six years of songs (and things)

I'm a bit late to my own party writing this on Friday afternoon, but it felt like the blog was owed a little celebratory post to mark a milestone. 

The lil site that you find yourself on right now turns six today!!! 

Firstly - it's bewildering that it's been a year since I was rambling (far more than I will here - don't worry*) about the site's five year birthday. About my hopes to have organised a gig to celebrate it and announcing a little Youtube project that I had set up with some of my favourite artists playing tracks from their homes just for the blog. 

The stars aligned a little, and sent me videos from Sam Beeton and Irwin Sparkes (as White Tail Falls). Artists I've loved since before the blog existed, and who both inspired its creation in a way. Forever indebted to their inspiring artistry and general loveliness to myself and to the blog.

As a quick aside - I haven't shared anything new there in a while but do have monthly playlists (here's May) of my favourite music videos and performances, and if any artists fancy recording something for it then I would certainly be up for sharing more sessions so get in touch!! 

I have to say that the past year has probably been the best year yet for the blog. Follower counts and page views can be a little distracting but I do love me a statistic, and they've jumped so much in the past year. Twitter followers doubled, Instagram tripled (!) and I'm pretty sure the site itself saw the most views ever for the year. I've had a bunch of time at home from work on furlough over the past year, and it's been lovely to see the extra time that I was able to put into the site reflected in those ways.

More than a year without gigs has been strange - so much of my barely existent social life is usually going to gigs, catching up with pals I've made at previous gigs and through music over the internet. It's been really odd not to see my favourite artists and my favourite people and yet, in certain way, I've never felt quite so connected to the scene...

The number of fellow music fans, bloggers, PR folk, artists, labels and the like who I've interacted with over the past year, mostly through the blog, has been lovely. The blog is so much cooler than me, so I only hope that you're not too disappointed when you meet real life Megan at a gig somewhere along the line. 

I've been back at work for a few weeks now and finding time to keep on top of the blog can be a bit of a struggle. Growth on the site means that submissions have risen and my inbox is teeming with exciting new music. Everybody wants a slice of the CMAT pie. It can be a little overwhelming at times and yet, here I still am. Mostly it's a huge honour to have any kind of audience to share my music-based rambles with. 

Thanks so much for sticking around. Thanks for sharing my posts, for telling me that you enjoyed a post, and particularly the content I was sharing in it. There's no joy like knowing I've successfully spread the word of a release I have a lot of love for. That's what I'm here for.

If you forgot to get the blog a birthday cake, apologies accepted via Ko-fi donations. Joke. But the link is here if you did ever want to support the behind the scenes goings on of the site...

Here's to another year of music based rambles. Maybe even a gig.

Thanks for being the best!!!!

(*OK I lied and rambled a lot again. Oops.)