Voices on the Wind: Trollheart's Compleat History of Music Banter

[Trollheart]

Some time ago I had the idea to do a sort of musical parody tribute to the old forum, but that never materialised. Just wasn't actually that interested in it. Today I envisioned this as a thread asking why Music Banter fell apart, and to be fair, that question will form the central theme of this thread. But as I worked on it, it became clear to me that the potential existed to instead look back at my time, and the time of those who were there with me, on what was for me the first real forum I joined, or felt a part of.

For over 10 years Music Banter was not only my home, the place where I made friends and where I could explore and share my creativity, it was, during the bad times, a shelter, a place of refuge, almost a sanctuary. Of course, it was only a forum, but then, what's a forum? Answer: a computer-generated series of codes and algorithms that present a framework, but nothing more. True answer: a forum is the people who, well, people it. There are plenty of dead forums strung out all over the web, places where either people never joined or where it didn't get as busy as the founder(s) had hoped, or places where the members all moved on, and left the place to gather cyber-cobwebs. To a large degree, the latter is how Music Banter ended up, but for a long time - a lot longer than I was there for - it seems to have been one of the premier music forums on the internet. It came up first in a lot of Google searches, and while it couldn't boast thousands or even hundreds of members, the core membership was pretty solid, and we would get new people coming and often staying.

I joined originally in 2008, but this was one of my first real forums at the time. I'd contributed to things like Digital Spy and maybe Sky forums, but only in a very general way. MB was the first place where I truly interacted with people on more than one thread and for more than one purpose - usually I'd go to say DS to discuss some programme I'd seen or whatever - and where, for want of another phrase, I began to put down roots. It didn't last long. My skin was a whole lot thinner back then and after some particularly hurtful remarks I packed my bags and fled whimpering. It would be another three years before I would finally grow a pair, gird my lions, then retreat scratched and bloody out of the lion cage, reread the instructions and instead grid my loins (even more painful!) then finally gird my loins (never good to go into any fight with your loins ungirded, take it from me!) and return to do battle.

Once I realised a simple truth - don't be a fucking pussy and give as good as you get (alright, two simple truths) - I found most people easier to get on with. I actually made real friends, and the ones who annoyed me or had upset me and caused me to leave in 2008 were dealt with by playing them at their own game. Oh yes: Trollheart 2011 was a whole different animal to Trollheart 2008, but that's genetic experimentation for you. Anyway, with my new skin intact insults no longer bothered me and I shot my own back. Well that sounds weird! No, I don't mean I shot myself in the back (if such a thing is physically possible without some seriously freaky richochet!) - I mean I hurled the insults back. It didn't always work, but it did more often than it didn't, and it probably helped me too that for probably a year or more after my return I spent little time out in "gen-pop" and remained in the journals section, writing and posting and fuming about images that were too big, and trying to get YouTube links to work, and demanding comments, and holding my breath till I turned blue, then realising nobody cared and I couldn't force comments that way, plotting my bloody revenge and doing all the sort of stuff you do in the journals section. Eventually I poked my head out of my refuge and tentatively took steps out into the light, and began to join in on threads not connected to my journals, and so became a proper, contributing member, and in time, I think (I hope) a valued one.

Like I say, times were hard. Most of you know of the time I spent caring for my sister Karen, and when the storm was darkest and I had for instance left her in Beaumont Hospital and wended my weary way home after a day of trying to keep her entertained and upbeat (with little to be upbeat about) it was to Music Banter I turned. Not that I mean I moaned about my day (I did) but just talking to the people there who had become my friends helped in ways I could not have expected it would. I had, and have, no real friends now in real life. My best friend died in 1987 and of the three other people I could count as proper friends, one emigrated to the USA, one moved down to Wexford I think and I just lost touch with the third. I had my friends in work, but as I had left in 2009 to care for Karen full-time, they weren't in contact much. My family had mostly deserted me and my parents were both dead (one dead to me, the other literally passed away), with just my aunt, who was my rock, left. She would pass in 2017, leaving me pretty much alone.

I took several sabbaticals from MB but I always came back. Sometimes it was due to pressure of work, sometimes I had been pushed too far by someone (cough) Frownland (cough) and no longer wanted to be there. But like a strong elastic tied to my waist, I always found myself dragged, Michael Corleone - like, back to the place. It's not really too much of an overstatement to say that, without MB to turn to (or, I should say, the people in it) I would have had a far harder time getting through what I endured. I made good friends there, some of whom are now here. And I lost good friends there too.

