Hi, everyone! bazzreviews celebrates its one-year birthday toay, and I'm glad you are all here reading this to celebrate. I have prepared a lot, but here goes my half-assed attempt at a reflection:
DEAR FANS-
bazzreviews started as a project off of my home PC back in late 2018, and I wasn’t really sure where it would end up. Hell, the fact that it’s lasted a year and has been so successful has blown my mind. 2019 has been one of the greatest years of my life, and it's because I've had bazzreviews that makes it even more special.
After watching guys like Anthony Fantano, John Ruskin (aka Nardwuar), Harrison Renshaw of Alfo Media, Noah LeFevre of Polyphonic, Frank Furtado of Middle 8 on YouTube for the longest time, I had been thinking: I really loved music, so could I start my own music blog? After a few months of debating, I just sat down on a cold, December day and made what was to become “Bazzreviews”… no going back now.
Not going to life, it was tough to get the ball rolling. To me, it wasn't super interesting to just review albums. I continued watching my favorite YouTubers and listened to other music podcasts like Song Exploder and All Songs Considered to get more ideas. This past January, I tried a forty-five-minute podcast, called the "bazzreviews bazzcast". That stunt led to me now being on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, which is unbelievable to me. Looking at my Spotify Wrapped for podcasters was awesome, as we've had viewership in NINE different countries. As stupid as it sounds, even these small things are big accomplishments... props to Chile and Turkey for making bazzreviews popular, LOL. The amount of validation I had felt after that first episode gave me more motivation to experiment with new ideas. Watching more of Nardwuar made me appreciate the art of interviewing bands, and I decided to try my hand at that to reach a bigger audience.
I had my first interview in March, with local Clevelander Dylan Baldi from Cloud Nothings. It went alright, although I was kind of nervous for my first time. That, and my shitty Google Voice interface clonked out halfway through, so we had to reconnect… Smooth. Not only that, I was really only asking surface-level questions and not really having a provocative conversation; I think the entire thing was like, 16 minutes? Despite this first interview being a success, I still had a lot to learn.
First off, not a lot of bands wanted to speak with someone who didn’t have a lot of prior interviewing experience, so my existence from March and April was opening up my inbox to no responses, or responses of no. Finally, a burst hit: First, it was talking to Guerilla Toss, then it was Hot Flash Heat Wave. Before I knew it, I was hearing back from amazing people like Jeff Tweedy’s son, Spencer, Steve Albini, and Twin Peaks. It was pretty damn crazy, but the bazzreviews golden age was finally starting to begin.
I’ve done almost fifty interviews for “bazzreviews” and listening to each of their stories has been amazing. I’ve been able to meet so many awesome people that I still chat with today: Stephan Looney from Current Blue, Rob Tilden, aka BOYO, the guys from Moon Hooch, and many others! Even though they may not be making the most money from what they do, these artists never give up on their passion. Similarly, I cannot adequately describe my gratitude to my friends, to my family, and to my audience everywhere for the support they’ve given me. Even though I'm not making much money from this, I am still so damn happy that this is what I'm doing.
Since I never had any formal education on how to run a blog or do interviews, these experiences have been my teachers; from this, I’ve learned how I can become a better writer and overall content creator. Interviews, months in review, and podcasts will still be around for the new year, but I’m thinking I may want a Patreon or other crowdfunding service to provide me with extra resources for podcasting and blogging. That could open up so many opportunities for fans to pay more and get a little bit more out of it. Maybe we’ll do live album streaming parties, weekly playlists, who knows?
Looking back it all, starting bazzreviews may have been one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. Yes, it was a difficult start, but once things started going right, I never looked back. As I sat down to write this letter, I remember vividly speaking with Jackson Katz of Slow Hollows a few months back, and he said something that really resonates with me to this day:
“I loved your last podcast! I used to live with the guy you interviewed! It was really great to listen to you chat with him!”
I went silent for a second, not really knowing how to respond. We had never spoken before, and even though Jackson and I are separated by almost 2,500 miles, I’m thrilled to see that my blog and podcast are impacting people from far and wide.
Here’s to some great things down the road. I hope you’ll be by my side through it all.
Your friend-
"BAZZ"
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