Update and Thoughts on the New Year

Hey everyone, hope you all had a good Christmas and are enjoying the holiday season.  I thought I would take some time and put my thoughts down about what I am planning for the New Year as well as update you guys on some other stuff.

Things are still going well on blogtv although we are in our usual Holiday slump at least as far as stats are concerned.  Usually I take a break but didn't do that this year, I enjoy doing the show and the people that did come by and hang out seemed to need the music anyway.  So I just stuck to a basic music format with a few videos thrown in.  Since I didn't have anything to talk about, I didn't have anything to record and that is why there aren't any recent videos on YouTube.

My New Years resolutions for the show are as follows;

1) Record something, anything to post on YouTube every week, even if it's something stupid, those seem to be the most well loved videos anyway.

2) Relearn how to broadcast effectively in "standard" format so that I can use the co-host feature and bring back live music.  In regards to this one I would even be ok with an "open mic" format as long as the musician is playing their OWN music and not some freaking cover.  No one coming to my show wants to hear that shit anyway.  Not trying to be an asshole, I'm just being honest.  But yeah, I might just throw open the door, invite musicians to come on and play, even if I've never heard them before, and see how it goes.  I dunno, but live music has to come back FOR SURE.

3) Musician interviews, haven't done many of these since the move to blogtv.  This used to be one of my favorite features of the show.  I have several ideas on how to bring it back, none of which are set in stone but all involve using SKYPE in some way......
 a) Use standard skype to skype chat and play the conversation over the audio feed
 b) Put credit on my skype account like I did before and call the guest
 c) Create a phone number on my skype account and allow the guest to call in

I realize that B and C are basically the same, I've just learned that some people don't like to give out their phone number (gee I wonder why...lol) and the advantage that blogtalkradio always had when I did the show over there was that the musician had a handy call in number and it really made things easier.  The other advantage was that other people could call in and ask questions of the guest instead of just typing it in chat and it really made for an interactive experience.  People really love musician interviews and it was great publicity for the show so this feature has to come back as well.

4) Post more blogs.  Find something to talk about and post it.  Since I've had this blogger page, this past year I've been the least active and that has to change.  If there isn't something new to read on a regular basis, people will stop checking out this page.    

In short, my thought process isn't so much as "taking the show to a whole new level" as much as getting back to our roots and doing the things that make the show not just a good show, but a great one.  I don't plan to just move along with how I've been doing things over the last year.  While the format has worked well enough, I don't do just "ok" things. 

The show deserves to better, not only because of the musicians I play that deserve airplay, not only because of the people who have been loyal and have hung in there in chat good shows and bad, but because of what the show has done for me!

In the last very chaotic couple of years in my life, doing the show has kept me grounded, no matter what else might be going on in my life every Sunday I've had a familiar touchstone to reach out for, and I'm very grateful for that.  Being able to do Indie Spotlight Live has done alot for me and I need to give something back.

These are my New Years Resolutions for the show.  I put it in writing so I expect you folks to hold me to it.