About Us
What In The Hell Is WATMM?
Back in early 1999, I got a job doing graphic design and (eventually) web design/programming for a world-wide law firm. Hired on the preface that I could teach myself how to code HTML and design web pages, my early days at the Firm were spent teaching myself HTML - Macromedia's Dreamweaver (then in version 1.5), and reading a few books I had gotten from the local bookstore.
I knew I needed a practical project to start with to have something to test and try things out on - at this time too I was getting into electronic music, more specifically Aphex Twin - so I looked at what Aphex Twin sites were around at that time (Khad's Aphex Start was the best of the bunch; but it lacked information and features I thought would be an invaluable resource for other Aphex Twin fans. Phobiazero's Zap.To Aphex site was also around, but it too, was lacking...something. I decided to create an Aphex Twin Resource that would have everything the other sites lacked, and more of a visual flair than what those websites in 1999 had.
So, I set about planning what I wanted to put on the site, and at the same time, learning how to make it happen in HTML. On June 6th, 1999, http://users.ev1.net/~joyrex was launched (I used the free webspace my local ISP provided), and that was my proving ground for my HTML education and also to make the best Aphex Twin resource on the web.
One month later (July 3rd, 1999 to be exact), I purchased my first domain name - joyrex.com. I moved to a webhosting company, and set about getting into using PERL scripts on the site; one of the first was a messageboard. It was a huge success, finally bringing that missing element to the site - a user community. Now Aphex fans could talk and share thoughts about Aphex Twin music. The site went trough a few more iterations, and things were really picking up. Through various contacts in the music industry, joyrex.com was approached in late 2001 by a company to purchase the site's content, and domain name for inclusion in a music portal site they were starting to bring music fansites to the forefront and use them as a marketing tool to communicate directly with the fans rather than a boring and usually community-less corporate site put up by the record label. The best thing was is they wanted to not only pay me a princely sum for the domain name, but also pay me a monthly stipend to keep running my site and put up the occasional ad and offer. Since the site was growing and bandwidth and storage were getting more expensive, I jumped at the offer. Even better, they hosted the site on their own servers, so those issues quickly evaporated (although not for long). All was going well.
And, as with anything, something comes along to fuck it all up.
The company's business model was flawed; they were too hands-off with the fansites, so much less money was coming in than going out. All the VC seed mondy got used up, and they folded. The problem was, they owned the rights to joyrex.com, the domain name. The content, although technically they did own it, was public domain; In 90% of the cases, it could be found elsewhere online, in a similar form. I was not along; hundreds of other fansites were also at the creditor's mercy. Many lost their domain names because they couldn't afford to buy them back, others because the domain expired and with no-one at the wheel to renew them, they faded away and were bought up by other parties.
At the time joyrex.com was growing, I was approached by Sire Records to do the official Aphex Twin site; my contact at Sire thought it would be a great way for them to have an official stateside site and replace their then very basic Windowlicker advert site. I did some mockups, but nothing materialized as my contact left Sire and since he was spearheading the project, nobody was there to take it up.
I had also at the time been thinking of expanding; my good friend Tom got me into Boards of Canada, and a BoC site seemed like a logical progression. Even better, why not cover the big names in electronic music on one site? So, after many, many brainstorming sessions, WATMM (We Are The Music Makers) was born. The title was taken from an Aphex Twin song, where he uses a sample from the Gene Wilder movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In the movie, Wonka (played by Gene Wilder) says "We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of the dreams...". This seemed perfect, as the big names I chose (Autechre, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Squarepusher) were all music makers in their own right, and damn good ones too.
It also solved the impending problem of joyrex.com expiring. On July 3rd, 2002, joyrex.com shut down and the community moved over to watmm.com.
Since WATMM was a new concept, a new design was in need. Unfortunately, the scope of such an undertaking was more than I could handle in my ever-decreasing free time, and the site launched with minimal content - the Autechre section was not even active until much later. However, things started to gel and for the first time, I let someone help with the content. The Butcher of Bakersfield, an ardent Squarepusher fan, took over the Squarepusher discography. In a short amount of time, we had a near-complete Squarepusher discog up, with gaps in the content to be fleshed out "later". That word, as I quickly came to realize, was the bane of my existance - soon, everything became "later". News was about the only thing the site was keeping up on, and all the Aphex content from joyrex.com was disorganized and incomplete. The content management system I was using at the time was starting to show its age against the newer, database-driven PHP-based CMS software sweeping across the internet like a plague of locusts. I got bitten by the CMS bug, and started looking for a replacement CMS. None had the features or the flexibility I was looking for. To the detrement of WATMM going forward, I held off on updating content (news was fresh as always) in the mistaken belief that the CMS would (once I found it) speed things up and make the content management easy. After all, isn't that by definition what a Content Management System is supposed to do? WATMM for the most part sat idle; the community continued to grow, and since I was on my own again since my cash cow flopped, bandwidth and storage became a problem. WATMM moved from host to host, usually driven by price. I learned one valuable lesson with hosting your own website and choosing a provider - you get what you pay for. Those sites offering 100GB of bandwidth and virtually unlimited server space for only 15-20USD per month were just pipedreams - WATMM began to suffer downtime, even losing critical data due to one host going under without prior warning. Moving WATMM from server to server became my full time job; there was no time to work on the content, let alone research a CMS. The last straw came in late November 2003 when the company WATMM was being hosted on suddenly decided to change names, and take the money and run.
Something had to be done. WATMM was down for almost a month while I tried to search for a new, stable host. The hard truth was, I would have to shell out the cash for a decent host, and it needed to have mad amounts of bandwidth and storage to make it work. The decision was made to go with a dedicated host, and so far, everything has gone great. The community of users chip in and help with the server costs, and in return the newer versions of the forum software have allowed me to offer extra features to those who have donated as a small token of thanks.
Well, here we are at almost 2005 and WATMM is still content-less as I type this. However, this story is starting to have a happy ending as finally a CMS was found that met my needs, and time has eased its cruel grip on me a bit. All the downtime allowed me to plan and think things through, so the latest (or perhaps we should say first proper) incarnation of WATMM will be a hundred times the success joyrex.com was.
Hopefully all of you will be around to see it happen.