DECEMBER
And so we come full circle, to this month, where Briks took a look at Danzig, Engine got into Heavy Doom and Gavin B returned with a brand new journal, educating us all on the St Louis blues sound, Scott Joplin and Mack the Knife, among others.Janszoon hit us with one more episode in the life of the Invisible Man before the year drew to a close, and Ki, after his exertions over the past few months, took a well-earned break. Powerstars ran through his 12 Days of Alternative and Surell returned with a quite amazing and in-depth look at the work of Stanley Kubrick on “The Shining”.
There was a Christmas mood at my journals, whether you liked it or not, though Mister Burns popped in to try to spoil the mood and cancel Christmas with his Scrooge-like ways, and we wished you all a Metal little Christmas, with, well, metal Christmas songs! There was also time to squeeze in a review of Rod Stewart;s new album, run another triple boxset on, of all people, Gary Numan (!) and start a new section in which I revisited some of my childhood memories. Oh yeah, and we fought the Battle of Britain to music, sort of.
Even more Christmassy at the Couch Potato, and after last year's “25 of the worst Christmas albums ever” we went to the movies and looked at 25 awful Christmas films. We also had an invasion by Burns here, as he tried to tell you there was nothing good on the telly over the festive period. Well, buddy, turns out he was flat ... right. Mostly. But I tried to show that there were decent programmes repeated most if not every year with “Christmas on the Couch with Trollheart”. Mayday began its short run and we also had the Battle of the Classic Christs, where we pitched the two famous biblical movies against each other to see who came out on top. And we reviewed the classic movie “The Seventh Seal”, before closing up the journals for a Christmas break.
No such break for Unknown Soldier, who proudly presented his top album of the decade in Scorpions' “Lovedrive”, as well as albums from Triumph, Judas Priest and UFO.
So that's 2013 in a few short entries. It's obvious the journal section has been revitalised over the past year or so, and we all hope it keeps going, and gets even better. I'll be doing my part to make that happen: will you?
Yes, you. There in the third row, eating the hoagy. I'm talkin' to you! Ah, fergit it!
So it's time for the moment you've all been waiting for. This is just my way of saying thanks to all of those who have given their time, talent and energy to make journals here, and in recognition of your tireless devotion I present to you ... sound effects please --- We can't afford sound effects. Okay then, drum roll --- we can't stretch to a drum. Hmmm. Well then, make a lot of noise for
First up we have the award for Best Title. The nominees are:-
Butthead for “Therapy is for ***s”
The Batlord for “The Batcave, where the Batlord sits on his Bat-throne plotting his Bat-schemes”
William the Bloody for “Straight outta the coffin!”
Big Ears for “Rabbiting on”
and
DJ for “A glimpse inside the mind of a chameleon”
and the winner is ....
Big Ears! Congratulations man, your award will be on the way to you shortly. Well done!
Next up we have the award for Most Informative Journal. The nominees in this category are
Gavin B for “Gavin B's Warehosue of songs”
Screen13 for “Ghost mall music”
Unknown Soldier for “Pounding Decibels”
Big Ears for “Rabbiting on”
and
Mondo Bungle for “Entering infinity”
and the award goes to ...
Unknown Soldier! And quite right too! Watch your PM box man.
Next we have Most Improved Journal. This is, not surprisingly, an award given to a journal author whose journal seemed like perhaps it was not going to amount to much but proved us all wrong. The nominees are as follows:
Butthead for “Therapy is for ****s”
The Batlord for “The Batcave”
The Batlord for “The Batlord listens to random ****”
and the winner is
Butthead! Well done, applause applause! What do you mean, he's been banned? Well that's just great. I guess I'll just hold his award for him till he's allowed back.
Moving on to the award for the Most Intelligent Writing, and let me just first drop in this disclaimer: if you don't win or were not nominated for this category, it doesn't mean your journal isn't intelligently written, just that these impressed me more. The nominees are:
Janszoon for “A night in the life of the Invisible Man”
The Batlord for “The Batcave”
Screen13 for “Ghost mall music”
Gavin B for “Gavin B's Warehouse of songs”
Anteater for “The Anthill 2.0”
Big Ears for “Rabbiting on”
Junkyard Donner for “Ego tripping”
Gavin B for “The art of songcraft”
The Big3 for “Screaming at the moon”
and the winner is ...
Janszoon! Could there be any doubt? Better uncheck that “no Pms” thing man so I can send you your award!
This next one is for the “Most Commented Upon”. It's an interesting award, as it doesn't necessarily mean the journal is brilliant (though often they are) but that it has managed to spark interest and engender conversation and debate the most. The nominees are:
Butthead for “Therapy is for ****s”
The Batlord for “The Batcave”
Unknown Soldier for “Pounding Decibels”
Urban for “Urban's Doctor Who thing” (a late, late nomination but very worthy)
Junkyard Donner for “Ego tripping”
and the winner is ...
Butthead again! That's two awards I have to carry home on the bus now! Sheesh!
And so we come to the Most Humourous Journal. Self-explanatory, and there aren't to be fair many nominees. They are:
The Batlord for “The Batcave”
Butthead for “Therapy is for ****s”
The Batlord for “The Batlord listens to random ****”
Urban for “Urban's journal of stuff”
and the winner, to nobody's surprise, the
Batlord for “The Batcave!”
