Lurkers no more...

Jamesj75

Well-Known Member
I think we have all noticed a flurry of activity here at the Corner in recent weeks. It is refreshing and satisfying to see the new names posting comments here! Welcome to all! It's further rewarding to read comments from long-term (or even long absent), regular (or semiregular) posters. No doubt, much of that enthusiasm stems from the release of Carpenters With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I believe that this terrific site is enhanced by increased participation and positive interaction. It's great to see the continued appreciation for Carpenters from oldtimers like me as well as all the new and younger voices.

Often a newcomer will mention that he or she has been a long-time lurker and finally decided to post comments. I thought it might be interesting to learn how that transition occurred. I will start...

I am old enough to have heard Carpenters on the radio since "Close to You" and have been a zealous fan ever since. In 1978, a friend told me about the Carpenters Fan Club, so I joined and excitedly received the newsletters in the mail (aka U.S. Postal Service). It's a different world now, of course. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this website, but I am thankful I did. People are welcoming and enthusiastic, and it has brought me continuous joy. I made my first comment here in 2009, after having been a lurker for a couple of years. I had enjoyed viewing the conversation --- and I had learned so much (still do) --- that I felt I wanted to become more active: to add my voice to that discussion. There are many members and moderators who have been here years before I joined, and I appreciate their contributions.

I would be honored to read anecdotes about how you (no matter how long you've been here) learned about this site and decided to make the transition from lurker to poster!
 
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I have been using the forum as a reference for years, and have found the people here to be extremely friendly, as well as knowledgeable of all things Carpenters, a subject that has been near and dear to my heart for almost 40 years now, practically my entire life. I recently started beefing up my album collection and have found the Recording Resource to be invaluable in that process. Yesterday, I was reading through an interesting thread and felt compelled to weigh in, so I signed up. I look forward to many wonderful discussions here with new and old members alike, and hope to make some friends along the way.

People in every day life often consider me to be crazy for being so crazy about Carpenters music, and it is my pleasure to be a part of this jolly nuthouse full of like-minded people.
 
I would be honored to read anecdotes about how you (no matter how long you've been here) learned about this site and decided to make the transition from lurker to poster!

( Excerpt from "About Me" in my profile )
Answers the basic question I think.

This has been a sanctuary for me for the last 10 years. I can read for hours all the great things that a truly dedicated bunch of knowledgeable people have posted. I'm glad that an occasion has finally arrived that the "introvert" finally felt inspired to post! (edit: The pending RPO release excited me to start sharing instead of lurking.) :)

I'm an absolute sucker for melody and a great female vocal, especially from the 70's era. When everyone actually sang and you knew the difference between a great singer and just an entertainer! And there was Karen Carpenter. The most unlikely icon from the 70's, with the voice that got inside my head. I was too young then to realize what the songs meant to me. I just knew I couldn't get enough of that voice. She has soul. She is my pop version of Aretha Franklin. As I got older I really began to care about her and her life. I still enjoy her voice to this day. It's a "Dirty Old Shame" the world lost her at such a young age, and it's a blessing that I can relive the legacy and enjoy the Carpenters music with you all.
 
I'd been a fan of A&M Records going back to the days when Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass was winning Grammys for "A Taste Of Honey". I found a home in the label with acts like Sergio Mendes and later, Carpenters.

My wife and I were both somewhat into personal computers back in 1982 and bought one of the first IBM PCs. It came from the Sears Business Centers (remember them?) and it had two floppy drives and DOS 1.1. By the mid 90s, we'd graduated to a color monitor and the ancient Windows 3.1, if for no other reason than to run the STAR TREK screen savers from "After Dark". There wasn't much merging of any Carpenters passion with computer passion unless you consider that I used the computer to make printed labels for my cassette tape dubs of records that I used in the car.

My online experience started with AOL back in 1994 or so. It was more of an internal AOL thing back then, and I wasn't sure what in the world it was good for. Then I recall people talking about the World Wide Web and thinking that it and AOL were one and the same. Later, when I figured out how to actually get to the World Wide Web and how search engines work, I searched for "Herb Alpert" on something called a "Webcrawler" search. The serach pointed to something called "Rudy's Corner", but when I clicked on the link, whatever browser I was using couldn't access the page.

