Kim Gordon: Why was this history worth writing a

book about?

Kim Gordon: I think it was worth writing about

because it's never really been written

about before. Not all all in a singular

narrative at least. I mean,

I think this book is a quintessential

like Canadian history book because it's

really really putting it together was an

act of curation. A lot of these stories

lived in, you know,

websites that aren't online anymore or

the odd article here or maybe something

I found at, you know, the Toronto

Reference Library and whatnot. So, it

lived in all these bits and pieces, but

there never was like a fullsome story

about all the ways that the internet

impacted Canadian music. So, when I came

up with the book idea, you know, several

years ago,

it was a real light bulb moment. It's

like, if it's not me, someone needs to

write this, too, cuz I think it's a

really important story and something

that needs to be documented for future

generations.

Interviewer: Where do you sort of begin

researching because, I mean, the

internet's a big place. Like, what's

your starting point?

Kim Gordon: Really, the

starting point was like my memories of

using all of these services and visiting

all these websites. So, when I started

putting together the book, the very

first thing I did is I started to just

sketch out, well, what are all the

different parts of the story? I knew

things like chat rooms and message

boards were a big part of it, but then I

knew also was, well, but there's all the

places people used to get music, whether

it's like Sam the Record Man and HMV.

What what you know, what was the impact

on the internet with those sorts of like

stores? And obviously, the impact was

they basically went out business

because, you know, commerce and people's

relationship to physical music changed.

And yeah, like blogs were a big part of

the story. Obviously, here in Canada,

you know, MuchMusic and CBC and all the

different like media organizations were

a big part of it, but then there was

also a big part of the book, too, is

there were all these like Canadian music

startups

that really seem like they've been lost

to history. So, names like PureTracks,

which was the Canadian version of

iTunes. I mean, you could call it that.

It was more than that. There was stuff

like Maple Music, which was a really

interesting like hybrid like e-commerce

/ label, but they did merchandise. A

real way to like really stop the

gatekeepers of keeping Canadian

musicians from their fans. So, again,

there was a lot of history. It was

written about at the time, but as

websites go away and publications go out

of business and time passes, I really

want to document this, you know, into a

singular history and really document

this really significant time again in

all the ways that, you know, the

internet and and more broadly like

consumer technology change our

relationship with music.

Kim Gordon: I want to go

back to the early '90s. Uh, the

internet, there was not that many

websites. There was maybe 623, I think,

in 1993.

Why would a band at that time be

interested in using the internet? What

would be in it for them?

Kim Gordon: When you think

back of really, certainly during those

times and really throughout like a lot

of the 1990s, the internet seemed to be

almost more

a concept than a reality. So, people

would hear about it, you know, it used

to be the more the domain of like

academics and, you know, just like the

computer club down the street and and

frankly like nerds. Like nerds would use

it. But even to get on the internet was

really challenging cuz you needed the

right type of computer, you needed like

a modem, you needed some sort of

internet connection. So, I know for me

like, sure, like we had America Online

for my last couple years of high school,

but through university in the late '90s,

I primarily used the internet cuz I'd go

to the computer lab at McMaster

University. It was almost this

shared entity. So, that that's a big

part of like the theme in the book, too,

where where were those like really

foundational elements of like when our

almost like access to the internet

changed. So, when we went from like 5

hours through AOL to like all you can

eat internet or when Wi-Fi became, you

know, really mainstream where all of a

sudden you could take your laptop to any

room of the house. And then like the big

one, and this is almost right outside

the scope of the book, is really when

smartphones became like fully

mainstream. So, you know, when you think

of the era of the book, 1990 to 2010,

the iPhone was around towards the tail

end and it it's almost like the heyday

of the BlackBerry.

But then like right outside the scope of

the book, both smartphones took over and

social media took over, and that's a

whole other chapter.

Kim Gordon: So, when you look back to like those

early days of the internet, um, you

know, if you were a band, you sort of

knew that it was a way to connect to

people around the world, but

you didn't really know even what that

meant at this point. It's like, okay, so

I'm going to get a couple people in

Denmark and a couple people in

California, but what does that even

mean? Um, but very very quickly this

accelerated and it just it changed

everything as we saw.

Interviewer: Well, some of the

bands

that you talk about in the book, I mean,

they were using mailing lists. Yeah. And

there was one called Slonet. You want to

tell us what that was?

