A fond farewell.

Friends and readers, the time is upon us that I make an announcement which has been a long time coming: I have chosen to discontinue thevolumejunkie.com. While it will always be online in its Blogger form (http://www.blogspot.com/thevolumejunkie) I will not be renewing the domain when it lapses in the next couple weeks.

With over seventy columns since September 2009, I look back at the work on this site with a great deal of nostalgia... When I look back at the amazing music I got to listen to, the shows I got to see, the artists I met, the friends I made, and the opportunities I had, my heart swells with so much amazement and gratitude I can barely keep from getting choked up. When I first started TVJ in '09, I was a 21-year-old misfit with little self esteem, bad grades, and few friends. I truly believe that through cultivating TVJ, I not only found my voice but learned how to be a friend, a comrade, a learner, and a real human being. For this, I want to thank each and every one of you who made it possible. I went from a sad, bored girl writing a clip about Kings of Leon to send to the Kalamazoo Gazette in hopes of writing for "Ticket," to a much more self-assured English-major-by-day, aspiring music-writer-by-evening who interviewed national acts and even got a chance to work for SPIN magazine.

While I owe thanks to more people than I can mention, I would be remiss not to lend a few shout-outs to those who supported me the most. First and foremost are my family, who have been incredibly supportive of my dreams to write and to finish college, and have been graciously open to every silly whim I've ever had. Thank you to my second family, my amazing group of friends: in no particular order, Nick, Chrissy, Rachel, Kaley, Alex, Bethany, Agata, Jackie, Elise, AJ and the rest-- thank you guys for your love and support of my various artistic endeavors. I would like to thank my designer and Web guru, Jonathon Trousseau, for his contributions to the site, which he provided for 100% free... Jon, this was incredibly generous of you and I can't thank you enough. Thank you to Will, who read nearly everything before it went live and offered more support and sensible advice than I ever could have asked for. Thank you also to the AMAZING, AMAZING folks of West Michigan NOISE!: Munson, Dustin, Devon, Dwayne Hoover, Kat and the rest: you guys are truly talented and passionate human beings and I admire each and every one of you for it. To the bands I met and wrote about: thank you for being good sports through my not-always-well-received remarks. Art is evolution, and I hope that even if you took anything I said as criticism, that it was nothing more than the observations of one person, and every artist is only made stronger through criticism-- myself included. The truth is, all I ever wanted to do was listen to music and talk about it, and even if I came off as negative, it was never my intent to foster negativity, only to offer up my proverbial two cents.

So if you're reading this, thank you-- this truly was an amazing experience and a dream come true.

Peace and love,
Meg (thevolumejunkie)