Early Years
All of this started in 1994, after a couple of abortive starts, when Tony persuaded me that I could get away with hiding a few pages in a directory on boris, one of Queen's University Belfast's web servers.
So I gradually built up my supply of lyrics, from the first two albums, and put together a very rough and ready site, with no real pictures (due to lack of access to a scanner), and then kept quiet about it. The reason for my secrecy was a certain nervousness regarding the possibility of the university discovering what I was up to.
Response was favourable (if somewhat slow) so I kept it going and gradually expanded. This I regard as the first incarnation of the site.
Staying Power
After about a year to 18 months Tony (yes, him again) got his own server (Niweb) and offered me the space to maintain the site. After he kindly moved everything across for me and checked the links I set about updating and redoing the pages. During this time I fixed some of my more criminal html excesses. I also started using background colours(!) and even caved into using tables...
Pictures and albums covers started to appear on the site as well as I wangled access to a scanner during my lunch-break on my placement. Happiness was felt by all! Over time I gradually updated the site, added info on the new album, and such like.
Sadly I also became very busy and couldn't maintain the pages as well as I wanted to. They gradually slid. This I regard as the second incarnation of the site. The site was updated after being moved to my own domain and for a while it was kept up-to-date. Over time however things slid. Real life intervened and I didn't update the site as often as I should have.
Modern History
As I write this it's April 2003 and I've almost finished updating the site. It's been a major overhaul involving updating the data and adding new information, making sure that the html and css validate and trying to make the site more accessible. I think it has been successful and I shouldn't have any real problem maintaining it now as the band look highly unlikely to release anything new.