Kim Gordon: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, one of the big themes in the

book is it's really the fan communities

and the enthusiasts. They they did a lot

of the legwork early on and Slonet's

perfect example of that. So, what Slonet

was was it was it actually took a few

different forms. It was an emailing list

and then it was it I believe it changed

into like a Yahoo group at some point,

but really it was a fan-built community

for fans of Sloan, you know, the great

East Coast indie rock sensation of the

'90s until this present day. It was just

a place like Sloan fans could connect

online. And, you know, it the classic

mailing list format. It was just it was

an ongoing dialogue. You know, some

people were generally receiving by email

and, you know, it's typical stuff fans

talk about. It's like, oh, I heard they

were recording a new album or I'm

looking for this 7-in or hey, I saw, you

know, it was a great way to to also

discover like other bands sort of

adjacent to Sloan like other East Coast

artists like the people talk about like

Hardship Post out of Newfoundland or you

got Eric's Trip from New Brunswick. So,

it was really an opportunity to have

these like deep immersive conversations

about your favorite band and um, I know

with Slonet, I the guys from Sloan were

not directly involved, but really

quickly they started to give little bits

of access. You know, they'd invite them

down to their label office or, you know,

there'd be other little things that

they'd sort of slip them little nuggets

and whatnot. And again, it was all built

by the fan communities, but to their

credit like their management and the

people around the band

very quickly saw, you know, we should we

should tap into this cuz these people

care and these are like good advocates

for us, too. And again, yeah, there

wasn't a lot of people online, but the

people who were there were, you know,

they they were like ambassadors for the

band.

Interviewer: >> Could they I guess track like record

sales like increasing or like their

popularity on the on the rise because of

of this these mailing sites?

Kim Gordon: >> I I I I don't know about that cuz that

came I feel like that came like much

much later. I mean, even, you know, into

the 2000s when like e-commerce platforms

it was one of the things about like the

early internet and it's even kind of a

thing more broadly about marketing is

how do you track, okay, so you've got,

you know, this person on message board,

you have this person talking about you

on Facebook or this person did a TikTok.

Does that translate to more album sales?

I don't know, but, you know, there are

certain metrics that at least in like in

ethereal sense, you know, can be gauges

of, you know, popularity. And, you know,

today we see versions of this sort of

thing with like stream counts and

whatnot, to say nothing of, um,

you know, like web traffic and other

like metrics, too. But like back then,

I feel like you would sort of just look

at it and then it's like a gut feeling.

It's like,

seems like a lot of people, you know, it

seems like there's something happening

here. I'm not exactly sure what it was,

but let's let's keep going with this cuz

this I'm not sure what it is, but it's

something. And I feel like that that's a

story of like a lot of internet.

Interviewer: You mentioned record labels. Like, what what

what did they do exactly? How did they

sort of take advantage of this?

Kim Gordon: Yeah.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, here in

Canada like one of the real frontrunners

was a Network Records out of Vancouver.

Um, I know that they had like a BBS,

like a online like message board, like a

real primordial one as early as 1993. I

was actually able to dig up their very

first BBS message,

um, via the Internet Archive. And it was

it was almost like a statement of

purpose. They're like, you know, we're

Network Records, we're out of Vancouver.

Some of our artists are Skinny Puppy and

Sarah McLachlan and, you know, we're

kind of they're just saying we're into

technology. We're going to try some

stuff.

Um, here's a bit of information about

our artist. Skinny Puppy's going on

tour. Sarah McLachlan has this new album

out. Hey, we're going to, you know, with

the Grapes of Wrath have just, you know,

changed their name to Ginger and they're

going to have a CD-ROM coming out. And

they're just putting out like bits of

information. So, I mean, that's kind of

at the indie label, but we did see as

well like the major labels they they did

jump on this. And again, they did their

own experience like Sony and Universal.

It was interesting for the major labels

of the 1990s, too, cuz there was also a

period of like a lot of consolidation.

Too, um, someone I spoke to for the

book, Pete Watson, he was like a real

um, an early like web guy for MCA

Records and he was there getting them

onto the internet and then it merged or

it became part of Universal. So, they

went over to Universal and did the exact

same thing. And meanwhile, he's running

all these internet experiences.

So, like a a really like interesting

time, too, where there was so much

change happening in the industry almost

corporately. Meanwhile, there's this

thing called internet and then 2 years

down the line, there's this thing called

Napster and then a bit later, there's

this thing called the iPod. Yeah. It's

like, you thought the internet was a big

deal.

You haven't seen anything yet.

