What Was Once Old Is New Again
- robjanicke
- Jan 26
- 5 min read
Resurecting my first music column from 2004, 'A Steady Diet of Nothing'
A lot has changed simce 2004. I could write several articles describing those changes but that's not what this article is about. Instead, I'm taking this time to look back at one of the coolest opportunities I had as it pertains to my writing...my very first (and only) monthly music column.
Back in what was, especially when looking at it by today's standards, the infancy of the internet, people of certain age groups were just beginning to get a handle on exactly what this new technology was and how best to use it. In the years since, we clearly all know what it is but have largely failed in how best to use it. Have you seen the internet lately??
Anyway, for as long as I can rember, writing was always something I knew I wanted to do. It was a form of expression that just seemed to fit me in all the best ways. I was no older than 12 when I wrote my first batch of poems, songs, and short stories. It was the mid-80s and no one else knew I had this love and/or ability to put pen to paper, but I knew I needed to satisfy the urge and desire to write, so I did. Spiral notebooks, marble notebooks, legal pads, individual sheets of looseleaf, and even the occasional napkin were all fair game for the scribbled versions of what was ruminating around the alleyways in my mind.
By the time the calendar struck 2004, Gen Xers like myself had become at least "workable" with what the internet had to offer at that time. To give a bit of perspective of what the landscape of the internet looked like then, 2004 was the birth of Gmail and Flickr, MySpace was the only social media before the term social media existed, blogging was still incredibly niche and many people still didn't know the term, and a site called TheFacebook (renamed Facebook in 2005) was quietly launched in a Harvard dorm room. We're talking bare-bones people, bare-bones.
The Truth Magazine (dot com) was one of the few websites back then that caught my attention. It was a mix of culture, entertainment, and news that was written in a way that appealed to someone like me. It was funny, sarcastic, at times controversial, and pushed far enough away from the "norm" to hold my interest. When the site mentioned they were looking for a regular music columnist, naturally I threw my proverbial hat into the ring. If memory serves, they published articles sent in by various writers over the course of about a month and said they'd choose one person to give the column to. The winner would be announced in a future edition. To my surprise, when the announcement came, my name appeared in the article.
There was no pay, no expectation of future pay, and this whole internet thing could vanish at any moment as far as I was concerned, but I didn't care. I had my own monthly music column to do with what I wished. It was exhilerating...I was also scared to death!
Since the publisher liked my writing style he said I was free to cover whatever topics I wanted as long as they were related mostly to music and every once in a while, culture. This sounded perfect to ne and I was ready to go. The only thing was, I had to name the column myself. This wasn't easy. I knew it had to be catchy, memorable, and at the very least, somewhat descriptive enough to explain what the column was going to be about. I wanted the readers to have an understanding of what to expect each and every time they read the column. This may sound like an easy enough task, but for me, someone who has to come up with a title before I even begin writing, it was excruciating.
It took days of writing down and crossing off possibilities, none of which I was happy with. Then, like magic, it hit me. Since this was a monthly music column, I wanted to "borrow" a song or album title for the column's name. I went through a quick rotation of some of my favorite bands, especially those with intelligent lyrics and/or clever album titles. What could I find that said what I wanted it to say?
A Steady Diet of Nothing by Fugazi almost instantaneously popped into my head and onto the page of previously failed gibberish. It had it all. The first three words, "A Steady Diet" signified something that was recurring, and the word "Nothing" was self depricating in all the ways many writers tend to be. Not to mention the fact that it's a terrific album from one of my favorite bands. I had my title and the column was ready for primetime.
Two decades (22 years to be exact) have passed since this column began but something happened recently that told me it was time to resurrect it in a new, updated version. As most of you reading this are likely aware, my first book, SLACKER - 1991, Teen Spirit Angst, and the Generation It Created (Inspired Girl Eneterprises/Inspired By You Books 2024) was recently published and is currently in the early stages of being made into a documentray. As wild as that is, I'm also writing a follow up to SLACKER and while doing research for that book, I found a bunch of printed articles from A Steady Diet of Nothing as they appeared on the Truth Magazine website. This discovery led me to reread all the pieces I had found and made me want to recreate the column in a new 2026, social media driven way.
As much as I hate to admit it, people do not read as often as they once used to (or should if I can be so bold). We live in a sound bite society that seems to thrive on titles and headlines more than substance and journalism. I'd like to find a happy medium between the generations because I loved the idea of what A Steady Diet of Nothing was and I'm excited about what the 2.0 version of it can be. I hope you are as well.
My aim is to give you some of the old articles so you can get an idea of the music, culture, attitude, and tone that made the column what it was and recreate it in a style that works in today's quick hitting, written/visual, social media delievry way we've become acustomed to.
Comments