Advice to aspiring bloggers often sounds like the advice commencement speakers invariably give to graduating high school seniors: “follow your passion and sucess will follow.” Anyone who has ever started a blog knows that trite aphorisms and simplistic content formulas like the “80/20″ rule don’t replace hard work and constant attention to quality.
Abbey Simmons and Josh Lovseth started the hyper-local Sound on the Sound music blog in 2006 and over the last five years, there work has come to define several exciting aspects of a burgeoning Seattle music scene. Sound on the Sound was one of the first publications to draw national attention to Seattle’s “Ballard Avenue” roots/folk revival and bands like The Head and the Heart and Drew Grow and the Pastor’s Wives. Through hard work and seeing lots and lots of live music, Abbey and Josh have taken their passion for music and turned it into a highly influential cultural voice in Seattle and beyond.
Recently FTM had a chance to sit down with Abbey and have her give us a history of her work at Sound on the Sound and a behind the scenes look at music blogging in general.
While Sound on the Sound wasn’t created with profit in mind (and so far doesn’t generate one), Abbey has been hired as a writer and editor for other publications like BuddyTV and Seattlest. Most of those referrals have come from editors seeing her work on Sound on the Sound.
One of the reasons that Sound on the Sound has found an audience is their commitment to posting multi-media content in addition to their features and reviews. Here is the Head and the Heart from their “Doe Bay Sessions” video series:
I’m just glad to see that Abbey and the Sound on the Sound crew have found a successful niche and they remain creative with what they do. That’s not easy in such an overcrowded music blog demographic like we have in Seattle, but it is necessary and they make it happen.