Blog Tagging - Winner Announced

If the last few days have taught me anything, it's that there are an awful lot of people out there on the Internet with precisely nothing to say and, generally, they're saying it far too often for my liking.

I'm reminded of that scene in The Matrix where we see fields of glowing pods being harvested by machines before getting linked up to the matrix where they can then interact with their chums. Replace the glowing pods with perfectly cylindrical logs of faeces and you've got a pretty close approximation of how I regard the blogosphere - an almost infinite collection of winking brown-eyes popping out globs of steaming excrement with the same frightening regularity of a 20-something, chain-smoking single mother introducing her latest 'little miracles' into a world of Stella Artois, Sunny Delight and chicken nuggets.

(Note: That was misanthropy, not misogyny. Grow up.)

To say that I really didn't fancy having to wade through another batch of pointless blogs in a fruitless quest for something approaching 'interesting' would be an astounding understatement. The very thought of it was horrendous and made me want to crawl inside a bottle of vodka forever.

Funnily enough though, I was spared that awful task when, quite by accident, I realised that the person I wanted to blog-tag had been right in front of my eyes all along.

This person is someone I follow on Twitter and who, for reasons that can only be guessed at, follows me too. He (for it is a man) is always popping up and making the occasional comment, whether it be about the latest Doctor Who episode, a homemade Tauntaun costume he's seen on the net, or something truly wonderful like bacon-flavoured envelopes.

What he's really passionate about, however, is music. That passion, that absolute love for the art form, is extremely clear from the writings on his blog. He plays live gigs at venues, he also plays live gigs via the net on Ustream. A few months back I tuned in to one of his Ustream gigs and I was extremely impressed with the guys music. I haven't watched another one yet and will have to remedy that very soon indeed.

He is, currently, conducting a Radiohead-style experiment by selling his album in a 'pay whatever you think it's worth' manner. And, so far, it seems to be working, slowly but surely. His approach to the music industry can, perhaps, be best summed up in the following quote from his blog:

"Give some of your music away - if they like it they will most likely buy something later - win hearts and minds first and make friends. If they are interested in your music they are probably people you have loads in common with. Build a community and worry about making money later on."

I really like that approach. Here's someone who's all about the music first. To him, that's the most important thing - writing, performing, recording and above all, ENJOYING music.

For me, this whole blog-tagging thing is about taking someone who you admire and giving them a shout out to the people who already follow you. This guy is the perfect - the ONLY - candidate for that.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Matt Stevens.

And so, finally, after much heart-break and pointless web-clickery, I can tag a blog.

1) Post a song that makes you happy.

Burning Bandstands - Matt Stevens



2) Tag another blogger.

Matt Stevens Guitar

3) Say at least one thing about the blog that will make the author smile.

Hopefully, I've covered this third part above with my effusive rambling. Go and see what Matt's up to. I think you'll like what he's doing.

EDIT: What I failed to do, and am correcting now, is mention the tagging stream so far. Here goes.

L'armadio del delitto tagged Lisa who tagged Suzie who tagged Chocolate Girl who tagged Mondo who tagged Piley who tagged me. There. Done.