I have been making remixes for myself since my teens using cassette, reel-to-reel, CD-Rs and now digital files. Back in 2006--maybe even 2005--I discovered a website called RealWorldRemixed.com, which offered not only downloads of discreet instrument track files of original songs on Peter Gabriel's label Real World, but also posting of fan remixes. I don't remember how I found SoundCloud.com in the first place, but I do recall that I encountered it only after I created a WordPress.com site in the spring of 2010, solely as a means of distributing/promoting my mixes beyond the Real World web site (SoundCloud is expressly set up for musicians/DJs to promote their craft). When SoundCloud offered an easy link with tumblr.com in the fall of 2010, I clicked on that link as I had nothing better to do at the time. For a long while I found tumblr interesting, but not captivating. Nowadays, tumblr is both interesting and captivating, far more so than this here "book" has ever been. It has even led me to those fabled oddities, the internet-only friends.
Almost as advertising copy, I must stress the wonderful photography, particularly of enchanting places around the globe, with which tumblr overflows. There are also strong international and political components to it, and I believe it was through seeking out blogs dealing with "Chile" that I began to find intellectually challenging and enriching news and opinion on an ever-widening range of topics. What began for me as little more than another means of professional self-promotion [solemn music swells gently out of the background], became both a lot of fun, and a social and political link with people I treasure yet have never met.
Basically, what it boils down to is, on tumblr you want to search for keywords you find of interest, and then follow the blogs which offer multiple, satisfactory results. It was only through building up a group of interesting blogs to follow that I really began to enjoy tumblr. That took, and takes, a fair amount of weeding.
