5h was born at the end of 1995, on a cold winter's night on IRC, when I was bitching to Andy Dunn (yet again) about a certain Pearl Jam site never being updated, despite my diligent listens to shows and catches of set list mistakes. We talked and talked and talked, and finally I said, ya know, we could do this ourselves. We could do a Pearl Jam page that *we* want to see. Talk about famous last words....Email was sent out to the most likely suspects, and to my surprise everyone said "yes".
I forget what our original "target date" was now. I remember sitting on line for Smashing Pumpkins tickets -- outside, in January, in the SNOW -- with Andy, working on a site structure. I've got a box full of about 2mb of email that went back and forth, ideas, concepts, suggestions. Carl dropped out early on due to lack of online access at school and life pressures. The four of us continued. We hoped for an August launch date. Andy dropped out for similar reasons a few weeks before launch.
The site went live not long before Jean and her husband flew out here for the first PJ show of the 1996 tour at Key Arena. I remember sitting at my desk at work, watching the hits roll in. Every new domain was fascinating, every IP address was traced back to its source. Wow, people are actually LOOKING at this! =)
A year later, there's only two of us left, and we're still alive! We have no plans to quit any time in the near future. We're desperately in need of unlimited server space (if you own your own web server or ISP and want to help us out, please email us), but even if we have to pay for it ourselves(as we are now), we're not going anywhere any time soon.
When we first launched Five Horizons, we had absolutely no intention of updating the site weekly, let alone daily. We saw it as a fairly static project that we'd update when we felt like it. We didn't realize we'd feel like updating it every HOUR during tour season. But like all art, it took on a life of its own. And we found out other people cared as much about what we were trying to do as we did. This is our way of saying that your support, contributions and email make all the difference in the WORLD.
So, have a piece of virtual birthday cake on us. It's been one hell of a year. Here's to the next one.
Love,
Jean & Caryn
From the Five Horizons scrapbook....
Five Horizons Seattle Headquarters, with html coder Majestik Moose at work. He went on strike for better conditions and now has a Dell P133 with a 17-inch monitor.
Our Missouri satellite office, showing the staff, headed by Carmel the Cat (shown), hard at work. International Horizons
We are particularly amazed and honored by the foreign visitors to 5h! Pearl Jam fans from over 70 countries (besides the US and Canada) have visited our site, including: Africa, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Nambia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia! (If your country isn't on this list, let us know!) This is a testament to the fact that PJ is a band loved around the world.We were also honored by our inclusion in a recent Kerrang! (UK metal magazine) article on web sites for bands:
and thanks to....
We don't normally thank the people who are always there, in the background, offering support and hugs to us while we're working on this web page. Their contributions are not always tangible, but we couldn't do it without them, so props go out to:Caryn would like to thank: Seth, Andrea, Geoff, Shroom, Dena, ecg, Mari & RJ for the tix and companionship at Randall's Island, Matt Cameron, James the poster guy, Rock Memories, Addicted to Noise, Intermind for the great deal on the equipment, and the Who, Prince, Neil Young, Soundgarden and (of course) PJ for the continuing 5h soundtrack. Thanks of course to PJ for being there. Finally, super hugs and love to Jean, for being the best pal a girl could EVER have...and thanks "also for rain, sea and much summer thunder".
Jean would like to thank: all the cats, the hummingbirds, my previous job for providing wonderful technology and the training to use it, Tony for being willing to give me up while I slave over the computer and rewind tapes over and over trying to figure out what in the world Eddie is saying between songs, Matt, Matt and Woody for being my local PJ pals and great sources of music and PJ trivia, and all of the RELEASE fanzine guys for their support and friendship. And thanks to Caryn for everything. If she hadn't gotten me into this, I wouldn't have had the skills I needed to get a new job; she is a wonderful friend.
our love and thanks to absent friends
Copyright © 2004 Five Horizons