It wasn't until sometime in August of 1997 that I actually got a "Rudy's Corner" page to display, and I was instantly hooked. Until then, I thought that surely I was the only person in the world that cared anything about Herb Alpert/Lani Hall/Carpenters/Sergio Mendes, etc. What I found was a veritable community of similarly like-minded individuals who shared my odd hobby, at least in one form or another.

I read page after page of the discographies, compared notes on what I had and didn't have, and sent an email to this Rudy person who was looking for something that I had. I got an automated "gone-fishing" reply, but a couple of weeks later got a real reply from a real person!

I'd found the Fan Contact page and posted about my passions there - later discovering the actual Forum where guys like Mr. Bill and Mike Blakesley were discussing things like why the Baja Marimba Band had no CDs and that in fact Sergio Mendes had some import CDs out which I was VERY interested in. I eagerly went to the recommended page (Thoughtscape Sounds) where Mike got his 2 CD UK compilation called THE VERY BEST OF SERGIO MENDES & BRASIL '66 , eagerly ordering a copy for myself.

My first post to that old Forum was about my joy and glee of finally obtaining Herb Alpert & The TJB's "Mexican Drummer Man". And then came the delight at discussing all of our passions and discovering things we never knew existed. Collectively, our little core group knew a lot of information, and by banding together, we all expanded our knowledge of this little record-label hobby of ours, and expanded to our collections as well.

Quite a place, our little A&M Corner, remaining to this day, the first place I go on the web. Once the forum moved to newer software in 2002, it was decided to break it up into separate forums and I suggested that a Carpenters sub-forum might get some action since another Carpenters forum had just shut down. And with the idea of setting up at least a discography, the thing took over a decade, but the Resource was born.
 
Harry's story is similar to mine - one of my first web-searches was for either Herb Alpert or Sergio Mendes, I'm not sure which came first...but they led me to A&M Corner, where I immediately signed up. My first activity here was to fire off a note to Rudy disagreeing with his review of Sergio Mendes' Stillness album. His reply was, go ahead and write your own review then, and we'll post it. Which I did, and I've been here ever since. So I was only a lurker for about 5 minutes, if that!

I got into Carpenters through the back door, so to speak...I liked the song "Close To You" upon first hearing it (and was convinced that Herb Alpert played the trumpet solo, since the song was on A&M Records). But then my two younger sisters started getting into the music too, thanks to the followup hits, so I decided the Carpenters must not be "cool," if the girls liked them. But still, I had to admit, those singles like "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "We've Only Just Begun" were ....well, pretty good. And I enjoyed the uptempo songs like "I Kept On Loving You" and "Love Is Surrender," too, which proved the Carpenters weren't just about ballads. Then along came "Hurting Each Other," which I thought was REALLY good, and the A Song For You album, and it was no use...I had to admit I was hooked.
 
Quite a place, our little A&M Corner, remaining to this day, the first place I go on the web. Once the forum moved to newer software in 2002, it was decided to break it up into separate forums and I suggested that a Carpenters sub-forum might get some action since another Carpenters forum had just shut down.
I met Harry on that other Carpenters forum (called "Road Ode"). A few days after it shut down in 2002, I got an email from Harry, inviting me to come join the new Carpenters forum at A&M Corner. I've been here ever since!
 
Great thread! I joined a few years ago, and I was really pretty active as I delved deep into the various threads and topics. Then in the last year or so, I kind of dropped off the map, and I'm finding myself catching up with all the exciting things going on here.

This really is a great site full of wonderful people, and I wish I could go to the celebration next year, but alas I don't think it's in the cards for me though anything can happen.

As for how I found this site: I was doing a search for information on Karen's drumming, and the threads on here came up in my search.

That was one deep rabbit hole, and I'm glad I jumped.

Thank you for all the work you've put into this forum gentlemen.
 
