and childish - a flash 19 year old
computer genius who had lived computers all his teens could program the hell out
of me but I loved the idea..... and there we were...
Then the next incredible thing happened... I
suddenly started getting emails from Sputnik fans from all over the world...
like they'd spotted my little flag waving in space... and they were amazed
to find us alive too!... many of you reading this will remember the first time
you saw Sputnik stir into life again as if from the dead!.. lots of people did
not beleive it was me even, I remember discussing with chrome, one of my first
new internet friends that maybe we should put a picture of me and Degville on
the site holding a current newspaper to prove we were for real..... Yeah I know
all this sounds childish, but it's true and it was for us - amazing.........
Sputnikworld was living... I remember what an exciting day it was when
Sputnikworld was number one on the altavista search engine...
Neal X told me that Mike Peters of the Alarm,
who he knew through James Stevenson (who had played with Gen X at the
end) was selling records through the internet. He said it was amazing because
you could make your own CD and sell it through your site (remember this is all
early Net days... you never heard the word dot com on your television then!.....)
and he'd built up this huge following through the net... I couldn't wait to tell
the others and me, Neal and Martin all stared at the screen... looked at all
these sites... I think it was that day I decided that Sputnik would indeed
truely live again and no one could stop me this time... we would control our own
destiny in cyberspace, we would be our own record company... we wouldn't venture
outside.. screw the papers, the business, screw the cynical agents and managers
who wouldn't help us..... Cyberspace!... I couldn't wait to get going...
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