This week Sue Newberry & The Law were in-studio recording the last 2 tracks for our upcoming EP. It is sounding great and we’re looking forward to a late-spring release.
I spent the week in recording prep, traveling again to Toronto, and also looking up Indie Music Blogs for this week’s challenge, which is about weblogging.
Blog. Noun, verb, social media phenomenon. Online journaling got its start in the late nineties (‘fess up: who had a LiveJournal? I totally did. It was pink on pink and full of wordy poems about loooovvveee). People who used to update their online journals or diaries in the late nineties were called “diarists”. I see how that may not have been considered very cool. Blogging has sped to overwhelming popularity just in this last decade. Wikipedia says that as of this time last year (2011) there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. As Ariel says at the beginning of the chapter for this week: Believe the hype.
Sifting through the sea of online music blogs is no easy feat, and will clearly be an ongoing project. I signed up for Google Reader to help sort through the daily content on all the blogs I’ve newly subscribed to. I was also happy to see some comments by fellow blog challengers on some of the sites I had sussed out (totally noticing your online presence, challengers!) and even a review or two of some concerts and albums from colleagues and friends. I also found a review of fellow blog challenger Kat Leonard‘s Feb 2012 review on Lipstik Indie Reviews. super!
This week I was also interviewed by fellow musician and Social Media Challenge Taker, Karyn Ellis for her ‘blogging’ blog post. Being on the other side of all the interviews and reviews I was reading this week was fun, and stress-relieving! The conversations I’ve had with Karyn this week have planted some seeds in my mind about future blogging endeavors: writing about indie music made by women in Canada… but let’s stay on track for now.
I’ve Compiled a long list of blogs to send to my publicist regarding the upcoming album release, and also a list for blogs I’ll contact and be present on myself. I narrowed my search, for now, to Canadian and Toronto indie music blogs, and indie music review sites. Some faves:
http://www.littleredumbrella.com
http://my-canadian-indie-music-blog.blogspot.com
http://roundletters.wordpress.com/
http://lipstikindie.wordpress.com
http://musicbetweenfriends.com/
http://www.turntherecordover.com
Check ’em out. They are all unique, have great designs and all, of course, have a lot to say.
Well, I’ll leave you with this 40 second clip I found of me being a diarist in the early 90’s – even before things went ‘online’. Wow, I sure had some wise, wise words.
Next week’s Post: Week 7: Your Newsletter
Read your way through the 9 week challege so far:
WEEK ONE – One blog make one a blogger?
WEEK TWO – Presidential Pitches
WEEK THREE – Cheese or Font?
WEEK FOUR – Baby’s…got…Klout
WEEK FIVE – Video Killed the Radio Star