JFRocks.com, 1000 Words for Posterity

Written by: Jeff Fiorentino
(Originally posted August 11, 2021)
In spite of present-day outward appearances, JFRocks.com was once something pretty amazing, and way ahead of its time. JFRocks.com wasn’t perfect by any means for reasons I’ll explain in this article. But it was pure and very real. Meaning, so much online today is someone’s vanity play, or some AI generated crap. I didn’t actually do JFRocks.com for attention, or some silly hope of recognition etc. I did it for the guitar. I did it because I wanted to help others. But mostly, I did it because I thought it would be fun. And life IS supposed to be fun after all.

Newcomers have no idea what JFRocks.com was like in its heyday. What’s left now is just a skeleton.  Fact is with all my successes in life, (and I’ve had a few), the JFRocks brand is and always will be viewed by me as one of my greatest.  I say this mostly because it was a dream come to life in a way.  As one close friend said to me back in the day… “dude, you pulled it off man!!”  My response was what it always is when people say that sort of thing to me.  I said, “Well, I pulled something off, I’m just not quite sure what!”

Let me begin this farewell with a pinch of JFRocks.com behind the scenes history. JFRocks.com itself actually began as many fans know with my old friend Keith Coogan. We were doing a play together in the summer of 2001. (James McClure’s PVT Wars to be specific) We got the idea to build a website that gave guitar lessons with video.  A novel and innovative concept at the time, as no one was doing it to speak of.  This was years before YouTube of course.  The fact is the site was a problem right from the start.  For starters, we got visitors!!!  These days unlimited servers with no bandwidth restraints, or limitless YouTube channels are a part of everyday life. But back in the early days of JFRocks.com, i.e. 2001-2005 in particular, we got kicked off of servers all the time.  Hey… we were breaking new ground.  In the early days in particular no one was doing what we were doing.  We were pretty much the only show in town as far as full length video guitar lessons online with tablature, literature, and jam tracks.

All that being said, what started out as banter backstage at a playhouse in Hollywood in the summer of 2001 ended up as many have said, “changing the world“, well the online guitar instruction side of it anyway.  Small, yes… But the effects of that change are vast and lasting. On the humorous side JFRocks.com spawned literally dozens of backwards black hat wearing JFRocks clones out there on YouTube right now giving their guitar lessons to the masses.  Which by the way I think is fantastic.

It’s mind-blowing to me that all of this JFRocks nonsense began 20 years ago.  The time has flown by in the blink of an eye from my perspective.  On average 20 years is about a quarter of one’s life. But on a smaller scale, on the day to day of it all, each JFRocks guitar lesson took a week to produce.  They were little TV productions in and of themselves.  I had to write a song, then transcribe it, then write a lesson, then shoot the video etc.  It was a long process in the moment.  Now all that time is gone, and in the blink of an eye I find myself here typing this final blurb article for the blog to be left for posterity.

On that note and having said all of that JFRocks.com first launched at 2:30 pm pacific standard time on August 1, 2001.  The JFRocks everyone remembers, its heyday as we call it when we found our stride if you will spanned from about early 2005 to late 2012.  Now here in August 2021 as we officially morph into a new organization I would offer you JFRocks fans some parting words.

JFRocks has been a big part of my/our lives over here on our end, and I know its been a big part of many of yours as well.  That’s the main reason its been a bit of a LONG GOODBYE this year.  You lot keep sucking us all back in, probably as I read it because you feel like a part of your life is ending.  Truth is that’s the case for me/us too.  In my case you mustn’t forget, “I’M JFRocks”. lol…  I was the guy who created, wrote, and did all of the lessons on those over videos and DVD/CD ROM/Online product packages.

That said, saying goodbye to JFRocks as a business entity/group is bittersweet. But I’ve talked a lot in my writing over the past year or so about “expiration dates”.  While yes I equated it often to relationships, businesses and business partnerships are relationships too.  I assure all of you that the last 20 years will most certainly NOT be forgotten by me or ANYONE over here on our end.  And I hope those of you who were around for all or at least some of the past 20 years of JFRocks.com will remember it as a fond memory too.

ALL of us here at JFRocks want to thank every one of you for what has been as of this past August 1, 2021 twenty years of support, love, & a whole lotta fun and education!!  Well, hopefully it was education for all of you, but I can say that it definitely was for me.

So cheers to all of you, and thanks for an amazing 20 years!!!

— Jeff Fiorentino

____________________________________________

Contact and Sites

Jeff’s Twitter: @JFRocksMusicPub & @JFRocks
Official website:  JFRocks.com
SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/jeff-fiorentino-jfrocks
HearThis:  hearthis.at/jfrocks-jeff-fiorentino

____________________________________________

P.S. For those wondering why the site isn’t still online. Technology has changed quite a bit, as have the laws that govern the internet. The product vids are still there on the server for those who purchased them and should be for a least a year or two longer. They’re mostly just .exe downloads. But to bring the site as a whole live again would take a decade. The entire site would need to be reformatted to work with today’s internet, and there’s just no way to do that in any kind of reasonable timeframe, and for some of the stuff reformatting is downright impossible.

As I’ve said, everything has its moment in time. From a loaf of bread, to relationships that came and went. And so to JFRocks.com has had its “moment in time”, i.e. its 15 minutes of fame.  Or, maybe 20 years in JFRocks’ case I suppose. On the plus-side, I’m sure there’s enough stuff that’s been downloaded by fans from back in the day and probably even bootlegged etc. that will keep you all in JFRocks (me) materials for decades to come.