Interviewer: Yeah, the

pace of change is really fascinating cuz

I mean, I mean, I was one of those early

adopters of Napster and then and then it

became and then there was iTunes and

then uh, yeah, it's like you're no

longer buying CDs anymore and then

you're streaming. It's like, how do you

even like

like I mean, how do you go how do how

does it go like so fast? Like what how

do you I guess keep track of like how

And how did these people who are working

on in the in this field, how did they

like adapt to those changes like so so

fast?

Kim Gordon: >> Well, I mean, that's the thing. Some

people did adapt to the changes, some

people did not. So, I mean, you know, we

go back to the retailers.

Um, you know, Sam the Record Man

probably our most famous, you know,

Canadian born and bred record store.

They They didn't survive it. I mean,

they tried it to their credit. They

tried a lot of things. You know, they

had a Sam CD. They were selling CDs

online.

They were even hiring like journalists

to write for their website, too. So,

they gave it a shot, but I mean, you

know, people's entire relationship with

physical music changed certainly when

Napster came in and all of a sudden,

well, you could go to Sam the Record Man

or HMV or Music World and buy a CD

um you know, 12 tracks or you can go to

Napster and

for cheaper, basically $0, you can have

all the music.

Interviewer: >> Yeah. You know, for a lot of music fans

um sadly it was an easy decision, but

one of the things they realized is then

it really like hit home writing the book

is

you have these like really huge shifts

caused by Napster and the iPod and

iTunes and whatnot, but they were all

like really short-lived at the same

time.

Kim Gordon: Mhm. Um I don't think I'd really

thought about how short-lived the iPod

was until I started writing this. It was

like

its heyday was maybe 6 or 7 years for

like a device. I mean, it it's And went

through different changes, too, right? I

mean, there was the iPod, there was the

Nano, there was the iTouch. Like it was

all these different like types of iPod.

But yeah, you're right. It wasn't that

Interviewer: >> That's right. Yeah, like it didn't I I

think really, you know, that changed as

soon as like the first iPhone came out

cuz all of a sudden you've got this

other device. Not only does it kind of

look like and function like an iPod,

it's also your phone, too. And from

there, I mean, you know, that was that

was the signal of like the beginning of

the end for iPods and MP3 players, too.

Kim Gordon: I mean, I know Microsoft came out with

the Zune and you know, you you might

recall at the end you would just have

like almost like a thumb drive and it

would have like a little port for head

phones and

it's an MP3 player.

But and also I guess people's habits and

or at least their connection to music

kind of changed, too, right? Because I

think there was like a real sense of

like ownership. You wanted to own the

songs like first on an album form and

then like downloading it, but now it's

just streaming and you don't have to

actually own the song anymore. I I

thought I find that change to be

interesting as well. Like what what do

you think of that?

Kim Gordon: Yeah, absolutely. And

I mean, call it the MP3 era. And again,

this is a time of iTunes and MP3 blogs

and blog aggregators like

you know, Hype Machine and then the

influence machine of uh you know,

Pitchfork Media and whatnot.

It was an interesting middle ground

because MP3s still technically were

something you owned. You They couldn't

hold in your hand like you would a a CD,

but they lived on your hard drive. You

know, you would buy them on iTunes or

you would perhaps sample a few from uh

Napster. I think statute of limitations

is off on that. You admitted that you

used it, too. Or, you know, it was one

of the great things about MP3 blogs and

some of them were like made in Canada,

too, like Chrome Waves and Said the

Gramophone. You know, you get a few MP3s

here, but they all live on your hard

drive and then, you know, you're

curating in iTunes. So, it's still

there's still a sense of ownership cuz

either I paid for this or

I made the effort to get it perhaps

through some other means.

And now like

a lot of people don't own any music, you

know, even if they had CDs and records

and cassettes, perhaps they've like

gotten rid of those cuz it's all on

Spotify now. So,

you know, what does that say for our

relationship with music? I mean,

to me and again, as someone who's been,

you know, been through like all these

different changes, it to me it seems a

lot more fleeting. Mhm.

And that's not that's not just music.

That's also like photography, for

example. You know, we used to print out

photos and now, you know, everybody's

got

thousands and thousands and thousands of

photos. So, while that's amazing on some

in some ways, you know, when otherwise

they're when you have a thousand like

they're all kind of meaningless. And and

that's kind of like one of the worries

about music, too, is the fact that it's

so fleeting

um and it can all just like go away

like, you know, this idea of like uh

tech rot and like digital decay is like

a big theme in the book, too. And even

though this, you know, a platform like

Spotify seems like,

you know, untouchable um

I personally, you know, if it went away

in 10 years or 5 years, it wouldn't

shock me. I mean, a lot of things

change. We've seen this. I mean, pretty

much everything I wrote in the book is

gone.

