It is the dream of every Beastie
Boys fan who has his or her own site dedicated to the band:
to be selected to work for the Beastie Boys on the official
website. This dream is one that came true for Ian C. Rogers.
Ian's timing was perfect - still
in college in the mid-1990s, he was working as a website
designer in the fast growing realm of the world wide web.
In 1995, the band noticed his work and invited him to take
up the task of working on the official Grand Royal Beastie
Boys site. Ian also did much of the work on early incarnations
of the Milarepa website.
Along with the official website,
Ian also was involved with the Beastie Boys unreleased cd-rom
from 1994-95 entitled Don't Mosh in the Ramen Shop. Ian,
along with Philip and Peter Fierlinger (who run Turntable.com),
created the critically acclaimed cd-rom; but due to copyright
problems the project was never released. Many fans had the
opportunity to sample the unreleased cd-rom during the 1995
North American Ill
Communication tour.
Probably what Ian will be most fondly
remembered for by fans, was the day to day reports that
he posted online during the Beastie Boys 1998 North American
Hello
Nasty Tour. Each day Ian would give fans an idea
of what happened the night before, by adding digital photos
and reviews of each concert. It was shortly afterwards that
the Beastie Boys website got into a bit of trouble with
Capital Records. The site featured high quality MP3s of
live songs from the 1998 tour, and the record label did
not approve. Ian had been a pioneer when it came to music
on the internet. He was one of the very first people to
use MP3 technology to make downloadable music to accessible
on websites.
To this day, Ian maintains a presence
on the official site's message boards. However, to stay
current with Ian it is a good idea to check out his personal
website from time to time. In addition to his personal site,
there are also two really well written features about him
(check the Relevant Links).
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