Sound Check

I wanted to take a different approach today and share a story with you. My sister is one of the most talented and creative individuals I know. As a kid I acquired an interest in drawing and art through her, not to mention my dabbling in photoshop and web design. Recently one of our favorite bands announced a come back show. Some of you may know them, their name, Phantom Planet. Best known for their song “California” which still plays every time an episode of the OC comes on TV. None the less, my sister has been in the social media world for a long time and has used her fan girl and artistic ways to reach out to some of her favorite celebrities.

(Please excuse the poor quality of this photo, the lighting wasn’t very good and iPhone’s can only do so much, it captured her excitement at least.)

In this instance, Phantom Planet’s impromptu show sparked inspiration in my sisters brain. She created a beautiful poster for the band’s show. Her artwork of course was based on their last album “Do the Panic” and focused on imagery from their music video for their song with the same name. As a way to showcase her work, she posted the image up on Facebook and tagged the band in it, she also tweeted the picture directly to the band’s Twitter accounts expressing excitement for their show. To her surprise the bassist tweeted her back with gratitude for the beautiful artwork and insisted that they print copies of her poster to sell at their show. Well… my sister could have died happy at that moment and she quickly scrambled back and forth via email to figure out a plan to make this dream a reality.

Unfortunately the time crunch made it too expensive to rush prints of the posters in the quality the band required. They didn’t leave my sister hanging to dry however, they passed on an invitation for her and a guest (myself) to hang around while they did their sound check! Sam (the bassist) welcomed my sister with a printed poster of her artwork and signed it for her. A couple of the other members signed it as well and gave her kudos on how well the piece came out. Sam assured her that he was going to print out copies for each band member and have them framed.

Now isn’t that just a tale of happily ever after? The moral of the story? It is possible to be noticed on social media sites. I know it is a scary thought considering just how many people participate in Twitter and Facebook but your voice counts just as much as the next guy, even with his 100k following. Showing passion, interest and love for something can easily be seen in the social media world. Keep yourself involved.