So what happened? We always thought that MB would last forever. Absolute bullshit. We knew it wouldn't, but we expected that its demise would come about by physical means, which is to say, the server would be shut off or someone would notice they weren't making money out of this comparatively small site, and shut it down. Which was, mostly, why SCD was born. But in the end, Music Banter is still here, even if it is now a shell of its former self, a ghost town where the spirits of former posters wander disconsolately, vainly asking if anyone can tell them what they did with their day today, or wants to discuss the ramifications on The Fall of Mark E. Smith's death? People still post there, sure, and some of them are what you might call, kindly, MB veterans, but mostly it's new people who are sort of flailing around blindly, not realising that they've stumbled onto the internet or forum equivalent of an old American mining town: used to be heaving with life and promise for the future, but then the gold or silver ran out and now there's nothing there but bones and the keening of the wind. And no, that's not a plug for my soon-to-be-posted article on The California Gold Rush in my American West journal (yes it is). Ahem. Anyway, these mining towns of which I speak. Nothing happens there, and in some ways you might almost compare it to a patient with PVS; they're there, they're alive, but they really may as well not be, not meaning to trivialise the condition of course. But really, in terms of activity, MB is just eking out its final days, waiting for someone to pull the plug.

So again I ask: what happened? Nobody turned out the lights from the point of view of the owners. They don't know or care, but for them Westworld is still running, even if nothing much happens there anymore. But we, who have been there, who have been the beating heart of the place, know that it's finished. In this thread I'm going to try to retrace the history of the forum - from the time I was there of course - to see what exactly were the factors that led to its being more or less abandoned by us all. Could it have been saved? Did we jump too soon, or was the ship already below the waterline before we made our escape? And what of those we left behind? Those who didn't or couldn't come with us? Linking in somewhat with my thread "People You Miss From Music Banter", I'm going to, if I can, provide little sketches of those people, and recall both the good and the bad times that made up a place we all - or most of us - once called home.

Feel free to join me for the ride, whether it's a bumpy one down Memory Lane or an interesting and fresh chauffeur-driven one that provides new insights into a place you've heard mentioned here a lot, but never seen with your own eyes, never experienced. Comments, contributions and debate, memories and stories all welcome.

Or just sit back and reminisce.

First, let me take you back to where it all began, at least for me. A time when I was a year away from taking redundancy, a time when we had cats in the house and the shock of 9/11 was slowly fading away as America elected its first - and so far, only - black president, and a time before Karen got really sick.

The year was 2008, and I was three months into my 45th year on this planet.

[jimmy jazz]

When Chula posted a pic of his daughter and encouraged us to wank over her 😯

@Jwb: "Be honest Chula would you smash?" 😯😂

[Trollheart]

God yes, and when he started a journal on his son's mental health problems without even asking him!
To be fair, his daughter was hot.

[jimmy jazz]

God yes, and when he started a journal on his son's mental health problems without even asking him!
To be fair, his daughter was hot.

So you accepted the challenge then.

[Trollheart]

So you accepted the challenge then.

Challenge? I don't think I was in any position to take up any challenge. Besides, so far, thinking is not a crime.

[Trollheart]

Chapter I: And so it begins: Into the Banterverse

I don't know about you guys, but I know that when I stumbled across Music Banter I was not in the market for a new forum, new friends or new ideas. I had a product to sell. Not literally, but I did have a concept I wanted to try out. Some stupid game with samples of music which had to be identified. Can't remember what it was called: maybe something like "Stupid game with samples of music which had to be identified." No, that wasn't it. Not snappy enough. "Sections"? "Fragments"? "Snippets"? Something like that anyway. So my reasons were selfish and self-centred, but like any newbie trying to truck his wares (and believe me, jamming a bunch of lycanthropes into a pickup is not recommended!) I was very quickly slapped down and told that my attempt was seen as spam, which indirectly it was. Undeterred, I began to look around this strange and wondrous new place with the slack-jawed gaze of the tourist from Nowheresville USA arriving in New Yawk, and after getting metaphorically beaten up having wandered down the wrong dark alley (those guys in the hip-hop sub forum did not like progheads!) I stumbled into the niche which would be my home for the next few years, the members journals section.

Having got the gist of what I could do, I set to work with my very first journal, which I called The Playlist of Life. In this I wrote album reviews, and slowly branched out into other areas, such as "The Secret Life of the Album Cover" (resurrected recently here), "Taking Centre Stage", where I featured a specific artist, and "Trollheart's Handy Guide to 20th Century Technology." I was, I think, the first person to use graphics in a journal other than just images of bands or albums, though it was over a month before anyone posted a comment, apart from two very helpful replies to queries I had right at the beginning. But the first person to respond to my actual writing was a member called Non Submissive Wife, who later changed her username to the easier to write NSW (which kinda made me think of Not Suitable for Work), and her comment was positive, which always helps.


