My First Year of College: A Review

Some of you may know that I started this blog as a suggestion from my Journalism 101 professor, and it has grown into this ball of madness you're viewing. In the beginning, I was thinking I'd use it to show off my knowledge about journalism and media in general as a journalism student, but fuck that. FUCK that. I am not yet ready to be an old man who is obsessed with gadgets and who likes blogging about "media this, media that."

No, this has become my place to do what I intend to do for the rest of my life: connect with other fans through my writing and write about what I love. Not that I don't love journalism; obviously I do, but it's like my trusty tour van and music is my tour route.

I have learned multitudes about both journalism and about the music industry this school year alone and I know I have only more to learn and am way excited for that!

For now, however, I will not bore you with my schoolwork (Ha!), but will give you a summary of the bigger events that took place during my school year.

I went to some shows!
Bill And Trav's Bogus Journey Tour

Taking Back Sunday / Envy on the Coast Winter Tour

Senses Fail @ the Basement

Believers Never Die Part Deux Tour

Taking Back Sunday's "New Again" Tour




Let us not forget my working Lobsterfest.

So, I help out at the All Campus Radio Network (ACRN), and we worked our faces off all year to hold Lobsterfest, our annual all-day music festival. It was probably the most fun I have had. I loved it from the moment I woke up to start helping set up a stage and vendor tents at 8AM, through making multiple trips to help fill the headliner's show rider, during my sitting in the tent for hours selling shirts, all the way to 12:30 that night when I was helping tear down the stage.

So, bands-- if you're looking for a merch girl / go-to show helper. I'm just saying, I'm pretty damn good at it and have experience. ;-D!

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I did some sweet street promo!
The MCRmy kept me busy this year, but that was not the only promoting I did. I also worked in the promo department for ACRN, so I got to use my TSN experience and stealthy skills to throw show fliers up all over the town of Athens.

Also, finally having hi-speed internet opened up my promo possibilities tremendously, which made me so happy I could have fallen over!




I designed my very first custom flier thanks to my Visual Comm class.







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I listened to a TON of new CDs

Helping out in the music department of ACRN has many, many perks! One gets to hear CDs before they come out and discovers MANY, MANY new artists and genres. Not all of the artists are quite worth one's listening time, but often one can find a gem in the pile of new CDs. Here are my top five of the CDs I reviewed this year:

5 "Zero (single)" -Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4 "Welcome to Goon Island" - XX Teens
3 "Meet me at the Bottom" - Let Me Run
2 "Coaster"- NOFX
1 "Avalon" - Anthony Green

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I got a little recognized!

In May, someone from Taking Back Sunday's team of online ninja-spies found my review of their show, and decided it was worthy of being posted on both the band's myspace and on their main website. I almost cried... Okay, so I cried a little. I was just happy!

As a result, this is what happened to my blog views:



Thanks, TBS team!

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I Did Many things That Centered Around My Chemical Romance
as always...

For the first 29 days of my college career, I wore nothing but MCR shirts.

I have accumulated even more shirts since. Next year, perhaps I'll wear nothing but MCR shirts for the first 40 days..? HA!















At the request of Mr. Bob Bryar, I collected Red Bull cans (getting myself addicted to the stuff in the process), painted some of them, and sent them to Burbank, California to help Bob fulfill his dream of making a Red Bull wall.






I spazzed about the boys getting twitter and got a reply from Mikey Way. "Sister to Sleep" -- God, I hope he meant they're finally going to put the song out.





I won an MCRmy contest for promoting "Venganza!"

I have yet to see my prize, but I'm still excited!






I was among the first fans featured on MCR's facebook and, later, on their merch page wearing my Venganza vest!













I celebrated Frank's and Gerard's birthdays by dressing up (sadly, I didn't know how to dress up elaborately for the other guys')





I started #MCRchat on twitter.

Their hiatus has made me miss them fiercely, but I'm way stoked now that they're recording. Before you know it "A Music-Freak's Views" will be filled with more MCR news than you can handle.

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All in all, it was a good first year. There were points when I got really low, but all I needed to do was turn on my speakers and remember that I do have the strength to get through anything college life throws at me. I couldn't have made it without the awesome new friends I made through ACRN and my best friend from home who reminded me that I wasn't alone even if I was miles from everything I had ever known.









I'm also extremely grateful to have lived with these lovely and supportive ladies.


Thanks, everyone!







Make it loud, make it loud, make it motherfuckin loud! -Let Me Run

XoXo
c.