The award for Longest Running Journal speaks for itself. Only those whose journals have been going at least two years are eligible for this. Also, the journal must be relatively regularly updated to qualify. Nominees are:
Urban for “Urban's journal of stuff”
Lateralus (now Astronomer) for “Lateralus's musical meanderings”
Bulldog for “The Doghouse V. II”
The Big3 for “Screaming at the moon”
Mojo for “Mojo PIN presents”
Janszoon for “25 albums you must hear...”
and the winner is ...
Urban, for “Urban's journal of stuff!”
Now we come to the award for Newest or Youngest Journal. There have been many journals started this year, but some have fallen away to nothing and others have gone to to semi-greatness. It is of course these latter we are concentrating on in this category. The nominees are:
Butthead for “Therapy is for ***s”
Briks for “The Poseur Cave”
William the Bloody for “Straight outta the coffin!”
Engine for “Heavy music” (I know he's been here for yonks, but this is for the youngest
journal, not member, and his only began recently...)
Anteater for “The Anthill 2.0”
DJ for “A glimpse inside the mind of a chameleon”
Gavin B for “The art of songcraft”
Powerstars for "Powerstar's thought-filled barf of musicalness"
and the winner is ...
William The Bloody for “Straight outta the coffin!”
Taking us to the award for Most Personal or Intimate Journal. This is awarded to someone who puts a lot of their own personal experience into their writing, and tells us something about themselves, perhaps letting down barriers that we usually keep raised. The nominees are:
Plankton for “The chum bucket”
Junkyard Donner for “Ego tripping”
YorkeDaddy for “Diluted: creating the next indie pop masterpiece”
Mondo Bungle for “Entering infinity”
Engine for “Entering Las Vegas”
and the winner is ...
Junkyard Donner for “Ego tripping”! One of the most touching, emotional, soul-baring and frankly amazing journals I've read here. I do not say that lightly.
Getting close to the end now. We have just two more awards to go. This is for the Biggest Workaholic, and there's only one nominee. The award goes to
Ki, for his tireless work in running “I'm here today, expect it to stay on”. No contest: even I don't do that much updating. Well, I do, but I'm not eligible. Must talk to myself about that...
Anyway that leaves us with just one award to be presented, and in the best tradition of the Academy Awards I would like to present
Urban Hatemonger with the Music Banter Members Journals Lifetime Achievement Award, for all his work and all the contributions he has made, not only to this section but to the forum as a whole. Well done Urban!
And that's it for this first year of the Annual Journey Awards. Anyone who won an award can expect to see it shortly arriving in their inbox. If you'd rather it emailed let me know (I know some people have shut up their inboxes to Pms)
Anyone who was nominated will get a rosette, which they can display on their journal if they like. Hey look: you can enlarge it to poster size and hang it from your roof if you want. It's your award. But I'd think those who won would want to crow about it, eh, Batlord? What do you mean, you're already having a special display stand made?
To those of you who weren't nominated, my apologies but not everyone can be. The ones who were just tended to stand out to me for one reason or another, or really shone in their category, like The Batlord in the Humourous category. If you want to be nominated next year, my advice is make your journal stand out. Make it more interesting. Anyone can review albums or put up YouTubes. Do something inspired with your journal, and maybe you too will be thanking the Academy (well, me) as flashbulbs go off (we can't afford cameras) and reporters press forward to hear your words of wisdom (nor press).
Finally, some words of encouragement for those of you whose journals didn't quite work out. I've seen a lot of new journals start here and some of them have seemed really promising, but then dropped away to nothing. Now I know people have their priorities --- kids, partners, work, social life, a thousand other things --- and scribbling down your thoughts on a regular basis on some forum hardly ranks high among those priorities. But if you started a journal, unless it was on a dare or with a "me too!" attitude, then it meant something to you and you had something to say.
So why not think about giving it another shot? Remember, the rules governing journals are so fluid they're almost non-existent. Nobody says you have to update once a week, once a month, or even once every six months. You do how much or how little you like, when you like. Nobody is going to ask why you haven't updated this week/month if you haven't. There should be no real pressure, outside of what you put on yourself, if any. Journal writing can be fun and very rewarding, but of course many people think they can do it and then realise they haven't time, can't think of enough to write, or just lose interest. That's fine if you do, but personally I'd love to see that tree walking through neofolk, I'd like to hear what happens in the Phantastasio's novel, and I'd love to hear more from Kayleigh, so maybe think about it? If you really have decided not to pursue the idea that's of course your right, but if you're looking for an excuse to get back into it, or a reason, try this:
I am perhaps the only person who will and does read every single journal here. Whether it's on rap, jazz, freestyle, punk, Norwegian noseflute music of the 1800s, I don't care. New or old, I read them all. So you're guaranteed to have at least one reader. Also, as long as you put an entry up you'll get mentioned in this thread, and others will know about your journal and maybe check it out. Just something to consider. Maybe.
So all that's left now is to clean up this mess ... HEY! Where are you all going? Surely you're going to help me....? Huh! Typical! I go to all this trouble, but once they have their award they're away faster than a Dragonforce guitar solo! I just don't know why I bother, I really don't...
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! See you in January!
Till then, as ever,
Toodles!