Swazoo Koolak Photography

Swazoo.com is the former home of Swazoo Koolak's Web Jukebox. For over fifteen years (from July 1996 through December 2011) I provided selections from my collection of 78 RPM records. This site was one of the first to offer music from this era on the internet.

Over the years I offered over a hundred different versions of the jukebox with over twelve hundred different recorded sides, all presented a dozen at a time. At first the twelve records was a practical limit—that was all that would fit in the disk space my web host provided. The amount of disk space increased greatly over time, but as I learned more about remastering records and got fussier about my results, the amount of time I spent on each record increased to the point where twelve records was all I was willing to do in a month. I sometimes considered putting all the records I had ever offered on the site at the same time, but as the years went on this task grew more and more daunting.

Two things contributed to my decision to shut down the jukebox. First, web statistics showed that usage had fallen off greatly in its last few years. Second, maintaining the jukebox just wasn't as enjoyable for me as it once was—over the site's last year it felt more like an obligation than a hobby. When I realized that neither I nor the public was getting much out of the jukebox I decided it didn't make sense for me to keep providing it.

Thank you to everyone who offered me encouragement over the years, and to those who helped me with discographical and technical information.