As I am sure you are also aware, I love to support local and independent artists/bands more than anything. This is especially true for bands that choose to remain independent of big labels, to retain creative control over their material. Bands and artists who put their heart and soul into creating music that means something to them, and who create music because they love music, generally make the top of my list. These guys get my support, in any way I can give it.

Another great thing about following independent artists, which I hadn’t really considered until recently, is how accessible they can be. Some of the independent artists I listen to have released music which is as good or better than anything I’ve heard in mainstream, yet if I go to one of their concerts, they actually give a damn if you come to the merch table afterward to chat or get an autograph. Granted, I’m sure these bands would much rather not be able to hang out afterward, because of the dangers of being mobbed by 10,000 fans, but from a fan’s point of view, I like to be able to talk to them, snap a picture of them or with them, and to some extent, get to know the person behind the music. Recently, I’ve been making more attempts to at least leave a message on artists’ MySpace, letting them know how much I appreciate the music and the efforts they make. I’ve had a few responses, some of them really freaking awesome. I’m always a little surprised when a member of one of my favorites actually responds to a comment or message that I leave. I’ve had messages that simply said “thanks for the support!” to bands that offered me free tickets and to help pay for gas if I wanted to come to one of their shows. Now THAT is fan appreciation. What I hate, however, is when I go to a local show, and the band members of a LOCAL band are complete assholes. If I go to your merch table, and there is maybe me and one other person there, and I tell you that you ROCK and that I’m a fan, don’t mumble “uhh, thanks” and walk away, or worse, completely ignore me. At the very least, say “Thanks for coming out” and shake my hand. Without a big name label generating fans for you via marketing, if you are a dick to the people who are going to market you via word-of-mouth, then you are only hurting yourself.

I know that for some of these bands (all of them, hopefully) and artists, there will come a day when they are touring non-stop, and will not be able to respond to messages or be as connected with the fans as they are now.

I do have suggestions for bands, both big name or just starting out. We, your fans, LOVE you. we want to see you succeed, but we also want to know what’s going on with you and the creative process. That’s not to say I want to know what kind of toothpaste you use or any personal shit like that, but the occasional update, say, once a month at least, would be awesome. It doesn’t take a lot of time to post a quick update, especially with micro-blogging sites like Twitter available. I recently discovered a new artist by the name of Hana Pestle (she rocks, btw), who really puts this concept into action. Hana uses Tumblr, a micro-blogging platform, to post regular updates from the road. She posts pictures and little updates as she tours the US, allowing her fans to really see what being on tour might be like. Even without one-on-one interaction via the internet, updates like this really makes the artist seem more accessible, even if they never send a single personal message to a fan.

Lastly, I really applaud artists who encourage fans to take pictures and send them in to be included on a fan page. So many artists any more do not allow photography or cameras at concerts, period, so to have a band encourage that is kinda nice.

So to all the bands and artists who really make an effort to connect with their fans, I salute you.

♥

I would have loved to see more back story for Joker, but other than that, there wasn’t anything amiss with that character at all. I can’t compare the Dark Knight Joker with the the Joker of the first Batman movie, because the two movies are entirely different, and drawing comparisons between them just doesn’t seem logical.

There were a couple things I didn’t like about the movie. First, I was happy that they replaced Katie Holmes as “Rachel”, because Maggie Gyllenhaal is one of my favorite actresses and I thought she was a much better choice for the role. However, I’m convinced that it wasn’t Katie Holmes’ fault that her role was less than perfect in the first movie, because Maggie’s version wasn’t any better. If anything, that character was portrayed more as vapid arm-candy than in the previous movie. The second thing I thought could have used some improvement was the final scene with Two-Face. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but overall, I think they could have done more with the scene.

Other than those two things, I loved the movie. Begins appeals more to me because of the character development of Batman, and well, that movie is just freaking badass, but Dark Knight did not disappoint.

I should have known, however, that something disastrous would happen last night. I had been too excited and happy about finally getting to go to a show for nothing to go wrong.

About 3/4 of the way through the show (I was sitting at a table in the very front of the cafe), the girl I was sitting with got up to go to the bathroom. When she did, one of the waiters grabbed the chair she had been sitting in. When the girl came back, she had no chair at all. Finally, I noticed that the waiter had vacated the chair, and I jumped up quickly to retrieve it. Big mistake. Somehow, the tablecloth caught on my clothes or my shoe or both, and the whole thing swept off the table, along with my camera, my keys and an empty beer bottle. Thankfully, the bottle didn’t break, nor did my camera, and there wasn’t anything messy on the table to clean up. However, it made a horrendous crash, much to the amusement of everyone. I could have died. I could have literally crawled under the table and died.

The next step of disaster occured after my husband arrived. I was quite glad to see him, to have someone to comfort me as I writhed in humiliation. We stuck around the cafe for a bit after the show, talking to the nice girl who had been sharing my table. She was going to head to a local bar afterwards, and I decided that I wanted to go as well. We dropped off my husbands car at a nearby place that we considered safe, and headed to the bar. We had one beer there, chatted with the girl, and decided to head home. Now, I was considerably tipsy at this point, but I wasn’t drunk. However, I had consumed a few different types of beer that evening, because the cafe had offered a huge selection and I always want to try new beer given the opportunity. We got back to where my husband left the car, and he decided that he wanted to drive my truck and he would let me drive his car. I hopped in the car and started to put the key in the ignition, when someone came running across the road, yelling that his car was on fire and he needed water. He was calling 911, and I ran to the building where we were parked to try to get some water. I got back outside, and gave the water to the young man. The fire trucks arrived, the (small) fire was put out, and all was ok. That is, until I turned to get into the car. My husband, when I left to go get the water, had opened the car door, locked it, and closed it again, not realizing that I did not have the keys with me. We do not have an extra set. At this point, I was full of adrenaline from having ran frantically to get this guy some water, still recovering from my humiliation at the cafe, and now, seriously pissed because we were going to have to call a locksmith in the middle of the night. We called said locksmith, and proceeded to wait until he arrived. In the meantime, I continued to yell at my husband for locking the damned car, and he proceed to yell back. Well, not actually yelling, but we were pretty damned emphatic. We finally stopped fighting, or I stopped bitching, rather, and we settled down to wait. As the adrenaline ebbed, I began to get nauseous. REALLY nauseous. So of course, to top off the evening, I got violently sick. I don’t know if it was the mixture of the beer or a combination of the rest of the evening, but I was sicker than I remember being in a long time.

So that was my lovely evening, boys and girls. I am seriously thinking about never showing my face in public again.

This week has been extremely stressful, due to work crap and the stress of a test, a paper and a final coming up at school.

On the upside, I am planning on taking some piano lessons this fall if I can find a good teacher. It’s part of my plan to better myself and become the person I TRULY want to be.

Things I would love to accomplish:

*Learn German
*Learn to read music and play piano proficiently
*Learn American Sign Language

This is, of course, in addition to my current goal, which is to become an embalmer. :)

Well, that’s all for tonight, folks. Given the fact that I slept all day, I will probably be up late, so I may micro-blog a bit later.

Until then, ciao!