I actually came across this forum simply by searching `carpenters forum` in the search box and it`s surprising how many sites are out there relating to Karen & Richard, but by a country mile, this is the most active, pretty much most of the others haven't been active for years.
in all honesty, I`ve never really been a big fan of forums, as a lot of misunderstanding happens on most and I generally find that a lot have regular posters who sort of take the high chair and treat it like their own little `gathering`, which is certainly not the case here ....... thankfully.
I think it`s great to be able to share a common interest with others and I`ve certainly learned a lot from here.
great work has gone into this site and this particular forum, so long may it continue, I`m certainly grateful for it :)
 
I stumbled onto this forum looking for info on the unreleased tracks on KC's solo album and unreleased tracks in general by the Carpenters (Buried Treasures threads). I'm not terribly "social"; I am not on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Read many but certainly not all the past threads for the last two months before I decided to officially become a member at the beginning of this month. Certainly the upcoming release was instrumental in causing me to join. Have to give a shout out to Jeff. His sense of humor, his story about meeting Karen. For some inexplicable reason, he drew me in and I overcame my reticence about joining. Now you're stuck with me.
 
The first Carpenters forum I joined was Ran's Carpenters site Road Ode this was during the dial up stage lol. I remember first getting on the net and searching Karen Carpenter photos and stumbled upon this ring of blogs and one of them was Barry Bilicki's (sp?) Carpenters photos. He had thousands of pages and it seemed like everyday or when I could get my dial up to work his site seemed to change and new photos appeared. I thought I struck gold because it was the first time I had ever seen so many photos of Richard and Karen. Before this all I had was the albums and magazines....I can still remember saying to myself WOW look at all these pictures of Karen I've never seen before. It was truly a treasure trove. I remember each page or so had these annoying midi sound files that would always lock up my PC. I was a vicious cycle, the midi would start, then lock up then re-boot, then re-dial up...it was maddening. :laugh:

I was also on Leadsister forum for awhile and now I'm here. This forum has a great group of people and a wealth of valuable Carpenters info. I'm grateful for members here who have opened up their own Carpenters memorabilia and shared with others. Things that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Words cannot express how much that means to me.
 
I stumbled onto this forum looking for info on the unreleased tracks on KC's solo album and unreleased tracks in general by the Carpenters (Buried Treasures threads). I'm not terribly "social"; I am not on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Read many but certainly not all the past threads for the last two months before I decided to officially become a member at the beginning of this month. Certainly the upcoming release was instrumental in causing me to join. Have to give a shout out to Jeff. His sense of humor, his story about meeting Karen. For some inexplicable reason, he drew me in and I overcame my reticence about joining. Now you're stuck with me.
"WELCOME TO THE FORUM RACHEL" as for me I stumbled upon this forum in 2012 when after years of resisting all things online I finally bought my first WiFi tablet ( which now has been replaced by a newer tablet and 2 old but still very functional laptops given to me as Gifts) when I typed in the name Herb Alpert among the many results given to me this forum stood out to me and out of curiosity I clicked in here and I knew I found a group of like minded new friends who enjoyed and appreciated Everything about A&M and other related and unrelated subjects and I was only a lurker for just a few short minutes and now as we are about to enter another new year it's almost been 7 years since I first joined this great forum and To Harry.Rudy Mike,Steve and Even Captain Bacardi ( who has been on hiatus from here and is much missed) it is great staff members like you and all my fellow cornerites that continue to make this place a worthwhile and rewarding place to visit "Let the fun continue"!
 
I've been spending the past few days studying some of the older threads and am so happy to have found this place. I consider myself to be quite knowledgeable about all things Carpenters, but I am truly humbled by how much people here know. I was only 5 years old when Karen busted a hole through the sky on that February day, so I don't have the benefit of having lived through their prime like a lot of people here. It's epically frustrating to have lived just a little more than a stone's throw away from her, yet separated by a lifetime. Being able to discuss her legacy with people here allows some sort of vicarious appreciation and experience where my own state of being born out of time is limiting.

My apologies if my oversharing is awkward. I just wanted to try to convey a little more appreciation for having found this group.
 
Being able to discuss her legacy with people here allows some sort of vicarious appreciation and experience where my own state of being born out of time is limiting.
My apologies if my oversharing is awkward. I just wanted to try to convey a little more appreciation for having found this group.

