Happy Birthday! Three is a Magic Number!

Rock and roll can change your life.It’s hard to believe that we’ve been doing this for three years. The big news this year is that we’re having a real birthday party. It’s very important that everyone comes to this or else we may never get to have another one! The other reason it’s important is that we are donating all of our profits from the event to the Elliott Smith Foundation, which helps abused children. So bring everyone you know. It’s a good cause.

The details:

• Friday, February 20, 2004 • 9pm.

Beat Kitchen • 2100 W. Belmont, Chicago • Map

• Three great bands: The Millions, Riviera, and Quasar Wut-Wut

• Readings between the sets • lots of giveaways…

• $8 • 21+

So come on out. It’ll be a great time.


And thanks, everybody, for three years of great interaction. The participation of the readers is what makes Glorious Noise worth doing. It’s also what sets us apart from a lot of other sites out there. Our readers are smart, fairly well-behaved, and surprisingly good looking!

It’s funny to look back at the stuff from when we first started out. We seemed to have been very concerned about Britney Spears back then. I think I freaked out my friends when I started wearing a bootleg Britney shirt that I got off ebay. They were ready to have an intervention, I think. I stopped wearing it when someone pointed out that I just looked like a creepy old pervert in it, ho ho. Truth hurts.

We had our first birthday a week after we celebrated getting 30,000 unique visitors. It took us an entire year to attract the same number of people who stumbled across GLONO this week searching for “Janet Jackson’s breast” (no shit, I’m serious).

By the time of our second birthday, we were already taking ourselves very seriously. We are, after all, professionals. We promised you that a redesign would be trickling in. Well, it took an extra year, but here it is and it’s still not finished. Let us know what you think of it. The main idea was to improve the readability, so let us know if it’s easier on your eyes. Also, not to get too geeky on you, but we’ve only tested it on a limited number of browsers and operating systems, so if something doesn’t look right, let us know.

So thanks again, everybody, for spending part of your busy day with Glorious Noise. We really do appreciate it.

And to all you lurkers, who have been faithfully reading but have never posted, I’m calling you out. Don’t be afraid. We’re nice. And if any motherfucker is mean to you, the GLONO Posse will ride them out of town on a rail. So get in here and speak up.

“Free your mind and your ass will follow.” — Funkadelic

Very special thanks to Kenan Hebert of Gigantic for helping to choose the perfect link color. Also, The Morning News, Zeldman, Gawker and other nicely designed sites for some inspiring ideas and tips!

15 thoughts on “Happy Birthday! Three is a Magic Number!”

  1. Huzzah! Happy Birthday, GLONO!

    I’m happy to have been here for the long haul… Hell, when I started here pretty much everyone that looked at the site were my friends, so I didn’t even bother coming up with a clever screen name. Now there are a LOT more people around, which basically means I’ve got more friends. Word up to all of you.

    Seriously digging the redesign… I’m going to assume you’re working on a new navigational header that’s just not in yet? As it is, it’s downright spartan. Gotta get something sharp up there. I also vote for pushing the “board”section of the right column above the fold, but I dunno – maybe most ppl don’t use that like I do as the main means of tracking board action.

    The new background is very nice. The link color *is* perfect – how did Kenan to that? Nicely done, everyone – pat yourselves on the back.

  2. Looking sharp, GloNo! Dig the redesign (tho I agree w/Josh about the header). Now my eyeballs won’t have to reset after reading.

    I, like Joshua, started out pretty early on w/GN, and I’m amazed at the consatantly-improving quality and the super freaky readers/members. We rock…hard.

    Hail, hail spit ‘n drool!

  3. Happy Birthday GLONO! We’re out of the terrible twos, haha.

    Redesign is pretty, but I still prefer the glaringness of the old one. Maybe because I could look at it for hours of reading archives and not get eyestrain. Ah, youth. And I definitely agree, the header needs a little pizazz. Bring back the old pop-up for the reviews section that said ‘opinions are like assholes – see ours’. It always made me chuckle.

    But yeah, here’s wishing the best for GLONO, more great articles, members and of course MUSIC, and a great year until the fourth birthday.

    – Katrina

    PS. I can’t make it to the party! Bummer. Probably wouldn’t have been allowed in anyways. Have fun though guys, and make sure there’sa load of great stories to share with the rest of us poor schleps! I’m out!

  4. that problem with the mac is alos a problem in mozilla on a pc. the comments spill onto the outside orange background. that is not cool. please rectify this promptly.

  5. Shit. I tested it on Mozilla 1.1 and it worked fine. Now I just downloaded Firebird 0.7 and I’m getting the same bug. I’m trying to figure it out but if anybody’s got ideas, please tell me.

  6. Quoth Jake: “And if any motherfucker is mean to you, the GLONO Posse will ride them out of town on a rail.”

    Oooops, I’m sorry for being mean to the Grey Does Matter fan club. Please don’t ride me out on a rail!!

    Happy birthday GloNo. You guys really should be proud of the site you’ve built up. It’s definitely my favorite corner of cyberspace, hands down. And it’s truly a tragedy you guys couldn’t have scheduled the birthday celebration for sometime like, oh, JULY!!! ;-)

  7. Happy birthday, GloNo! Seconds on Murphy’s “favorite corner of cyberspace” applause – it’s a great classroom for music journalism. I’m glad to be part of it all – now blow out those candles in style!

  8. First time seeing the new design…

    It looks good except there is a problem in Mozilla FireFox (v0.8). The menu column is being pushed too far to the right.

    In your CSS, under the Menu ID, try changing position:relative

    to position: absolute

    That worked for me when I used my fancy “edit CSS bookmarklet.”

    Oh my God, I’m really sounding like a geek now.

  9. Happy Birthday GloNo! Wish I could be in Chicago for the party.

    The layout looks great now. Good job going with a CSS positioned design!

  10. Happy, happy GloNo!

    My own e-newsletter-turned-blog is celebrating its 7th anniversary this month and your party’s on my actual b-day. Wish I could make it…How cold is Chicago in February, anyway? Ha!

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