But before anyone thinks I'm going to reel off a long list of the things I wrote in my journal, fear not. I'm not quite that self-absorbed. It's just to illustrate how I originally approached the forum. After a while, as I say, I did venture out, and though it's hard to remember now - hard to remember what I did last week, never mind fourteen years ago! - I think the first place I headed to was the Lounge, because why not after all? That was where you could discuss anything; it didn't have to be music-related, and there weren't any real rules as such. Of course, it was also the place where you could really cut the drama with a knife, and back then there was a lot of drama. And the thing about drama is this: it's a whole lot easier to deal with, to understand and even to take part in - or avoid - if you're familiar with all the players. But I, of course, was not. I was in some ways like a guy who walks in to the cinema halfway through the movie. Clever, sharp little retorts were being thrown back and forth, references made that had no significance to me, past members spoken of and veiled (and not so veiled) insults shot from one side of a thread to the other like thunderbolts being exchanged by gods I could never hope to even understand, never mind join.

Not that, I should stress, I saw anyone as a god (though some of them certainly saw themselves as such), but to use another metaphor, it was like going to a party where everyone knows everyone else, and you know nobody. Sure, you may get someone who'll take interest in you and introduce you, but more than likely you'll be left standing in a corner, or sitting on a sofa, sipping a drink you don't really want, occasionally forcing a laugh at jokes you don't understand, and wondering to yourself what in the hell you are doing there in the first place? My first real guide, the first person who took pity on me as a newcomer and tried to help me navigate the stormy sea of personalities, egos and prejudices was also the first to welcome me back after my hissy fit in 2008,  and the first one to really get on my tits was someone who would go on to become what I could best describe as someone I met.

Oh, alright then: a friend. But most of the time he wouldn't act like one, or even consider himself one, and would team up with another who would pretty much target and torment me (I know! I know! Poor baby!) throughout almost all of my stay there. They wouldn't be the only ones, but both of them would be responsible for at least two of my withdrawals from the forum over the years, and both would contribute in no small way to both the ramping up of drama in MB's final years as a going concern, and to the prevalence of a much more toxic atmosphere as the forum went through the kind of changes being seen today in the USA.

[Trollheart]

The Music Banter Bestiary: Who Was Who

As I mentioned, the first contact, as it were, that I made on MB was Jackhammer. He was a well-respected member, though I don't think at the time he was a mod, if he had ever been. He seemed to know everyone though and the breadth of his musical knowledge and interest staggered me. To put this in perspective, go back sometime and look at my journal. For most of the first 100 pages or so at least, it's pretty pedestrian stuff: metal, rock and of course prog rock. My tastes were, to be blunt, limited when I joined, and it took me a while to find out, explore, get into or run away from various other music genres, many of which I had been unaware even existed. But Jack - it would be some time indeed before I would find out that was not his name, but I always referred to him as Jack - though at the time I think in his fifties (so about a decade older than me, give or take) was into everything from Canadian folk music probably to grindcore definitely. I used to think his kids and grandkids must have thought he was the coolest old guy on the planet.

He was the one who encouraged my journaling endeavours, and sort of introduced me around. It's not as if he gave me the five cent tour, or whatever you call it, but he was someone I could ask questions of, particularly when certain people seemed to act what I would consider odd. If you were there at the time, you know the people I mean. But of course people started to get in touch with me anyway, and I found myself dealing with an assortment of strange characters, feeling perhaps a little like Alice after she fell down that rabbit hole. Minus the White Rabbit, of course. And the curls. And the dress. So far as you know. I seemed to attract the attention in particular of someone whom I thought must be well respected in the forum indeed, as he was apparently the ruler of night creatures. Later I would find that his portentous username, despite his actual interest in the comic book character (and most others) was arrived at in error, as he mistook the title of one of his favourite albums for the word BATLORD, when in fact it spelled BATHORY. But you couldn't blame him: I mean, look. It's an easy mistake to have made, right?

I look at that and I still see BATLORD. But like I say, he must have thought it was a great name, because, bar one rather odd change in maybe 2014 when he briefly became both Dharma and Greg, he kept it throughout his time at MB. Well, most people did: you might change your avatar more times than you changed your pants (what that says about your personal hygiene is up to you to decide) but generally once you had a username you stuck with it. I've never been anyone but Trollheart, despite claims to the contrary which are currently going through the legal system and which will never be proven. As I say though, a good one for him because he was and is a comic book nerd. He particularly loved, duh, Batman, but could probably tell you every story or plotline or secret identity in Marvel, DC or any other comic, and he knew more about artists, writers, even inkers than it's probably healthy for a man of his age. Or any age. He certainly knew his stuff.

