​Back in the day, music lovers used to listen to albums in their entirety, from front-to-back, or side-to-side depending on which format you chose, for me it was vinyl, cassette, CD, MP3s, and now back to vinyl. You really can’t beat the warmth of vinyl. Listening to full LPs has always been one of my favorite pastimes. Though I’ve been known to cherry pick songs when creating set lists with my digital media, I would prefer listening to albums in full, it’s a wonderful journey. Over the years of playing drums I started to notice influences in my playing. Going back to a lot of this music I realized that I had acquired the styles and techniques that certain drummers used on albums. In many cases it’s not only the drummer that I’ve picked up but also the other musicians and the material. Which is why I compiled this list of ten albums rather than just giving a shout out to individual players, since I feel I was influenced by the whole package.

It’s understandable how complex SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be to someone just getting into internet marketing. It’s constantly evolving and even those with many years of experience don’t fully understand every aspect. The reason is search engine algorithms continue to change year over year. As the internet grows more and more websites are competing for our attention, search engines need to find better ways to make relevant sites stand out from the rest. Relevancy is the keyword. Whether you’re creating a new website, rebuilding an old site, or just making a few changes to help with a website’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) there are basic practices that can make a huge difference. A small amount of knowledge can go a long way. Here are ten basic steps you can take to increase your rankings.

Recently I just read an interesting book titled “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. Actually, I didn’t read the book, I listened to it on Audible and to be honest it wasn’t that good. If you got through the first and last chapters then you pretty much got the gist of the whole book. Essentially, it’s a book about values and what’s truly important and letting go of the useless distractions in life. Not the first time I’ve read or listened to this concept. Manson just has a way of using vulgarity to attract readers, which is why I gave it a shot. So, kudos to the author!

​There are numerous trendy marketing buzzwords floating around these days including inbound marketing, programmatic marketing, and referral marketing. However, one buzzword that doesn’t get as much attention is drip marketing. It’s often used in conjunction with other marketing methods and I find it to be very useful and effective. Drip marketing is sending, or “dripping,” a series of pre-written set of messages to a target audience. The messages can be delivered by email, direct mailing, or social media. Most drip campaigns are delivered using email which can be handled with an automated process or manually. Usually the message sent will change based on the actions of the recipient.

The music of my generation that shaped me.
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I had a professor in collage who made an interesting observation about music. He claimed that no matter how diverse your music taste might be, you’ll always revert back to what you listened to when you were eighteen. Now at the time, I didn’t think much of it since this hipster type who wasn’t much older than the rest of us always would blurt out some outrageous claim just to see if someone was willing to join him in a discussion. Unfortunately for him the class was in the evening, which meant most of the students were taking the class at night because they worked during the day. So no one was willing to join in the discussions since we were all tired and didn’t give a damn. However, for some reason I remember this particular claim and it stuck with me. I believe this hipster wannabe was onto something.