Back story
Cue flash back sequence music track……I have just been lost in several TB’s of memories & stumbled across some old ozdrummer.com files from circa 2000-2002. I remember the pre-bubble hype & the post bubble rebuild through to today (Google was in it’s infancy, dial up at 28kbs was king, YouTube had yet to be created in 2006 & the digital channel was far from what it is today).
I have played music since I was 6 years old (got pretty good, flew on planes, was on TV, was very broke & hungry for many years also). Moving to drums & managing my own bands/business which moved me into the business marketing side of things including the web/CD ROM/DVD, flash, video, PR, print, social, tv, radio, copyrighting, publishing, events & interviews with touring local & international drummers etc as new technologies/mediums were developed (started experimenting in the mid 90s) & finally a full time segue into agency land.
It was a period of, if you didn’t work you didn’t eat. It was fun & you rolled up the sleeves & did it all. I loved it.
The idea
My best friend since 1987 & I created a drumming community & education portal (it was when asp was hot) with a view to sell advertising, sponsorship, general PR/brand building & products (we had several other projects, we were quite entrepreneurial, hungry & adventurous launching Australia’s first integrated DVD catalogue but that’s another story). That sort of resource did not exist back in the day. Knowledge was still hidden behind closed doors. There was no YouTube & slow internet services.
- “Our aim is to be the penultimate drumming site, with free full access to all drummers. Featuring comprehensive drumming content, aid in distant learning to all drummers of the world, inspire, promote and support drummers to the fullest!” Jamie Andrei – Ozdrummer Creator
We stumbled around & figured things out as we went (created the content, drummed up support & promotion from scratch). It was all hustle, self funded, built & promoted.
The premise still holds up. It was centred around content, education & community all values which brand & businesses are tapping into with the specialised social tools of today (old sounding quote).
Summary
I am still a big fan of video, web & content. The same principles apply but we now have greater control over media, presentation & social distribution.
It does look very old from today’s standards, but with a few $$$ invested the framework could be polished up. It even had a cool GIF animation of my arm hitting the snare drum (lols) & videos. Some old skool pics below.
What old skool projects were you involved in?
Would love to hear so please post them in the comments. I now have my Friday flash back groove one, time to reflect.
Jamie is passionate about people, business and technology. He works at one of Australia's big 5 full service digital agencies across a range of SMEs to large ASX listed companies. He is an Account Director with a wealth of experience and enjoys; mountain biking, Muay Thai/BJJ, reading, creative business thinking and technology.
aaaRRR the ole Oz Drummer christmas BBQ’s were out of control!