A bit about Anthegenia Records.

Lately, I've been testing out Drupal 5.0 for the Anthegenia Records website I'm making. Since there really aren't any good themes out there for Drupal 5.0 yet, it looks quite ugly so far. >.> But I think I could still do the backend pretty well... I already know components I want the site to have:

1) News/blog type posts about new music Jon and I are listening to, updates on our original music projects, concerts we've been to and so on. These will be posted only by us, but commentable by authenticated users.

2) A forum for people interested in the music we create and/or the music we're interested in. All users with valid accounts will be able to participate in these. I haven't tried Drupal's forum module yet, but if it's anything like the rest of Drupal it should have tons of options for moderating the forum without me worrying it'll be overrun by trolls.

3) (my favorite part so far) A list of our whole CD collection! This will be a custom content node created with various Drupal modules, and thus the most complex part. I'll have a new type of node called "album" that'll let Jon or I enter information for an album, then post our reviews and impressions of the album as comments. This part of the site will only be editable by Jon and me, though all users will be able to see it.

4) Haven't thought of other parts yet! Profiles, maybe... the profile module lets you add pretty much any fields you wish, which is awesome. Potentially an image gallery, though I hate to put pictures of myself online >.> And undoubtedly I'll need some part of the site to put samples of our music online.

I think Anthegenia Records so far is going to mostly just be the CD collection and posts. We still have a while to go financially until we can get all the instruments and software we need to record to our liking. Jon is doing the sound engineering side of things, as well as bass guitar (of course), possibly guitar parts as well, and drum programming (since we don't have a drummer on hand, and gah, drum kits are expensive!) I'm going to be contributing with keyboards / piano parts, as well as my favorite: vocals! I love to sing even more than I love to play the piano. I don't know whether my voice is GOOD though, which is why I am eager to record... that way I can hear for myself and improve my technique that way.

I'm still quite a bit shy about my singing voice, too. The rare times I DO sing, people have always liked it. And this is not just a recent thing -- it's been as far as my childhood that people have told me I have a good singing voice. In my best of moods I can admit it to myself as well. I like to sing with depth and soul. I don't do fragile girlish voices, not unless that's the effect I'm trying for. I sing as if I am expelling my innermost emotions through my voice. I sing to make my listeners sing with me, whether literally or simply emotionally. At least -- that's the sort of voice I WANT to have, and believe I can have if given the time and opportunity to hone it.

Ah, and about the name: Anthegenia means, roughly, "Birth of Flowers", kinda mushed together into a word from the Greek roots (Antheia, flower; Geneia, genesis or birth). I'd originally come up with it as the last name of Ryshy's First Age incarnation in Exalted: Sophia Anthegenia, a name I wanted roughly to mean "Wisdom Born from Flowers" (sure, the articles are nonexistent and the root words likely out of order, but hey, that's how language changes over time anyway!) Then Anthegenia became the name of a First Age city in B&B, because I liked the name so much -- and I figured that Sophia's last name could have come from, or been the inspiration for, the city's name.

We decided on Anthegenia for our record label name because I was trying to look for a name that wasn't too long, yet was representative of the projects and characters Jon and I create together. There's of course "Tower Between Worlds", but 1) I figured it'd be better as a publishing name, since the Tower has always been about written content, and 2) "Tower Records" is a record store in the States, anyway. Then I thought of "Belladonna and Blackbird" but we already use B&B *twice*, in the Tower (the Multiversal Intelligence Agency that spawned the whole concept of B&B as "Creation fixers" in the first place) and in our Exalted game. After toying with other concepts (including an attempt to mix times of day with muse names, which created concepts like Twilight Castalia and Lethe at Dusk -- whoa, those should be song names), we settled on Anthegenia.

Because why not? It's a name that's slowly beginning to have a history with us. A name that symbolizes something we've birthed together. Anthegenia the city, conceptualized together in our RP, and Anthegenia the record label, conceptualized as we dream about our future projects together. Projects that may or may not give us fame and money, but will satisfy our desire for aural creativity for years to come.

I'm not sure when the Anthegenia Records website will be ready to show... might not be for days, or months, or years. It's just something I'm working on and off at because I wanna test Drupal 5.0, and because it's something that will eventually have a purpose. Even better, a creative purpose! So that makes me content. :D