Supporting Local Music

Yes, another new project is in the works by yours truly. This is more of a hobby than anything. I'm building a website for local music. Not your locality, but mine! Southern WV gets crap as far as name brand talent. Occasionally you'll get a country singer or something to stop and sing for us. Once a decade Metallica will play in Roanoke, VA which is less than 2 hours away or someone good might come to Charlotte, NC which is 3 hours away. Other than that, you're stuck listening to the local bands.

For most people, being stuck with local talent might not sound all that great, but for me, I'd pick the local guys over the big name talent almost any day of the week. At least you know it's about the music with these guys and not the fame/fortune. Some of the talent sucks, but for the most part, I figure some of the local guys here can hang with just about anyone nationwide.

Myspace has created a breakthrough for local bands to show their talents to the world. It allows them to put up a website, show off a few songs, and maybe a few pics. I'd just like to take things a step further and allow these bands to have complete control of the site.

Here's the stuff I'd like to incorporate into the site:

• Allow bands to post unlimited songs for download and/or streaming
  
• Unlimited picture posting
  
• Custom schedules based on location, genre, band, etc.
  
• Allow bands to sell merchandise free of charge (all proceeds go to the bands)
  
• Make it easy for event organizers to contact bands and schedule gigs.
  
• Trading Post to allow bands to trade, sell, barter equipment between each other.
  

The main purpose of this site is to help the local music community. Local music has done so much for me over the past 3-4 years, it's unbelievable. It has been the one constant in my life that has held me together. I'm up for watching local music any day of the week, any time! This site is gonig to be my thank you to the local bands.

To make the site seemless, it will require some web programming that is beyond what I know how to do right now. So I'll have to do some learning to make this thing work. The first step is to see what kind of interest I get from the local bands and venues.