the idea came for the first ever micromeeting shortly after i met carl in real life for the first ever time. he had to decided to come to london and i had decided to go to luton to meet him. i told him "i'll be wearing a yellow tshirt and pink sneakers" and he said "i'll be wearing black."

i had been spending hours up until that point talking to "my friends" online, yet i had not met any of them face to face. this was going to be the first time. it was back in 2000 - back when meeting off the internet was still a bit weird and strange. and all i remember from the initial moments in the meeting with carl was that he spilt beer down himself in the voyager bar at luton airport. during the short time though that carl spent in london we discussed how it would be if more people met up through micromusic on a larger scale. so i suggested to carl that we announce a meeting in london in a couple of months time and we see what happens. we were both a bit worried - what if all the micromusic people were loser nerd freako geeks? what if no-one came and we were left on our own?

luckily for us, they weren't and we weren't lonely. carl advertised the micromusic meeting in london and first of all we heard from drx in germany who wanted to come immediately. he was curious about the change of online friendships to offline friendships. he had also never flown before. the date for the micromusic meeting came and carl [who had come back to london again for the meeting] and i trundled down to heathrow to meet drx for the first time. for me meeting drx was a really special moment - he was probably the guy i had spent the most time talking to in microtalk and we are also label mates [his band bodenstandig 2000 had also released and album on rephlex about the same time as me.] this time we sat in a cafe at the airport to "meet" and compose ourselves. there was an exchange of gifts between carl and drx. and carl and i soon learnt that drx had never drunk alcohol before - there was no moving to the airport bar that day. back at home where both stayed, i offered drx some baileys. which he said was like drinking chocolate soya milk.

that weekend the time came for the actual official meeting. it wasn't even called that though, we had no idea it would be the first, at that stage it could have been the only. we met in a pub called the red lion at 41 hoxton street n1 6nh. why i picked there i have no clue. but it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. [more on that in a moment.] carl, drx and i sat at our little table and watched the door for people to come in looking for us. i think carl was wearing a micromusic tshirt. flymo came along - he is famous for having the track that was always stuck playing on the login page for a long time before everyone realised there was a mistake with the code at micromusic.net. also cylob turned up. droidboiler made it. asa came - a german girl who was living in london at the time. jk [from floppy swap] arrived with his friend who didn't have a login name at that time. kri5 was curious enough to come along to the meeting too. and we sat around tentatively trying to talk to each other. which was the hardest thing to do? none of us really knew what to do without the interface of the website to assist us. we all kind of said at the same time "i really feel like i should be typing." we continued to use our login names offline. it didn't even occur to us that these made up names could sound ridiculous. our difficulty relaxing wasn't helped by the fact a scotsman in a kilt turned up and was playing 45's really loudly that day. we decided to switch bars. we just moved up the road to the electricity showrooms where there was no noise, more space for the growing gathering and more space for droidboiler to teach drx how to moonwalk. and maybe the name and the led lights inside was a bit more fitting to who were all were.

jk's friend went around interviewing everyone. his notes looked like alphabet soup. jk was wearing a wicked fymo badge his girlfriend had made of a tiny floppy disk. carl took pictures with his polaroid camera. by the end of it we were talking about doing it again, maybe organising something else - like our own night with our own dj's. who knew... then after some rounds and when everyone had said goodbye, carl, drx, cylob and i went along to brick lane and stuffed ourselves with curry. drx really likes hot dishes - the ones that blow his head off.

when i think back about this first meeting now: i see how awkward we were to relate without the world wide web between us, and how different micromusic.net would be today if we had never met offline, how "innocent" we all were then - little did we realise that by 2005 the number of micromusic.net registered users would explode to over 10,000 world wide and still continue to grow. i don't think carl, wanga and super_b who founded the site ever imagined in their wildest dreams the offline community that would grow from their online project. and this is what i think is the strongest and most compelling aspect to micromusic.net - the thing that makes this online community so unique - is that it also exists offline so successfully. i don't know any other website that do this. i also think that even though micromusic.net notably a computer based project - drawing people together to communicate with computers - which can be viewed as a really clinical environment and sometimes you end up asking yourself "am i talking to a bot?" "are these people real?" it also has be recognised that in this new media age, micromusic.net has also created the offline environment to stop interacting with computers, to be creative with them and "obsolete" computers, review old toys and technology in a different way and making them human again and allowing people to communicate creatively with these things, rather than letting the machines dictate to them. socio-behavioural-political-stuff!

who knew!!