Allan Rankin's New Album

A long, long, long time ago I was invited to go up to the Coles Building and meet with Allan Rankin and Roy Johnstone about this new-fangled thing called “the information superhighway” and how they might use it as musicians. I offered to midwife them into the process, and created websites for each of them more than a decade ago.

Roy took to the medium like a duck to water, and has been an active caretaker for his website, using it to update his fans, sell tracks online and distribute sheet music.

Allan did not.

And so AllanRankin.com has remained almost completely unchanged since it went online in 2002; it’s a sort of time capsule for early web design (I’ve always rather liked the site despite this).

Allan, meanwhile, continued to work as a musician and a bureaucrat both, but without any longer-lasting evidence of this until this month when, at long last, he releases a new album.

Allan is releasing the album at The Trailside this Sunday and I’ll be there in the audience.

And, eventually, perhaps I’ll work with Allan to update his website. Update: see AllanRankinMusic.ca, Allan’s new website.