While writing yesterday's article, I was bound to remember the days I first got interested in clawhammer banjo, a little more than ten years ago.

A friend had told me about a youtube channel that did a good job explaining how that whole thing worked, so I checked it out. The channel was Patrick Costello's, and I instantly liked the guy.

I liked his playing and tone, simple and to the point. I liked his overall demeanor and friendly attitude. I liked his philosophy and approach to music. And I loved how straightforward his teaching was. He had a real knack for demistifying whatever he was demonstrating, emphasizing the importance of mastering the basics while making it all look like you'll get it with just a bit of practice.

This was still old school youtube. No lighting or fancy editing, just a nice and down to earth guy with a cheap camera and a genuine drive to share what he loved.

Everything I know about the banjo came from Patrick, and he taught me a few deeper lessons about music as well.

Talking about him in the past tense makes this all sound like an eulogy. Thankfully it's not. At least not as far as I know.

I wanted to link to his lessons in my last article. But I couldn't find his old channel. I dug around a little, and found out he had deleted it. His old website is down, too.

Apparently he was quite a controversial character in the online old-time music community. I remember he would often mention the "purists" crowd in his video. I don't remember him making much of a fuss about it, but it was obvious he'd seen a few flamewars.

I didn't really pay it any mind. This was the internet. Of course an opiniated guy would get dragged into a nerd fight now and then, and we already knew how silly and blown out of proportions those could get.

From what little I gathered yesterday, members of various communitites seem to have a different story. They paint him as a man craving for attention and constantly starting fights over the slightest bit of criticism. To the point of getting banned repeatedly from several forums.

I honestly don't care who's right and who's wrong here. I tend to stay away from internet drama and it's way too late to pick sides anyway.

The forum members do recognize the man had some serious health issues, which I remember him mentioning. Some suspect mental health problems as well. Again, I'm in no place to judge.

Well, to end that rambling story, the man apparently had a string of setbacks which culminated with his house burning down a few years ago. He announced shortly after the fire that he was "done" and deleted most, if not all of his published material.

Again, I'm not trying to pick sides, but this doesn't paint the picture of someone who's doing well.

It's apparently not the first time this happens.¹ I haven't looked very hard, but it's been three years already and I didn't find anything more recent from him. Maybe he'll be back, maybe he won't.

I won't blame him if he just stops dealing with online feuds and retires from teaching. Nothing wrong with that, and that's for him to decide anyway. But deleting everything he put out is, well, sad.

The internets can be a cruel place, but when you stumble on a gem it's nothing short of magical. The fact that some random guy, no matter what flaws he might have had otherwise, was able to reach so many people is the magic. Everything else is just banter and window dressing.

This isn't the first time I find out some thing I've liked a while ago just isn't there anymore. Sometimes it's just a silly joke or a cat picture. Sometimes it's a deep discussion about some niche topic that spanned a dozen pages on a forum thread that's no longer hosted. It always stings. And it always seems like I'm the only one who cares.

In a world where stuff from 2 days ago is already considered old news, that's not really surprising. But so much is lost in the process. We figured out long ago why archiving things was essential, but somehow this doesn't apply to the web. This is bound to bite us in the butt one of these days.

This is why places like the Internet Archive are so important.² Whch is where I found some of the books he published (under a creative common licence, another nice touch). I read one of them ages ago. I don't remember it that well but from the few pages I've skimmed, I'm confident there's some good information in there. So go read those if you want to get into frailing banjo. In the meanttime, I'll save them somewhere in case they disapear.

There's also this weirdly named youtube channel that's uploaded some of the ealier stuff he did with his dad, so there's that. I'm not sure who's behind it. I don't know if more stuff will end up on there. Wait and see, I guess.

I'm not sure what my point is with this post. I just felt like throwing a message in a bottle. I hope Patrick is doing okay and I want to thank him for the work he's done and the influence he had on me. Anything else is beyond me.

So long, interwebs. Please get your act together and try to preserve the good stuff rather than focusing on all the bullshit.