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Beware the ides of March!

This is a copy of a message I sent to my Dixie Chicks "press contacts"...
update your bookmarks. And keep an eye out for my next message -- I'll be
adding three new pages to the site:

* The final Chick Chat before Laura Lynch left the group! My wife found it
in the closet and said, "Honey, did you know this was here?"

* A transcript of the April 1999 Seventeen magazine interview with the "New
Chicks." It fills in another piece of the puzzle surrounding Laura's
departure and Natalie's arrival. Next time you're at the checkout, you
might grab a copy... it's the one with "Exclusive Dixie Chicks Interview"
on the cover.

* Find out what Sony management thinks of the "All-Inclusive Dixie Chicks
Page" in their own words! As noted in Stacy's Music Row Report, I got a
note decrying my site for "not supporting the Chicks' career." See if you
agree with their assertions!


Here's my "press release" -- if I may call it that:

- - - - -
Well, it was too good to last, I guess. After a two-month run at
www.dixiechicks.com, my "All-Inclusive Dixie Chicks Page," still the only
source on the 'net for the full and complete history of country music's
hottest group, has been forced to relocate to new digs at a slightly less
prestigious address:

http://dixiechicks.mixedsignal.net/

Obviously, the Dixie Chicks (and their personal managers, Senior
Management) have a trademark in their name, and dixiechicks.com was not
going to be a long-term home for my site. I wish the Dixie Chicks well and
hope that their future web site is as unique and successful as the Chicks
themselves. My own site is now hosted by Mixed Signal Solutions
(http://www.mixedsignal.net/), a high-quality provider of ISDN and ADSL
connection services to small office/home office subscribers in Chicago's
western suburbs.

I wish I had "the scoop" on exactly how the "dixiechicks.com" domain
changed hands, because it looks like an interesting story. I can give you
the highlights if you're curious, though:

In December 1997 -- before the Dixie Chicks were a household word --
Pacific Internet Designs (http://www.pidesigns.com/) was going to create
the official Dixie Chicks site and registered dixiechicks.com with
InterNIC. That's not free, you know... but when the Chicks hit big,
Pacific Internet Designs' Phil Casella was left in the cold, and
dixiechicks.com pointed to a page that said simply, "This directory is not
public".

A year later, without much explanation offered or requested, Phil Casella
graciously offered me the use of his server to host my own site at
dixiechicks.com. It went live on January 13, 1999, and the results were
fantastic! According to the main page's hit counter, the site got 900 hits
a day just by being at this prime address. By early March, the site had
been listed on all the "portal" sites and was racking up over 1,400 hits a
day. My update list blossomed to almost 300 members, and the site was
riding high.

But on March 3, someone posted a note to a public Dixie Chicks discussion
forum saying that big changes were in store at dixiechicks.com. A week
later, that prediction came true. With only a day's warning, ownership of
dixiechicks.com was transferred from Pacific Internet Designs to Senior
Management... and 1,400 visitors a day are now treated to a "403: Access
Forbidden" page at Nashville-based web host Telalink.

Other notes of interest: the billing contact for dixiechicks.com is now
Simon Renshaw, the Senior Management representative who was CC'd on my
"Cease And Desist" letter regarding .mp3 samples of the original Dixie
Chicks sound. And the official owner has recently been changed from Senior
Management to the Dixie Chicks themselves.

Please feel free to contact me at robertb@... -- for obvious
reasons, my dixiechicks.com address is no longer valid -- if you have any
questions about this transition. It was a great ride at dixiechicks.com,
and I am very thankful to have had such a unique opportunity to spread the
word about the facinating history of the Dixie Chicks.

Thank you for your time, and good luck!

--
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--
(Please note the new geocities.com email address!)
Robert Brooks / robertb@...
http://dixiechicks.mixedsignal.net/ -- the complete history
Part of the world's largest computer: http://www.distributed.net/


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