Saturday, 28 January 2006 08:15	Jon Whitney
Brainwashed opened its doors on April 16, 1996, to host the websites for Meat Beat Manifesto and Greater Than One. It was built using discographies of Christopher Miller and wrapped in content and news and images from the artist as well as links to record companies and other resources fans might be interested in. The point of these websites was to provide a true central place for information on the web for a few musical artists, whereas a record label's website disregarded activity outside the record label and fan websites on places like Geocities had little in terms of information about the artists and their history.
Soon, Brainwashed had accumulated websites for bands Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Current 93, Death In June, The Legendary Pink Dots, Nurse With Wound, Organum, and Throbbing Gristle, because these websites existed but were hosted at colleges and universities, where the webmasters of these websites were graduating and moving on, either losing their space or simply not updating the websites any longer. The premise remained: provide as much information as possible for these artists including compltete discographies, image archives, and the latest news available.
In 1997, Brainwashed expanded to begin hosting websites for newer artists like Bowery Electric, Labradford, Tortoise, and Trans Am, and record labels including Kranky, Thrill Jockey, and World Serpent.
In 1998 we launched Brainwashed Recordings, basically to make recordings in small numbers as presents for the hardcore fans. All profits were to go back into the operating costs of Brainwashed but, as any industry professional will agree, there's really very little profits (if any) to be made on limited 7" singles and CD compilations!
In 1998, The Brain was begun: it was a weekly electronic magazine to post news about the bands and labels hosted at Brainwashed, along with provide some interesting feedback accumulated over the week, reviews of CDs, movies, books, and videos, a "link of the week," and what we're listening to. Soon, we were including sound samples with all reviews, something that no other noncommercial weekly Internet music publication was doing.
Over the next few years we accumulated more artists and labels and built The Brain into a virtually peerless publication, with contributing writers from all over the world, not just the existing Brainwashed staff and webmasters of the sites hosted.
In 1999, we laucnhed Brainwashed Radio, a 24 hour/7 day per week streaming radio station featuring music from all of the artists and labels hosted at brainwashed.
In 2000, with the increased evils surfacing in the media, we decided we would cease all support of major labels: they engaged in illegal (price-fixing and payola) and greedy (in-house publishing contracts and shifty bookkeeping) activities and we felt that we provided no true alternative if we were to review the same materials that all the major publications did. In the following years, they have further alienated their audiences and waged war against their consumers and artists and employees and promotional outlets and retailers that we continue the ban. It's no surprise their sales numbers have fallen over the years.
Also in 2000, Killer Pimp was launched as a separate identity from Brainwashed Recordings. This is a small label which hopes that with aggressive campaigns we can introduce some new music to the community.
In 2003, we launched The Eye, a weekly video feature with interviews and live footage of some of today's most exciting artists. Some of the features have been collected onto DVDs for fundraising purposes.
In December of 2004, we launched the Podcast Edition of Brainwashed Radio, where every week, Jon Whitney hosts an hour-long show featuring music from the artists and labels hosted at Brainwashed.
In August of 2005, we retired The Brain to reinvent Brainwashed.com, where content is provided daily, as news can't wait for once per week. The new system is searchable with archives of all old reviews and content from the old way of doing things.
In 2006, we celebrated our 10th year of online existence with the first Brainwaves Festival: a three day music fest featuring friends and family of Brainwashed.
In 2008 we are throwing another Brainwaves Festival. Brainwaves 2008 lineup now stands as: Threshold HouseBoys Choir, JG Thirlwell's Manorexia, Meat Beat Manifesto, Matmos, Stars of the Lid, Little Annie, Silver Apples, Windy Weber (of Windy & Carl) & Thomas Meluch (of Benoit Pioulard), Major Stars, Reformed Faction (Mark and Robin of Zoviet France, Rapoon, Dead Voices On Air), Andrew Liles and Jonathan Coleclough, Nmperign feat. Jason Lescalleet, Marissa Nadler, Glenn Jones, His Name Is Alive, Gary Wilson, Rivulets, Strategy, Nudge, Boduf Songs, To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie, Lichens + DJ Steven Stapleton & a special Greater Than One video presentation.
Sign up for our mailing list here to get the latest updates on Brainwashed Recordings releases before anybody else and the updated news on the Brainwashed 10th festival (tentatively being titled BWX).
Thank you for your interest and support.
Jon Whitney
Prinicipal, Brainwashed
Last Updated on Friday, 03 October 2008 05:13