Your Farewell Rock – May 22nd, 2009 Friday, May 22, 2009
Posted by Jerkwheat in jerkwheat, Your Morning Rock.Tags: Boyz II Men, Coach Taylor, Explosions In The Sky, jerkwheat, Old 97s, Sentimental Crap, Your Morning Rock
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So, this is the end.
I leave you with a high top fade, an old Coogi sweater, and some impeccable harmonies. And, if you’ll follow me after the jump one more time, I’ll leave with you my goodbyes.
You hit play before you started reading this, right? DO IT. Ok, now pretend Coach Taylor is reading you these words.
Folks, it has been an absolute blast running this blog for the past two and a half years. I think that makes us in our mid-40s in blog years, but I’m not certain. As much as I’d like to take the time to thank everybody who has contributed here since we started in February of 2007, it’s just not possible because we’ve had a lot of freaking bloggers. We had nearly 30 when we launched and we’ve shuttled another 10 or so in and out the door since then. DeadOn was an insanely fun collaborative project and I’m extremely proud of the fact that a lot of our original writers are getting paid to do this now at some large, well known places. When you are surrounded by greatness, you have to raise you game, and I hope we were able to do that – even if just for a short time.
I’ve been going back through the archives over the past few days and it’s been great to see some of the old features that once were – Lost Haiku, Tied to the 90s, New Movie Fridays, Schrutebag of the Week, and, of course, The Black Donnellys. God bless you, Paul Haggis. We’ve had a few semi-constants – MTV Reality, American Idol, Friday Night Lights, and the music posts. The countless music posts. They were kind of my impetus for organizing this whole thing. I’d like to thank our longtime commenter friend, apostles3, for his kind words on Monday. Somehow, this blog managed to get viewed well over one million times – thanks mostly to Matt and The Hills – but we know that a lot of those people came once and never came back. There are some regulars though, and to know that we had any impact on your life at all just blows my mind. If we introduced you to a new band, just ONE new band, that you love now, then I did my job here.
DeadOn was, ostensibly, a pop culture blog. The two true constants of this blog were music posts, though – Your Morning Rock and New Music Tuesday. As a former record store guy, Tuesday’s have always been special to me. I love shopping for new tunes and the rush of listening to a great record for the first time in your car or through your headphones. Yet, the real joy has been Your Morning Rock. It was my forum to share with you all the songs that I love, the songs that I sing from the top of my lungs in my car. Or in my shower. Or in my office. I believe in the power of music and I hope some of that rubbed off on you. I can’t just leave YMR alone forever though, and starting in a couple of weeks, you’ll be able to find me at http://www.YourMorningRock.com. It’s not going to be as constant as DeadOn, but it will provide you with a stream of good tunes and occasional musical commentary. I couldn’t leave you totally behind, could I? But, first, I’m gonna take a few weeks off of blogging, celebrate another birthday, watch some baseball, and mostly bust my ass for the non-profit that I work for.
Ultimately, the time to shut down DeadOn was simply here. I can admit that I lost my fire here a while back and I was just hanging on for old time’s sake. I didn’t have another summer of it in me. I never wanted the blog to just become a YouTube repository with little actual content, but we were starting to look just like that. So, thanks to Matt for keeping us afloat with The Hills. Thanks to Doug for handling 24. Thanks to SA for Scrubs. Thanks to Andy for his music posts. Thanks to JB and Mrs. JB for letting JB take part in our Roundtable. And thanks to all of you who chipped in over the years. I’m going to miss the old girl, but hopefully you’ll find me at my new home in June (remember, that’s YourMorningRock.com!) and we can continue to build whatever it is that we’ve built here. You can always find me over-tweeting at twitter.com/jerkwheatery as well.
So, thanks for all the memories folks. I’ve made some great friends through this little initiative of ours and I hope to continue collaborating with them in some fashion in the future. I didn’t really have much choice in the song that I’m going to leave you with. Enjoy one last round of “Timebomb” y’all.
Its a little dusty over here in the office.
Congrats Chris for starting this bad boy up, all the good tunes, bringing new music to my ears, and also letting me inflict my poor taste on you guys once a week. Its been a blast and I’m glad to say I made new friends from this.