Couldn't of said it better. Almost exactly how I feel. Welcome Mr. Mister! :wink:
 
Hey All: Had a password malfunction for some months - and thanks to James & Harry & Rudy - I'm back in business!

My story is similar to Harry's in that I was wandering this internet super highway in the mid-90s and found various chatrooms that I occasionally visited. Being a 1960 baby, and probably because my kids & I were big Nick @ Nite Fans, all my 70's connections came back into focus and I enjoyed finding and participating in chatrooms and boards all about some of my earlier 70's obsessions.
The soap, Another World comes to mind... as it was being cancelled and in the late 90's there were numerous on line sites and pages dedicated to saving the program...
That got me thinking that there had to be be a Carpenters locale...
First, there was Newville Avenue, then I think that disbanded... Somehow, some way - I followed a link to take me here. Initially, I remember it said that the Carpenters forum would be "here soon"... and one could only find Carpenter nuggets on the main A&M page...
Eventually, voila! A Song For You was here! So - I may be one of the earlier members - although, admittedly, not as consistent as I would like to be.
Aside from the few months my password was in limbo, I travel a lot and work offers ebbs and flows in terms of free time to mingle with web pages... FB has a few groups I also have joined, but by far, this forum has been a source of great detail, highly educated and informed Carpenters enthusiasts, and conversations which have both enlightened and been a great source of introspection.
During my teenage years, frankly, there just weren't many outlets available that helped moody adolescents trying to find their way through what we go through with peers, parents and the simple reality of growing up. Until some of the 'conversation starters' on this forum, primarily about the actual music, I guess I really wasn't aware how much my own little corner of pop culture immersion actually became a lifeline to sanity and self-preservation.
Karen's sound, coupled of course with Richard's remarkable arrangements, touched my soul - in ways that would typically be hard to explain to most. But not here! That's the beauty of this place!
Finally, I never thought I'd actually find 'real friends' on a web page! There are a couple folks, and you know who you are, that have become what I feel are life-long friends - all initiated through the spirit of loving a common source of beautiful energy and amazing talent: Those two kids from Downey, Karen & Richard Carpenter.
Been a while - so my apologies for the lengthy diatribe!
Kudos & many thanks to the originators, and moderators of this page. And long live the legacy of Carpenters!
 
I remember first getting on the net and searching Karen Carpenter photos and stumbled upon this ring of blogs and one of them was Barry Bilicki's (sp?) Carpenters photos. He had thousands of pages and it seemed like everyday or when I could get my dial up to work his site seemed to change and new photos appeared. I thought I struck gold because it was the first time I had ever seen so many photos of Richard and Karen. Before this all I had was the albums and magazines....I can still remember saying to myself WOW look at all these pictures of Karen I've never seen before. It was truly a treasure trove.

I was also on Leadsister forum for awhile and now I'm here.

I remember all those sites. I was amazed by Barry Bilicki’s site, which featured dozens and dozens of pages of photos I had never seen before. Back in the late 90s, when the internet was only just becoming mainstream, this was a revelation to me. I was in awe of all the pictures that were new to me, from every stage in their career.

From there I ended up being a regular poster on Leadsister as well as this site and was sad when Pamela sold the Leadsister site on. I never went back but had lots of online friends there including Annie, Chris Tassin, Pimmitje, Karly and Bruce (who went on to get married after initially meeting online) and Linda - who introduced them, and who I understand is attending the 50th anniversary event next year.
 
This is a very nice trip to memory Lane. I was an adolescent when I started logging on back during the dial-up days. I was in middle school and I remember spending hours looking at Barry’s photo site so enchanted seeing so many pictures of my favorite stars. I met some really cool people, I guess One cannot really say met, That I would talk to over email and they will never forgets that because I became a fan during the time that many of the albums were out of Print, one nice fan made me a copy of passage on CD-r which was a brand new technology at the time.

I was also part of the leads sister group, even though Stephen forgot to put my name on the list. :wink:. Through that website I may be acquaintance of some great people. Though I think I am most satisfied today with this site because the people here really love the music and I can tel through that website I may be acquaintances of some great people. Though I think I am most satisied today with the site because the people here really love the music .
 
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