Interviewer: So, But vinyl's coming back.

Kim Gordon: Well, that I mean, that's yeah, but

that's yeah, that's like but that's

almost more like a for a lot of people

like a collectible. Yeah. Um we're

seeing this even with like a lot of

retro technology. There's been a lot

where you know, oh well, the

BlackBerry's coming back or the flip

phone, but

I think it's almost more like a symbol

or like a almost like a false icon of

something rather than something that's

like utility cuz it's just it doesn't

like function with, you know, the way

the internet works. It's, you know, I

think it's there's an aesthetic value

and there's a nostalgia value, but you

know, the pace of technological change

just does not stop. And like a lot of

the technology, even though this doesn't

seem that long ago, a lot of what's in

the book. I mean, this could have been

for all intents and purposes like

century ago given how much has changed

even since I wrote the book.

Interviewer: Uh you mentioned Chrome Waves. This was

a music blog, right?

Yes. Um

that seemed like the way if you were a

young guy, young person in the

mid-aughts to get your voice out there.

I had one with some friends, The Dashing

Fellows. I'm going to shout them out.

Sure, yeah. It it now no longer exists.

Hey, shoot your shot.

Yeah, exactly. But uh what was Chrome

Waves and what and how important were

music blogs to that period?

Kim Gordon: Music blogs

were hugely important. So, Chrome Waves

was run by a guy named Frank Yang. It

was generally a one-person operation. It

was all Frank and he was, you know, he

was just a music fan who enjoyed

writing. He enjoyed going to shows. He

enjoyed photography. He's like,

I'm going to put this all online. And

and speaking to Frank for the book,

um one of the first things I found

really interesting talking to him at

what point did like blogs

go become on like an even footing with,

you know, traditional media outlets. So,

like at what point did he start getting

sent music to review or at what point

did he start getting access to, you

know, press passes or, you know,

something in the photo pit so he could

take photos and whatnot. And it did

happen

pretty quickly where all of a sudden,

you know, he told stories and and some

of the other bloggers, you know, they're

getting flown on junkets or, you know,

Frank was down at like Lollapalooza in

Chicago or he'd go down to South by

Southwest in Austin.

And very quickly, not just him, but a

generation of like all these different

music blogs. So, like the Brooklyn

Vegan, Pitchfork Media,

um Gorilla vs. Bear, they were there

there was a million of them. But one of

the great things about Chrome Waves and

also Said the Gramophone run by Sean

Michaels

um is that they were, you know, they

were based in Canada, but these were

these were like globally famous. Um it

it really can't be undersold also that

the impact of uh blog aggregators is

well. I know the one that I used was

something called the Hype Machine.

You know, this was a version of it's

it's a big it's another big theme of the

book. Everything's a version of

everything else. So, you know, blog

aggregators they were kind of like an

RSS feed, but they were kind of almost

like a Twitter timeline and they would

be able to, you know,

here's like a just a snapshot. Here's

the latest blogs that have updated. And

and one of the great things about Hype

Machine, it was strictly focused on

MP3s, too. So, it would be the steady

stream of just, you know, free

downloadable MP3s. It would just be like

these little samples of all these new um

you know, all these new sounds. You

could just like have a bit of piece, you

know, a

give it a little try. And it was it was

also the time people still were kind of

buying CDs, but also not really, but

also like iTunes was around. So,

I think one of the interesting things

about, you know, that time in what we

call like the blog year is starting

really when Chrome Waves

um was really popping. It was also like

right before social media took over. So,

yes, Facebook and YouTube and Twitter,

they were around, but they were really

just figuring themselves out. Really

like the powerhouse at that point was

MySpace.

Interviewer: Um you talk about, you know,

another uh technology that had a very

short shelf life, but huge impact while

it was around. MySpace was huge and

really predicted what came later with,

you know, Facebook and TikTok and

Snapchat and all these other platforms.

He decided Frank decided to just pull

the plug, right? Like he just he didn't

want to do it anymore?

Kim Gordon: Yeah, yeah. Like

2013, he's like, you know, the the world

has changed. Um you know, he He said

partially it's just people grow up, they

get out of their interests.

