Announcing The New, Improved.......

Greetings, dear readers!

As you may or may not have noticed (I certainly have), I am without any live They Might Be Giants until September. I certainly don't have the wherewithal to fund a jaunt to the UK and, though I would desperately like to (and indeed contemplated it) I don't think I can pull together a trip to California either (unless some fine reader would like to put me and my boyfriend up for the weekend and drive us around the Bay area to all the shows - not likely as I don't think any of you are West Coasters). So I am facing my longest gap between concerts since the summer of 2008, when I was too new to the game to know what I was missing. I know, whine, whine, whine, you say. But it's my blog so I am allowed to wallow in a little self pity.

*wallow, wallow, wallow*

In the meantime, I have been contemplating what to do, both with myself and this blog, to pass the time through the hot and sticky summer months. Since, my first choice - be a fly on the wall of the studio while the band finishes their new album - is probably NOT an option, I have come up with another idea. I am going to liven up/repurpose this blog a bit and see if I can't get it to more resemble my original vision for it. I don't mean just visually, though I am contemplating a bit of redesign (I already fiddled with the HTML a little to make it wider - oooo, ahhhhh - thanks, Megan), but also in terms of content.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still post show write-ups in the fall, and lots of them since I have at least two shows almost every other weekend for the months of September and October. But in the meantime I am going to set myself on a thrice weekly posting schedule as follows:

Mondays: To get the week started I'll be posting a new Audience Participation entry each Monday. If you haven't seen the ones I've done already, this is where I pick a topic for a TMBG related Top 10 or 5 or whatever list, post my own and then invite you, the audience, to share yours in the comments. The ones I've posted so far have gone over pretty well, so hopefully this will be fun. I'll gladly take suggestions for topics if anyone has any requests.

Wednesdays: I'd like to do a version of the Wordless Wednesday concept, in other words, a photo post. I'm probably going to mix it up a little between posting some of my concert shots and this other nifty idea I have. See, I know how fond TMBG fans are of song interpretations and the like but personally I avoid them like the plague. I find that once I read someone else's interpretation of a song, that is all I can think about when I listen to it and that has ruined some songs for me. But you all know I'm a bit of a photo junkie and I did think it would be fun to start a collection of photo interpretations. That is, photographs that depict a certain lyric or verse or whatever from a They Might Be Giants song. They can be staged or just something you see out in the world that reminds you of a song.

Who is going to be taking these photos, you ask? Why, you are! The idea is that you brilliant TMBG fans will snap these shots and then send me a link to your picture on Photobucket or Flickr or Twitpic or whatever your preferred photo hosting site is (as long as they allow embedding), along with the lyric or song you are depicting and how you would like to be credited (name, screen name, etc). Then I will post them up on Wednesdays. They don't have to be great art. You can submit a shot of a bluebird sitting on a birdhouse that you snapped with your cell phone as long as it is reasonably clear what it is a picture of. They also don't have to be literal interpretations. They can be as abstract as a TMBG video, as long as it ties back to a song somehow. Feel free to include an explanation I can post with your picture if you think others might not "get it."

There are only a few rules. You can only submit your own pictures, not ones taken by other people that you find on the internet. No inappropriate content (meaning no nudity, vulgar gestures or poses or the like). Make sure you have permission to photograph whatever you are photographing if you need it. And no Photoshopping except to improve the quality of the picture. That takes all the fun out of it.

I'll contribute some of my own pictures too and in the event that I don't have any submissions for the week, I'll substitute one of my concert photos. You can send submissions to my email at theroommustlistentome@gmail.com.

And finally...

Fridays: I will do a news round-up for the week including any interviews, articles, reviews, photos, announcements and interesting stuff that I find on the band. With a new album in the works I'm hopeful some interesting news will present itself over the coming months. And in the event that there is absolutely nothing to report in a given week, I'll post a retro interview from days gone by so we can relive the release of old albums and rediscover favorite quotes.

I will try my best to keep to this schedule. I can tell you that, because of my work schedule, I often post late at night and I will consider it to still be the same day even if it is after midnight as long as I haven't gone to bed yet. For example, I can guarantee that this week's Audience Participation blog will not appear until after midnight tonight. But in general I will try to get things out in a timely manner.

So go out, take some pictures, start mentally preparing your lists of favorite everything and stay tuned in to the new and improved My Name Is Blue Canary. And suggestions are always welcome either in comments or email. Thanks for reading and thanks you all your support. Together we can make it to the next show, the next album and beyond!