In 2006, I started Song Henge as a way to pay the bills of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. That service comes to an official end in December. This is a brief history of Song Henge.

You could join Song Henge for $12-60 per year. Every month, I sent an email newsletter. In it was a link where you could download an album of about 15-20 Celtic MP3s. That was about 5 or 6 bands offering three MP3s each.

I created an actual compilation CD highlighting some of the best of these MP3 offerings. It was a lot of work. But that too helped many of the artists. That was how the “17 Free Celtic MP3s for St Patrick's Day” article got its start.

Giving away free MP3s was an optional service for bands. Most jumped at the opportunity to have their music highlighted even more. But occasionally, artists would not submit music because I gave away MP3s.

There was also a message board where Song Hengers could chat. It wasn't well-used. But it was a great place to post the album links in addition to the email newsletter I sent out every month.

Unfortunately, the message board was hacked. So the newsletter soon became the only means to get the albums until… Patreon.

I joined Patreon in 2014. Everything changed. Patreon allowed me to offer a new Premium Service. It was a private feed where you could listen to the podcast “before regular listeners”.

They offered tiers too. Patrons could pledge as little as $1 per episode and cap how much the pledged every month.

I launched the new Song Henge on Patreon at the $5 per episode level. It was a lot easier to post the Song Henge albums there. They were well-organized. Song Henge again became more than just a monthly email newsletter.

The biggest headache with Classic Song Henge was patron payments. Every month, someone's credit card went out of date on Paypal. I had to either contact people directly (not my fave), or just let it sit until they figured it out, if they ever did. Eventually, I manually remove them from the newsletter. Ugh. So annoying.

That's one of the reasons I was thrilled with Patreon. They handled ALL of that for me. All I had to do was create content.

I had another big time saver. Her name was Jan Cz. She started helping me out in 2008 or 2009. I can't begin to thank her for all of the help these many many long years.

Jan collected all of the MP3s. She put them into folders and uploaded them to a website for me. She also setup the Song Henge newsletter. I just had to write my What's New section. I might've given up on Song Henge a LONG time ago if it hadn't been for Jan.

Originally, I asked musicians to send MP3s to me every month. That was a hassle. Some forgot to send music. Some sent WAV files instead of MP3s. Some sent M4A files. Some mailed CDs… that I had to rip. I largely kicked the CD habit about 10 years ago. So that was a lot of extra time.

Around 2019, I started buying music from some of the artists who submitted music to the podcast. I started doing it because it was a big hassle to rip CDs and convert WAV files every month. Plus, it was more beneficial to the artists. I can't pay artist royalties to play their music on the podcast. So by buying their music, I knew they were getting paid a little bit at the very least.

Buying music also simplified the Song Henge albums. Jan just had to create the list. I uploaded all of the music to Google Drive and shared the link to the newsletter. But I'll be honest. They were still an annoyance. Kind of off center from the rest of the work I was doing.

Meanwhile, sales of MP3s decreased. Streaming became more prominent. Fewer people were actually opening my newsletters and downloading MP3s. Yes. There are still quite a few.

But I had to ask what is the ultimate purpose of Song Henge. It's to highlight the artists. If people aren't looking at the newsletters, downloading and listening to the music, then it's not super useful for the bands.

But what could I offer as a Premium Service instead of MP3s?

Thankfully, I found something in May. I released a podcast episode for my oldest daughter called “Sleepytime Slow Aires“. I also released a music-only version on Patreon. This is something Patrons have been asking for for a while–even less talk.

Yes. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the FEEDBACK section of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.

And I need the THANKS section to GET more patrons.  Neither of those are essential for Podcast Patrons.

So in August, I revamped Song Henge. It's no longer about getting MP3 albums. It's now a music-only version of the show. Even less talk and more music.

That's something that makes me feel good. It gives Song Hengers something extra. These are the folks who are more likely to look at the shownotes and find their favorite artists. And it's ultimately a lot less work and less bad mojo.

And so I bid Classic Song Henge a fond farewell after 15 wonderful years.

I want to thank all of those Lifetime Subscribers to Classic Song Henge. You truly mean a lot to me and to the success of this podcast. I hope you will find happiness with the all new Song Henge 2021.

Oh! And if you still want to access those Classic Song Henge albums. There are over 60 available for Song Hengers for forseeable future. Enjoy!

If you want to support the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast and access Song Henge 2021, sign up on Patreon at just $5 per episode. And feel free to cap how much you want to spend each and every month.

Slainte!