So There’s This Blog I Like
I want to start this blog off with quick rant, why don’t the iphones come ready for Flash? I was driving around Los Feliz with my roommate looking for a Taco Bell last night and couldn’t access their website to get to the store locator. In the amount of time it took for us to find one I had sobered up (wasn’t driving) and I couldn’t even enjoy my meal.
There are multitudes of blogs about the L.A. music scene, but in my opinion the Scenestar manages to shine brighter than most. Check the site out for yourself and soak in the spread of perhaps one of the most put together scene blogs I’ve come across. This blog is a great source for Los Angeles based music news, album and show reviews and pre-sale info. The site is run by Oscar, a resident of Los Angeles in his late 20s, and a few of his friends. All of who, from what I can tell by stalking them on Myspace, either have a heavy interest in music or work somewhere in the industry (like radio). You can find at least one new post on the blog everyday: sometimes more, sometimes less. The blog has an authority of 22 on Technorati and has yet to be favorited by any one. But I have a feeling though that this probably says more about the people that read the blog than the blog itself.
With a great layout and killer photography, someone like me doesn’t stand a chance against the urge to check it for updates. I just want to keep clicking on everything because it’s so…nice looking.
In a way the Scenestar is a lot like what I hope Destroy L.A. can grow up to be. The type of bands covered might not be the same, and there’s the lack of any news relating to any of my other subjects, but I think that all in all it’ll be a good site for me to look to in the future for inspiration. The site does a great job of keepings its readers updated with important music related news and I think it’s awesome that it generates media of it’s own, whether it be interviews or photographic coverage of shows. The blogger’s insistence on doing their own interviews elevates it to a level of professionalism not found very often in music blogs. I would say that this blog relates to journalism more than your average opinion or persona-based blog. However, I feel like the lack of opinion and personal voice within the blog posts might be alienating some of it’s readers, or at least it doesn’t give them any reason to comment with their own opinions.
The updates are short and sweet, only a few paragraphs, and the interviews are plentiful. They are also full of links that can get you more acquainted with their subjects. Their readers are L.A. residents who love music and go to music events, but the writing is very accessible. I can imagine any number of my friends who work in the music industry reading it, as well as my teenage niece.
This site is a great place for me to go to and check if there are any music events coming up that might be of interest. All in all though I feel like the range of bands covered by the Scenestar puts out is much broader than that of Destroy L.A. It’s like they’ll just talk about any band that’s playing a show in this city. I want my blog to be something more like a boutique. My blog is more about a certain lifestyle and indirectly about how the Internet and the expansion of media has made it possible to learn about obscure artists, musicians and designers from all over the world. I’m really interested in self-promotion and using the web to advertise, brand and sell your work. While I’ll try not to beat this topic over anyone’s head in my posts, everyone who I highlight has risen from obscurity to fame by use of the net and word of mouth.
I can’t begin to tell you how reliant I am on the Internet for cultural information, it’s almost the exclusive source of music, art and movie related news in my life. So often I’ve been researching an artist that interests me only to find their Myspace eventually and find a friend of theirs that’s equally amazing. It just seems like the world is getting smaller and smaller as we keep finding new links between everything. I like that.
