My first reviews were written in Dutch for the magazine, but soon I also started to write in English, both for the Gibraltar digest and for my self developed web page. At this time, there were no samples yet. The samples came, if I remember correctly, together with the release of Collage. This album was so good, that I wanted to let people hear how it sounded (or maybe some people asked me for samples, I can't remember).
The Caramba magazine I think never placed any of my SI Music reviews, only The Noise by Peter Hammill and a review of the first Poisoned Electrick Head album. It took years to get my Landmarq booklet back. (But I finally did get it back. Thanks Paul.)
Most of the stuff I got came directly from SI Music. This was not bad, although I guess it did give me a neo-lover stamp (something which may have led people in for instance the US not to take me too seriously), but my tastes have never really been focussed on any particular subgenre. Still, the review copies I did get were mostly considered neo. SI Music also did distribution for many other bands and labels and so if they got any promotional copies for a disc, I also got them. In fact, they were the only ones you could go to in the Netherlands for prog, but they did carry almost everything there was.
Things started to change when SI Music went down the drain. I had just done an interview with Damian Wilson at SI Headquarters and thinks were looking fine and then....I never heard from them again. I did not feel too good about that, but it simply happened this way. Lots of rumours were going around and it is still difficult to say what is right and what is wrong. So there went the mag, there went the label and in its place came iO Pages. (For which I was later asked to participate. I accepted.)
My membership of iO Pages did not have a strong influence on my reviewing although at first I did review things I got from iO Pages (I do not do this anymore, trying to keep them separate). What it did do was to enable me to do many more interviews than I had previously done. With the help of SI I got to the Uden festivals and I did my share of interviews (Pallas, IQ, Jadis), but things really got started while working with iO Pages. The direct reason for me joining iO Pages is the first interview I had done with Peter Hammill, since they wanted to use it.
In 1998 (or was it 1997 Michael?), Michael Zeisel from Germany asked me if I wanted him to update the looks of my page. He liked the contents, but after all these years of service it was definitely looking as if made during the Dark Ages. Incorporating a menu and making some artwork was done and there it was: the new and updated version. And the name change also occurred here: from the self-righteous Jurriaan Hage's Progressive Rock Pages to the Axiom Of Choice homepage. I've left a few pointers to the old name since many know the pages by that name.
Along the way I did change some things: I incorporated a "world-wide" second hand recordshop list. Being interested in buying a lot of stuff and hence buying it cheaply I'm always looking for these shops when I visit a city I don't know (and going back to the shops I know when I visit them again.
Gibraltar also changed along the way, going from one person to the next. Now, in 1999, Gibraltar is back on track and publishing my reviews once again. But who knows when this may again change.
Highpoints during my still short career I think are the interviews with Peter Hammill and of course Robert Fripp. I'm still looking forward to interviews with Robert Wyatt, Marillion, and well many more. Some people I would have loved to interview, Geoff Mann being a case in point, but unfortunately it will never come to that.
With my site now moved to Utrecht and a totally different structuring of the information, a new chapter has begun.
A small note about my reviews. You can be sure that my tastes have changed over the years and I hope you understand that I cannot constantly update my views on all those discs. I think the term coined in rmp by someone, tentative reviews, applies everywhere and so here as well. If you are curious to any idea I might have about albums not in my review list it never hurts to e-mail me. I think I've yet to refuse answering an e-mail, although sometimes I simply do not know what to say.
Since June 2006, we have stopped taking in cd's for review. In a few weeks, I will regard cd's coming in for review as presents to do with what I please. There some 90 discs still to do, but after that no reviews will be added. I think the site will exist for some time, and if it doesn't I'll find a home for these reviews somewhere.
Thanking people is a good way of closing down: thanks Roberto for sitting in with many of the interviews, thanks Michael for helping me artworking this page. Thanks iO for contributing review CDs during my first period with you and thank you record companies and bands for sending in news and review copies. And thank you system administrators everywhere for tolerating me.