In January of 1995, I found the Suzanne Vega internet mailing list, Undertow, quite by accident while exploring America Online, a US online service provider. I thought the mailing list was a great discovery - fans from all over the world chatting about Suzanne, meeting new friends, and of course, the occasional post from Suzanne.

But, leave it to me to look a gift horse in the mouth! A few weeks into my Undertow subscription, after replying to the same questions from new subscribers, I posed a query to the list, "Why doesn't someone archive these messages?"

I received two replies to my question, both said the same thing, "Why don't you?". This was a challenge! I was, however, severely handicapped by not knowing anything about the internet, the World Wide Web, HTML, FTP and other combinations of alphabetic characters. This would be tricky.

Undaunted, I picked up a few books from my local Barnes and Noble bookstore. I soon realized that I could learn to put a site together pretty easily, but I'd actually need to store the information somewhere. So, I called on my Undertow pals for advice. Minutes later, John Giannandrea, a longtime Suzanne fan, volunteered his server (meer.net) to the cause.

Now, I'd need information to put on the website. I thought I'd go right to the source for this one - Hugo Westerlund; he knew all the answers on Undertow...and coincidentally, he had flown into New York City from Sweden to see Suzanne's Learning Annex talk at the time it occurred to me to seek him out for help. Not only did I find a website collaborator through our meeting, but I'm happy to say that we've become great friends over the year since we started working on this project. Anyhow, Hugo shared my enthusiasm and agreed to put as much time as he could into the website.

So, here we are, almost one year into the life of the Suzanne Vega website, and thanks to all the folks in the credits at the end of this note, we have a huge resource - one of, if not *the* largest musician sites on the internet. Between 100 - 300 people each day from all over the planet visit the website. Hopefully, with the release of Suzanne's new album, we'll expand the number of visitors to the site, and meet some more new friends online.

Hugo and Karien added archives of LANGUAGE, which has been publishing since 1987. I was really pleased that we could consolidate LANGUAGE into the site and give those net-connected folks access to this wonderful publication.

Well, I could go on, but I can see your eyes glazing over, so I'll wind this up - when I look back at all the hours that everyone involved has put into the website, myself included, I sometimes wonder if it was worth it. Then I'll check the website mailing list and answer the mail - from such faraway places like Japan, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Austraila - almost all of it complimentary, expressing appreciation for the resource - and I am satisfied that it *was* all worth it.

Thanks to everyone who participated in creating the website, and especially: Suzanne, Jeremy Morrison at AGF Entertainment, Hugo Westerlund, John Giannandrea, John Relph, Steve Zwanger, Paul Murphy, Wendy Chapman, Sharon Jennings, Bob King, Karien Smeding, Neil Impelluso, Jonathan Saunders, Matthew Hsu, Rob Walters, Allan Rousselle, Robin Shortt, Diana Tenery, Jeremy Schlosberg and Stuart P. Myerburg (Undertow) . (Apologies to anyone whose name I may have accidentally left off of this list!)

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