Most fan sites are a labor of love, so it’s not a surprise that the average lifespan of your typical fan site is extremely short. All it takes is getting a new job or a change in lifestyle to take away the free time that allows the creators of these sites to provide new content for their readers.

For today’s B List we’ve put together a list of ten sites that are gone but not forgotten. A few of ‘em still exist but aren’t active anymore. Check out our list and then let us know some of your faves from the Jamband Website Graveyard by leaving a comment after the post…

1. Phans.com

While Andy Gadiel’s Phish Page (remember the http://www.cps.msu.edu/~gadielan/phish address??) was the homepage for nearly every Phish fan I knew in the late ’90s, Phans.com was the second best fan site out there for years and years. Combining a message board with surveys, news, phacts of the week and all sorts of other intriguing content, the site provided hours of entertainment for the group’s followers. Site creator Beeno posted something on Phans.com when last year’s Hampton shows were announced, but other than that there’s been no content on the portal.

2. The Greenhaus Effect

Relix/Jambands.com Executive Editor clearly has his hands full running both publications, but before he took on the added responsibilities that come with his current title, he ran a semi-regularly updated blog called The Greenhaus Effect that always had interesting content. Mikey’s prose and work ethic have served as an inspiration to me as I got into the writing game and I always loved reading his first-person accounts on The Greenhaus Effect. Hopefully one day he’ll resurrect the site (hint, hint, hint).

READ ON for eight more sites we wish were still around…

3. strangebase.com

Strangefolk fans Andrew Francke & Jeff Olsen started a small website for the group’s followers to download MP3s of recent performances back in 2001 and it quickly grew to become the premier Strangefolk fan site on the web. Strangebase.com featured photo galleries, audio downloads, news about the band and a message board until it was retired a few years ago.

4. Walfredo.com

Jambands.com’s first Fansite of the Month, Walfredo.com was the rare Phish fansite with a West Coast bias. Adam Berger put the site together shortly after Phish’s two-night stand at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas to profile photos of jambands that his vast network of friends shot as well as the occasional feature, tons of news articles and a fun rumors section. Walfredo.com is still up and running but hasn’t been updated since last year.

5. moelinks.com

Back in the late ’90s, moe. fan Cory Ferber started a website that acted as a portal for fans of the Upstate NY-based band. It hosted audio, photos and setlists and reached a new level when Cory gave the site to a team of three moe.rons that included friend of HT Jesse Jarnow. moelinks actually still exists but makes this list because it hasn’t been updated in years, but was an invaluable resource back in the day.

6.  AOL’s Phish Bowl

Before there was PT, one of the more active Phish-related message boards was housed on AOL in a forum called The Phish Bowl. You could chat with other fans in chat rooms, discuss topics on the message boards and download an assortment of graphics, lists and other Phishy files. My favorite Phish Bowl experience took place during May of 1996 when all of the sudden “mginstudio” entered the chatroom and quickly made it clear it truly was Phish bassist Mike Gordon. Gordo told us all about the recording process and kindly answered any questions thrown his way. 14 years before tDB bassist Marc Brownstein started interacting with fans on Facebook, there was Mike Gordon kibitzing with fans at The Phish Bowl.

7. Rosemary’s Digest and Benjy’s Digest

With Phish’s fanbase expanded exponentially in the mid ’90s – along with the popularity of the internet – the signal to noise ratio on the rec.music.phish newsgroup became heavily weighed towards the noise side of that equation. Fans Rosemary Mackintosh and Benjy Eisen helped the situation by wading through the clutter to find the best posts about the band and emailed a digest of these posts to anyone who wanted to subscribe to the digests.

8. www.eyesoftheworld.co.uk

Based out of Britain, Eyes of the World – or perhaps Franklin’s Tower, I was always confused at which name it wanted to go by – was an oasis for Grateful Dead fans worldwide. The site provided an email newsletter that discussed all of the happenings in the Dead world during the late ’90s and into the ’00s. It also featured an active message board that always had good conversations going on. The site still exists but hasn’t been updated in years.

9. Groove Tube

Phish fan Jonathan Healey started a website called Groove Tube on his Arizona State University webspace that offered video podcasts of Phish performances in 1998 – about a decade before the term video podcast became fashionable. Phish vids were hard to come by at the time, so it was amazing to watch rare footage of the band in action. The Phish organization wasn’t such a big fan of Groove Tube and shut the site down pretty quickly – pretty funny to think about in the age of 100 new Phish videos getting uploaded to YouTube each week. Healey went on to work for jambands.com and was the cinematographer and editor for the Wetlands Preserved documentary.

10.  Pause Record

If there is one site that helped shape my vision of Hidden Track, it was a popular jam site from the early ’00s called Pause Record. Sadly, the Internet Wayback Machine doesn’t show any record of the site, but it featured news, reviews and features about bands from around the jamband scene as well as classic rock groups and even a couple of alt.rock acts. My favorite part of the site was a list of links to content on the web that jam fans would find interesting that was updated on a daily basis. Our Monday’s Hors d’Oeuvres, Wednesday Intermezzo and Friday’s Leftovers columns owe a debt of gratitude to Pause Record.

What were your favorite sites back in the day that aren’t still around? Let us know by leaving a comment below and maybe we’ll make a second list in a few months…

Scott Bernstein

Scott Bernstein co-founded Hidden Track in October 2006 and was managing editor until taking over as EiC in January 2008. Scotty also writes for Relix Magazine and curates YEMblog.com.

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