(51/M/London, England)
The piece about the Letter, from 1st October 2000, is the last printout I have from the Doo Wop Shop board.
Ending on that unceasing Ulyssean quest for the perfect record provides a neat conclusion - but I didn't stop posting, although it may have been the last of that flurry of extended pieces between Clarke and me. Thank you to those, then and now, who indulged us.
I can't check the board for other messages, however, as Steve's Kewl Doo Wop Shop was removed in its entirety from Yahoo in August 2001. If anyone has any more posts (especially Clarke's description of Gloria) please get in touch by clicking on my profile. I'd also love to hear from anyone else who contributed or just read it at the time; if nothing else, these messages reinforce the point that audiences are participants too.
Messages which may forever circle in cyberspace include a discussion of the Dells' Sweet Dreams of Contentment with much speculation about the mystical word intoned at the end (the posts' unreachability is poetically apt, perhaps), and my reference, in one message which was saved here, to the shameful British group Showaddywaddy led to an unexpected discussion with Alexandra about shared memories of Top of the Pops and kitsch 70s British pop. Equally baffling to me, with the whole range of American harmonisers past and present to choose from, someone else seemed quite unnaturally keen on UK doowoppers Darts (shades of the British Invasion groups firing Chuck Berry anthems right back at the Colonies ... ).
Other than those it's hard to recall particular posts, although what does remain is the sense of absolute immersion I felt writing, waiting for the quickly-appearing responses which would trigger off more thoughts ... They were things, as I wrote at the end of the piece on Golden Teardrops, I'd been needing to say for years, and the internet finally made it possible to connect with a likeminded group of people. I hope that some of that enjoyment, at least, has been transmitted through the static.
The piece about the The Letter was also published at the start of this blog as a taster for the series. You can click on that earlier version for additional notes plus links to arcane discussions about the meaning of "pismotality," if you have a few hours to spare ...
I'm joking. Sort of. But given that this has been a dialog[ue] between the US and the UK, perhaps it's fitting that what may be the simplest and best description of the word coined by the late Vernon Green for his immortal song can be borrowed from a British pop song of the period:
"Nothings that are meant for my love alone to hear."
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