hmmm, through lots of speculation and rumour (none of which people will actually raise with us) i feel it's about time that i put across some of jeepster's ideas on why there is now a second list, and why i feel that this is compatible with existing alongside the original list. to do this though, well it requires an almost essay sized e-mail. so if you're not willing to read much, simply click delete now and be spared the twaddle :) -- "we won a brit, so why have you set up your own list and betrayed us?" well, you're right we did win a brit. and down here at jeepster central we are bloody thankful for it and wanted to say thank you in a big way, but we had had to go through a load of shite defending the win from the press and that changed it. we were even going to send a small box of chocolates to everyone on the list as a way of saying thank you, but in light of the whole press kaboodle, anything like that would now appear to be a belated bribe, which doesn't help anyone. so with regret we're unable to do this even though we had even got to the stage of asking honey for his aid to compile everyone's details so that we could send them to you. we wanted so much to explain what it meant to the band to win and relay some of the incredible anecdotes of the events in glasgow and the celebratory tone of the bands families and friends. but, sinister was gone. it left us feeling a bit lost. it was as if a mother had been robbed of it's child, there was no way to contact you, the fans, to express our love of you and to tell you how jeepster and the band were feeling about the win and carrying-on. in talking to honey on the monday after the brits, whilst sinister had problems, he stated clearly that he was looking for a new home for sinister. i had offered him the use of the jeepster majordomo late last year when the list was offline for a similar reason, but he declined, stating that the independence of the list was too important for the list identity, which is a fair point, so on this occasion we were unable to help him, except to give him occasional calls to let him know if we had heard anything. but, at a time when we needed you the most in light of all industry flak and our need to celebrate the win with the fans, and when we had so much to tell you, we were at a loss because the list we all relied on was offline and there was nothing we could do to solve it. this was the first thing that raised the question of should jeepster set up it's own list. -- "yeah, but why?" this goes a bit further than just b&s, it also reaches the other bands on our label. we have created uniform resources for all of the bands and wanted the other bands to benefit from mailing lists as much as belle and sebastian have. and since the snow patrol site will soon be handed over to a fan to run it seemed sensible to help him and create some of the resources in advance. so the idea of starting lists with our already available majordomo was obvious. but the question was raised of what would this mean for sinister. although the plan is simple enough, to provide each band with, in time, it's own list at a single location, the implementation is obviously a little bit different from that. we started by simply setting up the snow patrol and salako lists, and it seemed obvious that as we simply didn't know when sinister was going to be back online, that the start of a belleandsebastian list would not offend too much as it would grant the opportunity for everyone to talk again. it was only the day or two after the list went on-line that honey rang up and said that he had solved the problems for sinister and that he was offended by the corporate direction jeepster was taking in setting up a second list. -- now, we know that a second list appears to have deeply offended a few of you, whilst leaving even more bemused. but let's be a little more open-minded for a moment, jeepster set up the new list as part of a move to give all of our bands the same resources without relying on outside bodies which may not be reliable in times of stress. we did this to help us stay in contact with you at a time when it appeared that everyone was against us (us being the fans, band and label in light of the cheating allegations). now, the jeepster list (belleandsebastian@jeepster.co.uk) is not meant as a threat to sinister (sinister@majordomo.net). indeed i believe both will happily co-exist. sinister will still fulfil it's role fully and offer a great service to the fans by being an independent list free from band and label input which has evolved into a community of good people. the jeepster list i envision will help reduce the burden on sinister by being a first stop mailing list (which i don't personally believe will be as high in quality as the sinister list) but will allow jeepster to have an accountable method of permanently contacting the fans without using the news list and will most likely develop into a pre-sinister list. the mature and intelligent method of sinister and the posts that appear on it is not something that is likely to change in any way. The jeepster list could probably be viewed as the smaller sister of sinister and would be more teen-like in it's chat and discussion. the only thing that jeepster wanted when we set up all of these lists for salako, snow patrol and belle and sebastian was a permanently open channel by which we could communicate with the fans of each band without relying on outside parties who are not accountable to us for up-time and availability of the list and that channel of communication. i personally still do not believe this to be the 'crime to fans' as some have implied, it's been set up as a service and what you make of it is your own affair. we have tried to continue to give as much as we can for you. but we do feel very strongly that we have the right to control whether our lines of communication with you are open or closed, and I promise now that jeepster will do what it can to keep the jeepster lists permanently open in line with this. if anyone feels still that our motives are wrong, that we've sold out or anything, then feel free to mail me rather than gossip or slander elsewhere. -- on other issues, a few facts: 1- we are bloody thankful for all the support everyone has given the band and jeepster throughout the brits shambles, it means a hell of a lot, and has helped us all get through whilst ignoring what's being said. 2- jeepster are not suddenly rich because of the brit awards. The reported five-fold increase in sales is rubbish. if it were true it would have placed us in the top 30 on the UK chart, we're number 67!! and as regards the two messages i've received saying that congrats on the brits and the evidence that we're loaded can already be seen by the fact that we've bought the www.belleandsebastian.co.uk domain, well that's rubbish too. we bought the domain because the jeepster site was too busy and we get charged excess fees when it's gets too busy, and we simply worked out that the cost of the excess charges was more than the cost of getting a second account, and the second account would distribute the load which then means we don't get charged the excess. it's not that hard to do the maths, we bought the domain because it saves us money, and we're still looking at ways in which we can save, as all indies do. 3- we haven't attempted to alienate any of you, nothing could be further from the truth, what we've done is to try and not alienate you in times of trouble, but it doesn't help to have everyone over-react and not actually ask us what's going on :) 4- i've created a webpage for the bowlie fest, if anyone hasn't yet seen it, you can get to it via the belle and sebastian site or directly by going to http://www.jeepster.co.uk/bowlie/ i hope this message has helped clarify the things on a few people's mind, no doubt a few of you will harbour whatever conclusions you've already reached, but listen now, we've not changed, the band have not changed, no-one is try to alienate anyone or split any community, we're all going to carry on as we have done and continue to help the band and love their music, if you disagree with this, then i'm sorry for that, but there is no room for the indie-schmindie, if you love the music, then you should want the best for the band. cheers david PS: just in case anyone wants to quote me, this message reflects my views and only in part some of jeepster, primarily they should be contributed to me if anyone wants to bring me up on them, but i really wish you wouldn't, we've been defending ourselves against press and rumour for two weeks, we hardly want to start defending ourselves against fans, but then, it looks like that's already happening doesn't it? +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". 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