When Cibo Mattoannounced this past December that they'd be releasing their first album in 15 years, Hotel Valentine, their web presence had to stage a bit of a comeback too. The duo of Tokyo-born, New York-based Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori went on hiatus in 1999—right as the internet started to explode. So along with the lead-up to Hotel Valentine came the requisite Instagram profile (which features purikara-style cameos by Honda's "Flying Space Kitty Army"), Youtube channel, and Facebook page (bio line: "It takes two to chopstick").
If you want more information about the band's history, though, you're better off looking in a slightly older corner of the internet: Cibo Matto Web, the fan site that William Wolff started in 1997—and kept up throughout the entirety of the band's hiatus. "It had sentimental value," Wolff told me over the phone last week from his home in San Francisco. "I thought that maybe they'd come back."
Jeff Birgbauer had a similar motivation when he took over ToHereKnowsWhen.org, the then-stagnant My Bloody Valentine fan site, in 2004—13 years after the band released the critically acclaimed Loveless. "People could learn about this mysterious band, so it's no longer mysterious," Birgbauer, a former real estate agent in Detriot, said of the site's purpose. Prior to last year, the news section that he faithfully manned was just an ongoing list of updates about a long-rumored box set ("No Box set now?," "Boxsets still to happen?") that was finally released in 2012. Needless to say, when the band's third album mbv dropped out of nowhere on February 2, 2013, Birgbauer's updates livened up.
If the rumors about a new TLC album prove true, Chris Wilson will be more than ready. The Rochester, Minn., optical company manager launched CyberTLC World on GeoCities in 1997. "Growing up as a gay man in small-town Iowa, which happens to be the same place where T-Boz is from, you just latch onto those people that stand up for minority groups," he said by way of explaining his devoted fandom. When Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes died in 2002, his site provided solace to fans; he compiled quotes from ex-boyfriend Andre Rison, then-label mate Pink and now-defunct outlets like Mad Rhythms for a tribute page. Left Eye's brother, Ronald Lopes, even used CyberTLC to relay messages to grieving fans.
screenshot of the recently updated Cibo Matto Web
Maintaining a fan site through a hiatus can feel like a pointless task (after distributor BMG started hosting his site in 2000, then stopped due to the band's prolonged hiatus in 2005, Wilson downsized CyberTLC to a forum.) But websites like these are important in their own ways—as digital chronicles of how a band's hiatus is felt over time. When Cibo Matto released their last album, 1999's Stereo Type A, it was common practice for labels to either issue cease-and-desists to fan sites—or buy them out and take them over. Now, labels instruct artists to use hashtags and conduct "follow sprees" on social media. Wolff's site and others like it remind us that fandom wasn't always expressed in the tweets and Facebook likes we're now accustomed to. There's something poetic about Cibo Matto Web—providing present-tense updates, yet frozen faithfully and expectantly in 1999.
"It's sort of my overall internet philosophy that I'm supposed to make content and leave it out there for people to find," Wolff says. "You don't take the page down after you put it up."