Introduction to hEARd

See also - Agenda / Review Policies / F.A.Q.

Welcome to hEARd, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of new music of all types, whether commercially available or produced by unsigned artists & bands.

History -

hEARd began life in late 1994 as a photocopied newsletter, typed up with a word processing package & with the CD covers photocopied & stuck on before the final copies were made. Originally only 5 or six pages an issue, hEARd was produced monthly & distributed to local record stores.

In mid 1995, significant investment was made into new equipment & a full, professionally laid out & printed magazine consisting of 20 pages per month & full of commercially released CD reviews, reviews of demos by unsigned bands, band profiles, gig news , interviews with bands & other content. The hEARd internet site was online at the same time. Late 1995 saw the local HMV Music store pick up as the major sponsor, with the company contributing the entire cost of printing, while asking for some editorial content in each issue.

This change of circumstances & the new look of the paper edition saw hEARd being requested to provide it's content on the Educate.BBS system, a local 10 line BBS which provides free access to online material & is available free to anyone with a computer & a modem. Educate.BBS has a remarkably active number of users & hEARd continues to provide information to it, as well as assisting with the development of the BBS itself.

1996 was an unusually busy year, with hEARd's reputation as a reliable source for information on new music growing & features in Internet.au & Australian Net Guide magazines as well as a flood of requests for links to the site & a change in the look & feel of the site. September 1996 saw HMV pull out of it's sponsorship commitments, with the subsequent lack of funds bringing hEARd's paper edition to a close, though leaving more time to concentrate on the online version of hEARd.

In April 1997, hEARd was featured as site of the week on the cool Saturday morning ABC TV program Recovery, which saw a flood of new readers discover the site. 1997 was also the year in which hEARd pciked up a number of sponsors, including Apple Computer Australia, Claris Software Australia (now Filemaker Pro Inc.), Netscape Communications Australia & OzEmail Internet, Australia's largest ISP.

hEARd provides content to numerous publications & sites, in the past providing content for OzEmail's now defunct 'Webshow'. We hope to see the regional & edcational projects, despite slow uptake, get additional coverage & provide the potential both projects hold.

Also in the pipeline is the hEARd 'Inbound Sounds' compilation CD, which will feature 15 unsigned bands, plus a CD ROM component containing 'mini websites' from each band, as well as MP3 tracks from each band.

So, that brings you up to date. Hopefully the above answers the majority of questions you may have about hEARd & it's operations. Should you require further information, please email & your questions will be answered to the best of hEARd's abilities.