I’ll be blogging at http://www.matt-t.com , but don’t expect any Hills recaps. Those days are done.
Thanks again, and good night sweet prince.
I did my some of my best work here, writing on a topic I loved in Tied to the 90s, and then trying to do How I Met Your Mother recaps. I learned how hard it is to be good at this all the time, I learned that the awesome power of people reading what you wrote and enjoying it. I am sad it’s ending, but in many ways it already had. Time passes, life changes, priorities shift.
I’m not blogging much any more (my one-liner sensibility has its own Twitter outlet after all), but I will always remember my time here fondly. Thanks to all of you who read, all of you who contributed, and to Jerkwheat, who kept the ship afloat when so many of the deckhands had been killed off by scurvy. Or something like that.
Good night, and good luck.
Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest… It’s been a great run, guys.
Thanks for herding us all together and making this thing work. I too felt like I was writing out of obligation, rather than desire, and my last recaps of The Real World showed that. The time had indeed come, but it was a fun ride.
Salud, ladies and gentlemen.
You went with “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” over “End of the Road”?
/shakes head, mutters angrily
ALTHOUGH WE GO
TO THE END OF THE ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAD
STILL I CANT LET GOOOOOOOOOO
ITS UNNATURAL
YOU BELONG TO ME
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii BELONG TO YOUUUUUUUUU
Pete, deciding which Boyz II Men song to go with here was possibly the greatest internal debate of my life.
If this was the high school video yearbook, it would have “Time of Your Life”. But that could have made jerkwheat’s head a’splode.
Thank you to all those who have wrote here and let me be a part of it, through Idol Roundtables, Fake Farmers looking for Wives, or or Momma’s Boys who can’t choose for themselves. I will continue to be blogging my misadventures in small town America, wherever Big Green chooses that to be.
I look forward to rocking my mornings with you in the future, Good Sir.
Awwww. It is so hard to say goodbye … To your blog. Good on you all, at least we will have what is shaping up to be a fun summer of baseball.
A platform on which I could hate on Paul Haggis for an audience. Could not be happier. Adios, hermanos.
I wasn’t always a regular reader – sometimes was still better than never. I definitely made it a point to be here on Tuesdays. Though my musical tastes somewhat, well, suck at times, Mr. Wheat helped expand the horizons. Tip o’ the cap.
I remember the night on DUAN when this whole idea was born. I enjoyed Yostal’s Tied to the ’90s posts (even if I didn’t always agree with his music choices) and his HIMYM reviews. I didn’t always read YMR but there was the occasional gem that made my morning a little better. Thanks for giving me the chance to read more from my favorite commenters and (now) bloggers. You all did some great work here.
At least you outlasted Ladies…
Right, that website doesn’t exist anymore, right?
Kudos, dudes.
Damn, thanks to Jerkwheat and everyone else for everything the last couple of years. I read almost every post (and commented on quite a few), enjoyed them all, and I’m going to miss you. It was an incredible and surprisingly a huge part of my life. I found out about so much good music that I otherwise never would have been exposed to, enjoyed ragging on cheezy ass shows, and reveling and discussing some of my favorite shows with all of you. I love you.
Also, I’m with Pete on it being a major FAIL that you didn’t go with “End of the Road”
Screw South African wireless connections.
Also, thanks to Jerkwheat and everyone else for making this a fun ride. I’m glad I was a part of it, and am privileged to have read it, especially because the rest of you were better than me. I look forward to following future ventures, but I’ll have a soft spot for the ol’ brown couch.
Good night, sweet blog.
Aww, I’ll miss this place.
I may not have read everything, but I thoroughly enjoyed the stuff that I did. Great work, fellas.
This place was great to find new music. Thanks to you, I like Mastodon. Good luck in your future endeavors and thank you.
Always a fan, guys. See y’all in the DS comments.
I’ll miss this blog so much. And FYI – Old 97s concert with Rhett Miller opening June 27th at the Recher in Towson, MD…just in case you didn’t already know.
HELLO HELLO HELLO!
I NEED MATT’S EMAIL FOR THE HILLS.
Because only you close this site down but not Matt for the hills, I need him, what his website?