Well, I say knew, past tense, as if he was dead or something. So far as I know (and hope) that's not the case, but I haven't spoken to or heard from him since MB fragmented and became SCD; still, it would probably be more accurate to say he knows his stuff, as unless he's suffered some sort of catastrophic brain injury or memory loss, he's not likely to forget all those useless facts and data crammed into his head. The Batlord - Batty, as I would call him, which I think annoyed him and is probably why I did it - though he could write, and write well, spent about 90 percent of his time on Music Banter doing what I can only describe as a good impression of Loki. For those who don't know, he was the "evil" trickster god of the Norse pantheon, who in the legends was, in addition to plotting their bloody downfall and death (as you do), always playing tricks and jests on the gods. The image I have of Batty is of someone jumping from thread to thread, post to post, crouching and giggling and making Gollum-like noises, wreaking mischief and then sitting back for a while to see the fruits of his labour, and then moving on to his next trick. I'm not saying he wasn't a serious guy, but most of the time he seemed to espouse the immortal phrase "Here for a good time, not a long time."

It was probably my diametrically opposed demeanour that put me on his radar. I don't mean I have no sense of humour (Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he was Catholic! Ah, have it your own way!) but I tended to be more, well, serious and dedicated to my journals, and he loved tearing them apart. He knew of course the buttons to push, and like a drunk man playing Whack-a-mole, or Trump with trade tariffs, he pushed every one. My reaction to him came in three parts: first, I thought he was an old and respected member (neither were true: he actually joined, according to his avatar, three years after me, and was ten years younger) so I deferred to and listened to him, little knowing I was being trolled (who would troll Trollheart?) until I realised who and what he was, after which I engaged in a sort of love/hate thing with him whereby we would have blow-out rows and knock-down fights, but make up and we collaborated on a few things too. Towards the end though, his alliance with my nemesis got so that I could hardly tell them apart, and our relationship froze over to the point we barely spoke to each other, and if we did, it was usually to hurl insults at each other. Just like marriage, right?

But it should be said, that for all that he was (and may still be) something of an arrogant and undisciplined manchild, he was with me capable of providing great friendship and comfort (on the rare occasions he felt like it) and he is a very good writer, with some great ideas. The only problem really was that he seemed almost insulted if you liked his work, as if it was something he only did for fun and didn't want anyone praising it or taking it seriously. I think in some ways Batty was a child who never grew up, and probably did not want to, and Music Banter was a place where he could reinforce and double down on that persona, where he didn't have to face the real world or deal with real problems, where he could pretend nothing existed other than bitchin' metal and poseurs and comic books, and where it was always the last day of school before the summer holidays.
Those of you who knew him better, or personally, may have a lot more to say about him, and I may have given a false impression of the guy here. But all I can work with is how he interacted with me, and how I saw him interact with others. Therefore, in the end,


He was the Batlord. That was his blessing. It was also his curse.

[Lexi Darling]

I love this concept! I will be reading this very soon and following this thread for sure; even though I never posted for the first 15 years of browsing MB I still got some of the experience and I'm sure it will bring back all sorts of memories.

[Trollheart]

Classic MB Posts

#1: Speak softly and carry a big attitude.

I didn't know the guy, I wasn't around at the time, but just stumbled across it and thought, you know, sometimes you don't need walls of text to articulate what you're feeling!

[Trollheart]

Or this poster?
Can you recognise/remember them from their avatar?

[Trollheart]

Classic MB Posts

# 2: Who's hungry?

A true classic from our one-time leader!

[Trollheart]

Classic MB Posts
# 3: The dog next door

I hadn't planned on doing so many of these one after the other, but there were some incredible posts back before I got here (or at least out of the journals section)!
Here's another.

[Lexi Darling]

Or this poster?
Can you recognise/remember them from their avatar?

I remember her! She went by Lateralus for a while and then Astronomer. She had some cool taste in prog and metal.

[Trollheart]

Yep that's her. Lovely lady. Pity she didn't hang around long enough to join us.
And speaking of those who have left us, hopefully only temporarily, I came across this and couldn't let it pass. Kismet?

[Trollheart]

Last one for tonight...

Classic MB Posts
# 4: Someone get me a mirror!