So the other night I was sitting around with one of my friends listening to records. Said friend was playing amazing hardcore record after amazing hardcore record, none of which I'd ever heard of, much less heard before. This kind of scene happens fairly often for me since I have some friends with pretty amazing record collections, but here's the real kicker about that night: all of these records were totally common discs from the late 90s that (with a little bit of work) you could still find collecting dust in various distros across the world for under five dollars. This music was so good that I wanted to break out my laptop in the middle of our conversation and start telling the world about these bands.

Ever since that night I've had a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head about Deep Fry Bonanza. When I first started the radio show that eventually led to the creation of this site it was almost solely to get free records. I remember the first promo package that I received was from Side One Dummy Records (who, to this day, have supported this site more than just about any other label) and it contained 7 Seconds' Good to Go CD. Being a pretty rabid fan of the band I already owned the CD, but I was still incredibly excited to have gotten it for free. I felt like I was on the inside of something, like someone thought my opinion mattered.

That feeling, more than any other, has been what has kept me going with this site for the past half-decade. Even when asshole band members who couldn't take criticism would write me emails (some of which, hilariously, actually contained physical threats of varying seriousness) I would sort of chuckle at the fact that someone was taking my opinion seriously enough to get riled up about it; after all, I'm not a music executive or a big scenester, I'm just a tone-deaf record nerd with way too much time on my hands. Even given the absurdity of it all, it's been nice to know that people have checked out some great bands because of something I've written, and it's still a thrill to be referred to as “Deep Fry Daniel” when, for so many years, I was just a nameless face in the crowd at punk gigs up and down the East Coast.

While I love those aspects of doing the site, over the past five years that I've been doing DFB the influx of promo CDs and (to a far lesser extent) vinyl has become a monkey on my back that has affected both me and this web site in all kinds of negative ways. First of all, when I started this site I had a pretty good mix of record reviews, band interviews, multimedia content (which was rare in those days) and other content (even some short comedy pieces!), all of which co-existed on the site and were updated fairly regularly. However, as the amount of promos in my mailbox has risen the site has become little more than a repository for record reviews. I know what you're probably thinking right now: “Daniel, fuck all those record companies, do what YOU want! Take all of those CDs down to the used record store and trade them for something that makes you happy!” Well, maybe it's just some kind of fault in the way that I was brought up, but I feel this overwhelming sense of responsibility when someone sends me a free record. Not only do I feel bad about selling it, but I feel like I have to listen to it carefully and I have to review it thoroughly, attentively and with a generous ear. In the early days when I was only getting 5 or so promos a week that wasn't a big deal; nowadays I get 20 or more per week, and even with our ambitious (especially given the fact that I write 95% of the reviews on on this site) two-review-per-day schedule, over half the stuff I get in doesn't even get listened to and what does get listened to tends to get very cursory three-paragraph reviews, which depending on the band is generally either far too much or far too little space to tell the listener what she or he really needs to know.

In addition (and I write this at the risk of sounding like an asshole), most of the promo records that I receive just plain suck. It would be generous to say that I really enjoy one out of every 20 records I review; a more accurate ratio would probably be one out of every 50.

So, in order to get back to making my presence on the web something that I can not only enjoy doing but be proud of, things are going to get shaken up around here. To put it bluntly, in a few short weeks DFB will be no more. Don't worry, all of the old written content will remain archived and all of our current URLs will still work, so you don't have to change any links (unfortunately the virtual mix tapes, album cover scans and other multimedia content will have to be taken down). However, there won't be any new content posted to the site and at some point it will get slightly redesigned in order to be more efficient in terms of storage space and bandwidth usage.

Don't start weeping yet, though, because you'll still be able to get your daily fix of the textual vomit that spews ever-so-regularly from my fingers. For a while now I've been keeping a blog at www.deepfrybonanza.com/selfindulgence, and as of June 1 that blog will now be my main site, which will be re-christened DEAD METAPHOR (www.deadmetaphor.com). The tone will be similar to that of my blog as it exists now; a truly self-indulgent mix of whatever happens to be running through my mind when I log on. Since a majority of what runs through my head relates to punk rock and hardcore from the late 70s and early 80s that'll be a large part of the site, and hopefully I'll have time to listen to even more old records (and new records that sound like old ones) since I will no longer be accepting unsolicited promos.

I've wanted to make this kind of change to the site for a long time, but a couple of things were holding me back, all of which I've recently come to grips with. The main thing was that, while I loved blogs, I hated that there was no sense of organization to the archived content; I imagined that if you wanted to find a specific piece of information you would have to search through the archives month-by-month or week-by-week in order to find it. However, judging by my server logs that just isn't the way that people use this site; out of the 40,000 or so unique visits we get in an average month, well over half of them get here via Google or some other search engine and I'm guessing most of the rest are daily visitors who are just checking to see what new content has been posted to the front page. I think this phenomenon isn't just relegated to the punk scene, either; with more and more information being uploaded to the internet by the second, browsing has become obsolete. Nowadays it's all about the search, and if you want something specific from Dead Metaphor all you'll have to do is type a keyword into a form and you'll be taken to a page with the full content of every post containing that word.

In addition to blogging becoming a better model for internet publishing than it was even a year ago, over the past few months I've become more interested in the theoretical side of what it means to be a blogger. I've made each of my students keep a blog in the last two courses I've taught and I'd love to do more thinking about blogging and bloggers, and making my own blog a more central aspect of my life can only help me in that mission.

Finally, if you're wondering what is to become of the rest of the DFB staff writers, the more familiar faces will still be around. Germ and Ryan will both have their own blogs which will be hosted on the site, and hopefully having that space will spur them to write even more. I know that I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing those come together.

So, thanks to all of the labels and bands out there who supported this site with promo records, guest list spots, advertising dollars and other perks, thank you to all the staffers who wrote for this site (except for one little jerk who shall remain nameless) and thank you to all of you who read the site, especially those of you who check it out every day. And, finally, the biggest thanks go to my wife Kelly, who has provided ceaseless encouragement for a project that has probably been a source of little more than mild aggravation for her over the course of the past five years.

Enough with the goodbyes, though, since I'm not really going anywhere. Over the next few weeks I'll be reviewing one last batch of promos and fulfilling the rest of DFB's advertising commitments, so you won't really notice any changes right away. After that, though, I hope everyone will stay with us as we make the transition to the new format.

Until then,

Daniel
www.deadmetaphor.com



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