We’re officially out of our infancy and into our toddlerhood!  So before we plunge headfirst into our “terrible two’s,” we need to celebrate a little.  This is our 25th edition.  That breaks down to 71 artist interviews, 112 CD reviews, 68 concert reviews, 24 On the Side, 25 Perspectives, 25 Retrospectives, 25 On the Lighter Side, 25 News pages (complete with new release lists), 25 months of proofreading (not an easy job with this group!),  25 deadlines (accompanied by 175 nervous breakdowns, lots of late nights, late dinners, fast-food dinners, no dinners, and bottles of aspirin), a ton of phone calls, numerous road-trips, and enough email attachments to clog cyberspace for years to come. 

The cliché thing to say right now would be, “We never dreamed any of this would actually happen.  We never dreamed we would become a force to be reckoned with!”  But in reality, we are where we are because we did dream we could do it.  And we put feet to our dreams and hung in there.

I want to take a moment to say that doing all of this with seven passionate people living in six different cities, four different states, and two different time zones – all with at least one other full-time job - has been nothing but pure joy.  I want to say what a well-oiled machine we are, and how remarkably well we all get along all of the time.  I want to, but it wouldn’t be totally true.  We have our share of glitches… every week.  We have our share of “deadline drama”… every month.  We have our moments of disagreement from time to time.  If we weren’t operating out of a virtual office, I’m sure some blood would have been spilt on occasion (sometimes the internet really is a safe place to be!).  And I know for a fact we’ve all uttered, “What the h*ll did I get myself into!?” on occasion… or maybe, regularly.  But we somehow manage to get it all done… on time… every month… for 25 straight months.  And we’re all still good friends!  Pretty amazing. 

So why is all of this On the Lighter Side?  This is a real accomplishment worthy of a few pats on the back.  Well, when we first started batting this idea around, we had two big goals – mission statements, if you will: to passionately promote the music we love, and to have fun doing it.  The first one isn’t a problem.  It never is.  We ARE passionate about the music we love.  The second one… well, we need to remind ourselves of that sometimes… not often, but sometimes.  We try not to take ourselves too seriously.  We don’t sell ad space.  We don’t make any money on this.  We spend it, but we don’t make it!  We aren’t in anyone’s hip pocket.  If we all get together someday and agree that this isn’t fun anymore, we’ll fold it up and walk away.  But not today.  We’re still having too much fun.

But before I save this and send it to be proofed, I would be remiss not to state the obvious.  We obviously have a lot of help from a lot of people.  Our heartfelt thanks goes out to all the friends we’ve made all over the country: all the artists, managers, public relations people, record label people, road managers, and support people; and to our guest contributors Barb White, Rochell Letasi, Michelle Taunton, Jacqueline McCray, Christine Stevens, Kat Sarracco, Earl Schendell and Cindy Adams.  We couldn’t do it without you.  And to Al Jarreau, Dave Koz and Steve Oliver who were brave enough to be our debut issue’s interviewees!  Thanks for giving us a chance.  You got us off to a blazing start.

Now on to our “terrible two’s.”  Hopefully, it won’t be characterized by foot-stomping, fit-pitching, and shouts of “no!” and “mine!”