Um but you know, there's also just like

web track traffic. All of a sudden

everyone's on Facebook and people those

conversations that might have been

happening, you know, on mailing lists or

in blog comment sections or, you know,

that traffic that might have come from

the Hype Machine, it's all shifted over

to Facebook and other platforms. Um so,

he's just like, I'm going to

go do something else for a while. And

it, you know,

it it's historically 2013, that seems

about right. You know, he probably

should have wrapped it up then and cuz

again, the internet was

different. And, you know, I worked at

Twitter from starting in 2015 and I just

can't believe it's so far outside the

scope of the book cuz I was telling them

like the bit a lot of behaviors you saw

from the inside of Twitter in terms of

people's relationship with celebrity and

fan communities and conversation, it's

so similar to what I saw in like AOL

chat rooms or Yahoo Groups um or even

like Friendster and, you know, MySpace.

Everything is kind of a version of

everything else on the internet to this

day.

Um but again, like so much can change in

a few short years and the platforms that

seem, you know, untouchable one day are

gone the next.

Kim Gordon: It actually yeah, I mean,

something I picked up in the book was

like and we haven't talked about much

music, but I mean, a lot of those kind

of personalities, the VJs we see it like

you mentioned in the book, they they

kind of are now YouTube. They just kind

of migrated. Like that I thought that

was really interesting like that kind of

how that happened.

Kim Gordon: Yeah, yeah. And

MuchMusic is an interesting one because,

you know, the whole Chum empire, whether

it's MuchMusic or The New Music or

CityTV or Fashion Television, like take

your pick, all the Moses Znaimer um

properties,

they were so ahead of the curve in terms

of, you know, how media was changing,

but

and to their credit, they did a lot of

things on the internet, but at the same

time, they were part of the legacy

media. They had a lot of infrastructure,

you know, they had they had studios,

they had big, you know, they had a lot

of staff, they had administrative staff

and that's one of the challenges with

like all things to do with the internet.

So, okay, it's here. You've got all this

infrastructure of like, you know, the

world before. Meanwhile, there's someone

in their bedroom or someone in their

computer room, they can kind of do the

same thing on the internet through one

machine to what you can do with this

entire office building.

And at some point, you know, it just

becomes like an economy of scale and

that's why, you know, we saw the ascent

of all these other companies, Amazon and

Google and Facebook and take your pick,

too. So, like it's it's not surprising

it changed. It's just a matter of which

kind of companies could adapt and which

couldn't and there there were a lot

you know, they they tried but they could

not adapt cuz there was there was they

were they were too much stuck in that

old world.

Interviewer: We have to wrap up our conversation, but

I guess as we're, you know, we're in

this new era now of artificial

intelligence, AI, and it's sort of

disrupting the

internet, music industry, what have you.

I don't know if you make predictions,

but do you have an a sense of as to

where this is going?

Kim Gordon: I God, I I I would probably have a

different career if I did. I I don't I

don't honestly, I don't think anybody

knows where it's going. I think, you

know, we can probably predict like in

the margins and some corners, but I

don't know. Like one thing I would say

is, you know,

a future where everything is like a

completely automated form of celebrity

would not surprise me at all. Like, you

know, we've had animation for a long

time, you know, we've had

we've had like fake bands for forever,

you know, whether it's like The Archies

or even, you know, someone like Daft

Punk or, you know, Gorillaz, take your

pick. Mhm. There is some precedents for

this and I think also

there's other like little clues that

aren't necessarily about technology, but

I think speak to how our relationship

with artists is going to change. Like a

lot of bands selling off their back

catalogs. And not just like legacy

artists, like younger artists like

Justin Bieber and Imagine Dragons.

I also think, you know, there's but then

there's also these legacy bands have

never been more popular. I always think

of Queen. Like Queen seems like they've

never been more popular and have not

been active for 30 years because well,

but they've had biopics and they've had

musicals and they've had merchandise and

whatnot.

So, I think like artists as brands is

really going to change and then in terms

of new artists, is it going to be the

humans versus the machines to see who

can get to the top of the charts? I

think we will see a version of that. I

don't know exactly what it will look

like and when it will happen, but I do

think there's going to be a future soon

um where a version of that reality is

here.

Kim Gordon: I feel like we may already be

here.

Interviewer: That's a good place to leave it.

Kim Gordon, thank you so much for

joining us on the rundown.

Kim Gordon: Thank you.