[endswapper]

I like the way you phrased, "They're the OG artisanal local blogs," and I think of them the same way.

When I was in junior high and high school one of my best friends and I started producing a 'zine in Cleveland around the punk and hardcore music scenes. We interviewed bands, made crazy art work, she wrote some poetry, and it was a very fun, very satisfying collaboration. We used a mac at the time to do all of our layout and then went to Kinkos to assemble it.

Because of the relationships we developed we started producing concerts for the bands we liked. Basically, we were able to corral enough people to pay for a show we wanted to see by bands that weren't otherwise coming to Cleveland.