I love reviewing weblogs, I really do. Its mainly because of sites like this. Most of the sites I’ve reviewed have really good layouts, and when you see that you expect to find a really good blog. Nine times out of ten though the blog stinks and you can tell the author spent most of their time on design or other bells and whistles. Kind of like a Potamkin’s village. Look beyond the shiny paint and and clean streets and there’s nothing at all. Not so here. This is the blog we all wanted to have when we started blogging.
This is Shannon Campbell’s weblog. Folk singer, North Carolina native, recent Pennsylvanian, aspiring rock star. Shannon’s been “aspiring” for quite awhile now. That stinks for her of course, but its great for us readers. We get a first hand account of what it is like to actually try to make it into the music business. Its definatly much harder than I thought. Seems darn near impossible. The author just doens’t talk about trying to become a rock star though. I’m putting this blog in the music category although it could just as easily fit into the personal category. The author writes candidly about growing up in North Carolina, about leaving home when she was fifteen, about the squalid living conditions for the better part of a year or two afterwords, about a brother in jail, about being darn near destitute. The great thing about the authors writing is, while you are reading, you almost feel like you are there. You almost feel like its years ago and you are living in a cramped trailer with a bunch of pseudo strangers. If your like me, it makes you appreciate the fact that you never had those difficulties.
Okay, all that aside, here’s what makes this blog really good. Click on songs.mp3 in the navigation bar on the top of the blog. Once you get there download “Dreaming Of Violets”. Thats just good music. If you do one thing at Pet Rock Star listen to that song.
The site design is superb. There’s a guestbook, a picture section (we all love a picture section), a chat page (although I admit thats one feature I did not try, I’m just not a chat person). My favorite feature is how the blog is categorized. You can read all of the authors posts about her family, about her music, about just about anything just by clicking on the appropriate category.
I even tried one interesting thing the author wrote about. I have four cats that I love more than anything else. And putting scotch tape on the bottom of their paws is gosh darn the funniest thing you’ll ever see. I also agree with the author’s March 25th entry about road trip rules. That post ought to be made into a law.
There are a few broken links. I don’t blame the author for that though. Their mostly to articles written about her music in North Carolina. The author probably doesn’t know that the Fayetteville Observer changed their url.
This weblog is a five, you can’t argue with that. If you read it from day one til the most recent entry like I did, I dare say you would disagree. Five Stars, check it out.