Tom Ewing inspired me to write for the internet, posted and hosted much of my writing, and prodded me to start my first blog, Cultural Artifacts of the Moment. He routinely amazes me as a rock-critic, not least of which for his sterling experiments in rockcrit formalism, such as Thousand, a very obvious model for Land of A Thousand Dances' current incarnation. (Unfortunately, Thousand is off-line at the moment -- e-mail him to lobby for its return.) Josh Kortbein's Josh Blog and its approach towards the examination of the grammars of musical experience has also left its mark on my writing, both in subject matter and style.

Tom carries on the fun with the Poptimists livejournal community, which I just joined ten minutes ago, and Popular, a blog where he attempts to review every UK #1 pop hit. It's the immediate inspiration for my "American Hot Wax" project at my Land of a Thousand Dances blog, which handles the American #1s. The US R&B #1s are being covered by Michaelangelo Matos, Douglas Wolk and Matt Cibula at Boogie Fever, and by Thomas Inskeep at both Doing It To Death (Part 1) and Rock Me Tonight.