Back in 1997, Matt and I were still discovering the joys of the interweb. This was also the year that the album Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan was released.
The first big hit off of that album was Building a Mystery. We kinda liked this song, and were even quite surprised that she drops the F bomb in it. We saw her perform it live at MixFest in Boston that year (other notable acts included Barenaked Ladies, 10,000 Maniacs, the Monkees, Paula Cole, and Duncan Shiek, among others).
This was also the year that Matt and I found out about this “brand new and innovative” online instant messaging program called ICQ. Apparently, ICQ still exists, but I don’t think too many people use it anymore. Anywho, when using ICQ, it would save a log of any conversations you had with your online friends, and it called this a “history”.
Well, one night, in the middle of a rather lengthy online conversation on ICQ with Matt, he messaged, “You know what we’re doing, Jame?” I said, “No, what?”, and he simply responded with, “We’re building a history” (an obvious reference to Sarah McLachlan’s Building a Mystery).
That’s it. All that build-up for that. That was back when Songspeak was in its infancy. It was a simpler time.
"how r u? i m gud. lol"
Tags: 10000 maniacs, 90s concerts, 90s music, 98.5, 98.5 mixfest, barenaked ladies, boston, building a history, building a mystery, chat log, duncan shiek, history, icq, instant messaging, mixfest, paula cole, sarah mclachlan, surfacing, the monkees
Oh, I have a lot to say about this post:
1. I read in EW today that Sarah McLachlan is splitting from her Husband. I thought for a moment that’s what this post was going to be about.
2. I don’t think that MixFest was the one that I went to. The one I went had BNL yes, but it also had The Corrs and headlined Hootie and the Blowfish (I remember everyone pretty much left after the BNL set before Hootie. That’s probably why he’s doing country now.) A scene from one of those Mixfests was featured in Jason Preistly’s Barenaked in America.
3. I still have ICQ. Somewhere along the way my contacts list for ICQ was pretty heavily purged (not by me) and so despite having it I have like 5 people tops on my contacts. I’m going to assume that something similar happened to a lot of people which is ok, but makes it next to useless for contacting old friends through.