Hello and welcome to The Top Ten Blogs of 2019! I had almost completed a nearly 15 minute video for this post. Then I did a final view count of over 100 blog posts that I did this year (Interviews, photos, art, comics, etc.) and the top ten had actually changed! Rather than try to redo things, I thought I would do a write up and use screen shots from the video. Note that the views were last added up on December 2, 2019. Here we go:
First, I would like to acknowledge the Twitter account, @LndOntRetweets . Usually when I use the hashtag, #LdnOnt, they will retweet my work. This has contributed to a lot of the blog's success in terms of views.
Next, I would like to acknowledge some Honourable Mentions. These were blog posts that were in The Top Ten at some point during the year, but were unable to hang on in the final countdown.
The first Honourable Mention is for JUNO FanFare, an event that happened at Masonville Place in London, ON. This event required wristbands or tickets. I tried to get tickets for Brett Kissel and Meghan Patrick, but they were gone in four minutes! So I picked photo ops with Johnny Orlando and Tyler Shaw, as well as The Reklaws and Scott Helman. Scott was sick and The Washboard Union came instead. When I got there, someone was giving away their Brett/Meghan wristband, so I took it! But then because I had that, it looked like I wouldn't be allowed to meet Johnny and Tyler, but everything worked out. This post became popular because it was liked by Tyler Shaw and retweeted by a Johnny Orlando fan page and the Pure Country 93 radio station (formerly BX93).
On February 4, 2019, I saw The James Barker Band at the market in the morning and Doc Walker at London Music Hall at night time. This also happened to be the tenth anniversary of the first time I saw Doc Walker, so I was able to include a Ten Year Challenge photo. This blog became popular because it was retweeted by Pure Country 93 and their host, Lynzee Barnett, as well as a few other accounts.
This Honourable Mention would have been in The Top Ten if it was based on how much I miss Daniel DiGiacomo. Daniel passed away unexpectedly in February. He was in the band, River Town Saints and we became friends from day one. Dan supported me in so many ways. We had the same sense of humour and we both took a liking to Weird Al. We talked on Facebook every few days and it has been really difficult to wrap my head around this loss. So many things have happened since his passing that I would love to tell him but I can't. At the same time, I have a feeling that he already knows and continues to support me from wherever he may be.
This post was liked and shared by Pure Country 93 and a bunch of Daniel's fans.
After I saw Doc Walker, the blog reached over 400 000 views! I created a video using footage from their show as well as Aaron Pritchett's Out on the Town Tour. The video also had congratulatory messages from Cross Parallel and Tommy Avallone. This video was retweeted by Doc Walker and Cross Parallel and liked by many others, causing it to remain in The Top Ten for quite a long time.
Riley Green is an American country singer who came to Canada for the first time in April. He came to the market and reluctantly agreed to build a birdhouse with Lynzee. This final Honourable Mention was not originally in The Top Ten until I shared it a second time. Riley liked it both times and it was retweeted by Pure Country 93 and Lynzee. It seemed to explode, but then it fell out of The Top Ten after I shared my Inktober drawings.
The Bill Murray Stories is a documentary by Tommy Avallone which is basically about random acts of kindness that were allegedly performed by Bill Murray! In the film, Tommy seeks out the people who told these stories in order to find out if they were true. Spoiler alert! They were! I was so amazed by this film that I decided to reach out to Tommy, the director, and it worked! This was my first over the phone interview. We had a great conversation about Bill Murray and Tommy's other interests, including DuckTales. When I first shared this article, Twitter had a glitch and I lost over 1000 views! I shared it a total of three times throughout the year to make up for it. It was liked/shared by The Bill Murray Stories, Tommy Avallone and Bill Murray's brother, Joel Murray! (I met Joel in 2013!)
Total: 3912 views.
This was my interview with Dave Wasyliw and Chris Thorsteinson of Doc Walker. As mentioned earlier, they played in London in February. Then they came back in May for George Canyon's "Hit After Hit Tour" with other guests, Charlie Major and Manny Blu. We tried to organize a phone interview between the two shows but it didn't work out. Then Dave said we would do it on the day of the show, and we met in an A&W! Doc Walker shared the article on their Facebook page!
Total: 4092 views.
Luke Combs' "Beer Never Broke My Heart Tour" with LANCO and Jameson Rodgers was not originally in The Top Ten. Then later on the year, I decided to re-post it and it seemed to explode. The funny thing was that none of the performers acknowledged this on social media, but Devin Dawson did! When I had my picture taken with LANCO, they told me they liked my Devin Dawson shirt so I tagged him on Instagram and he liked it! It felt like a full-circle moment. Pure Country 93 and a few other accounts retweeted this on Twitter.
Total: 4252 views.
