The Chicago contingent of the Glorious Noise posse. Update: a few more photos, this time from the Blue Ribbon Brothers show at the Edgewater Lounge. [Full disclosure: Derek Phillips (a.k.a. Phil) is both a contributor to Glorious Noise as well as a member of the BRB, and by the way, they’re playing Saturday, the 26th, at the Beat Kitchen – ed.]

Today is when many of us make New Year’s resolutions, intentions to change our behaviors for purposes of improvements in the days, weeks, and months to come.

A new year engenders the idea that we should have a new commitment, a fresh new sense of advancement and idealism.

So we quit smoking. Start a diet. Give up on expensive beverages at Starbucks.

Then, around 3 pm on January 2nd, reality kicks in. Although we have “quit” smoking, we find ourselves feverishly ripping the foil off of a pack of Camels, rather than the Winstons we typically buy, thereby making up for lost nicotine. We somehow end up at the Hostess Outlet Store, stocking up on boxes of nearly expired but nonetheless tasty Twinkies. We’re then at the counter of Starbucks, not just upsizing the double mocha with extra whipped cream and raspberry topping from a grande to a venti, but actually buying two, even though we are (1) alone and (2) not particularly thirsty.

So in light of this, we at GloNo have a request to make of you loyal readers:

Please resolve to tell no one about Glorious Noise.

That’s right, become mute. Tomb-like. Keep it a secret between you and we.

Sure, we know that you probably enjoy sharing some of the observations that you find here on a decreasingly irregular basis, the cracks, critiques and occasional kudos related to people in and around the Music Industry. But as you ring in the New Year tonight (and remember when discharging a handgun toward Jupiter that whatever goes up must come down, so why don’t you skip that and simply deploy some of those unlistened-to CDs that your parents and well-meaning coworkers bought you for Christmas, instead), resolve to tell no one.

You see, we’re trying to figure out how to get more people to visit, so we figure that with this approach we might make the server strain a circuit by about 7 pm on the 2nd (by then, most hangovers should be dispersed).

One more thing: We would like to remind you that if you drink, don’t tell your friends what you really think about their music collection.

Thank you.

I hope everybody had a merry Christmas and got all the presents you wanted. I got some great stuff including the new CCR box (which is amazing) and Joel Whitburn‘s Top Pop Singles 1955-1999 (which I’ve been wanting forever). I also got a phat digital camera so expect some cool photo features in the new year.

In the message boards, people are talking about their favorite Christmas songs. I like “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys. Join in!

We uploaded a bunch of great new songs to the GLoNO radio station, so be sure to check them out. You can go here if you’ve got a broadband connection and here if you’re using a modem. Good, old Live365 is still hanging in there, so if you can deal with the ads, you can hear some great tunes by the likes of Quiet Riot, the Modern Lovers, James Brown, Ron Wood, Quasar Wut-Wut and lots more.

So have a happy new year everybody. Don’t forget to take your Goody’s and BC Powder before you go to sleep! You’ll thank me in the morning.

Well, it looks like we did it. Another monumental milestone in the history of our little website: 20,000 visitors. We here at Glorious Noise would like to thank you all for stopping by. We’d especially like to thank all of the people who check in on the site every day and contribute comments to the Discussions and Message Boards. And all the great sites out there that link to us. We really do appreciate it.

It seems like only yesterday that we hit 10,000. And it wasn’t too long before that that we started this whole thing. We will be celebrating our first anniversary on February 6, and the fact that people are reading our stuff makes us feel like what we’ve been doing has been a worthwhile way to spend our time.

Thanks again, everybody. We love you all. Drinks! For all my friends!

Okay, that’s a lie. We don’t have anything to do with the Great Radio Satan. But we did dump a bunch of tracks from our playlist, most of which happened to be rap tunes. (This struck me as decidedly KKKorporate, hence the phony headline.)

But there was actually a good reason, three good ones in fact. First, rap sounds like shit over the Internet due to the inherent lack of fidelity. Second, well, we are trying to keep the music mix a bit more focused on rock, alternative, non-mainstream, punk, indie, alt-country, and roots music. Why? I don’t know, that’s what most of us here seem to be into. So as much as I love Ice Cube and Eminem, they’re 5000. Go ahead and criticize me in the comments if you want.

The third, and most important reason, is that we’ve got new material! GSV has submitted about 10 new tracks, including songs from the always amazing Jack Bruce, heavy pioneers Spooky Tooth, and a great number from, get this, Daryl Hall.

Check out the radio station with those handy links on the right, and go attack the bulletin board for suggestions, requests, comments, and criticism.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world,

Jeff Sab, GloNo Radio co-station manager

[We’ll be updating the radio playlist about every two weeks, so keep tuning in to let us know what you think – ed.]