This year, I created 29 images for Inktober (I combined some of the prompts) which you can see on my Instagram and Facebook. I added up the individual Facebook views and Instagram likes for each image in order to get the final total. The most popular image was for the word, "Ride". Earlier this year, I had a meet and greet with one of my childhood idols, Aaron Carter. I asked him if it would be okay if we took a photo. He agreed to it, but he was more interested in my wheelchair. He asked if he could drive (with me in it). I didn't say no because I was afraid he wouldn't take the picture with me otherwise. We were backstage in the grass so I had the wheelchair turned up to high speed in order to be able to navigate. I forgot this and we took off like a bat out of hell, making for one heck of a ride. This day will always stay with me and deserved to be immortalized in an Inktober prompt haha.
Total: 4304 views.
This was Paul Brandt's tour with Jess Moskaluke, High Valley and The Hunter Brothers. Sadly, I did not get a good picture of Paul. However, as Paul was singing, I noticed a guy beside me in the next section. He was having the time of his life and he looked awfully familiar. I realized it was Olympian, Scott Moir. At the end of the show, I asked Scott if it would be okay to take a photo and he climbed over the little dividing wall between us. This was retweeted by Jess Moskaluke, Pure Country 93 and The Hunter Brothers' mom, Norma! It was also liked by Jess, The Hunter Brothers and by several fans of Scott Moir and the artists.
Total: 4979 views.
Cross Parallel is a newly formed band comprised of Danielle Marie King and Jordan Pritchett (Faber Drive). I have known Jordan for almost a decade and when I asked if I could interview him, Cross Parallel wasn't even officially named yet! Then when we did the interview, their first single hadn't been released to radio. Cross Parallel trusted me with their story and I became the first person to interview them as a duo, which was amazing! They could have chosen any number of media outlets to debut their project, and they decided to work with me! This article was shared across social media by Cross Parallel, but also by Jordan's dad, Aaron Pritchett! Oddly enough, quite a few fake Aaron Pritchett accounts shared the article as well, so obviously someone thought I did a good job! Haha!
Total: 6159 views.
This was my very first post of 2019 which celebrated the blog's 2nd birthday. The video highlighted most of the cool things that happened in 2018! I crammed in as many artists as possible and because of that, this video received a lot of attention on social media. It remained number one on The Top Ten list for a very long time. It was retweeted by Grace Bakker, Abby Stewart, Pure Country 93 and more. It was also liked by Tim Hicks, James Barker Band, Drew Gregory and other people on Twitter.
Total: 6298 views.
My interview with Devin Cuddy is also a former number one on the list. I met Devin in 2014 and was blown away by how talented he is. It was announced that Devin would be in London for The JUNO Awards in 2019, so I emailed him right away, in hopes of an interview. This interview almost didn't happen. The day I emailed him, something was very wrong with me and I had to go to the hospital, but luckily he had written back by the time I got home. We were going to try to do the interview on the Thursday of the awards weekend, but Devin had too many other commitments. Then we tried to make Saturday work, but I was at the mall for JUNO FanFare and he had to go to a dinner. Devin suggested that we do the interview by phone, but then he went to Vietnam and I thought this was never going to happen. When he came home, he called me, and I was like, "Oh my God, we finally did it!" Recently, I asked Siri to call a number "again" and she thought I said Devin and almost called him. That would have been a disaster. However, this article was very successful. It was shared by Devin, his dad, Jim Cuddy and Blue Rodeo on Twitter.
Total: 6756 views.
To make another Devin Dawson reference, Matt Buechele was the dark horse of blog posts this year. I came upon Matt's musical parodies on Twitter over the summer. I thought they were so funny and so well done! I had never seen anything quite like this before. This was at a time where I was really starting to struggle with getting interviews. My mental health wasn't that great either-- but I realized that Matt had brought me so much joy-- and it couldn't hurt to at least email him. He wrote back the next day, having answered all my questions! I was really excited for this interview and then equally disappointed when it only reached about 300 views. About a month later, Matt appeared on an episode of Law and Order SVU. I shared the article again and so did Matt-- to over 19.3 thousand of his Twitter followers! This article was number three right up until I did my final count. Matt Buechele's article surpassed Devin Cuddy's by only 42 views!
Total: 6798 views (and counting).
Finally, it's time for the Number One Blog of 2019! Wait for it.... Just kidding, I think we have waited long enough.
The fact that my London Comic Con photos are number one is just bizarre. I didn't even take that many photos, but the people in the photos have a pretty large social media presence which I think explains a lot. This year at Comic Con, I met Shane Kippel, (Degrassi) and Christopher Grady, the creator of Lunarbaboon (comics). I also saw Melissa MacIntyre (Degrassi), Tara Spencer-Nairn (Corner Gas), and Irene Bedard (Pocahontas). Tara and Irene's panels were moderated by Country 104 hosts, Matt Weaver and Kendra Moore. This was retweeted by Lunarbaboon, Country 104 and #LdnOnt. It was also liked by these accounts and a few others, including the official Corner Gas account, causing it to be seen over 11971 times! This number actually went up as I was typing this! I will give you an update on blog views in The New Year!
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