This relates to an idea I want to use for a music site/blog I plan to start up, but I think it would be a fun forum activity in its own right for people who dig cool music of all kinds.
The basic idea is to pick a city. Any city. Then find and link to 5 music acts from that city to share here.
Basically, after seeing how many really awesome acts are contained within my own town, I started wondering how many great acts are hiding in other cities around the world, and what it would take to find them other than waiting around for a record company or music blog to bring them to wider attention.
How does somebody do that? I'm not really sure yet! But if the thread grows, different people will find different techniques that work for them, and I'll compile and edit them into the first post here. One technique I've tried is once I find a band, I go to their Facebook page and see what other acts they've "liked". Some are good about linking to other acts, some not so much, but it's a start. For extroverts, e-mailing or messaging them to ask might lead to better results. Or if there's a local music award in that city, a list of nominees might be a good place to start. I'm sure there are tons of other creative methods that would work.
Guidelines for this thread:1 - Pick a city. Could be your own city, could be one you've never been to before. Totally your choice based on what you feel like at the moment. Either highlight acts you already love at home, or be adventurous and look for something completely new.
2 - List 5 acts.2a - For each act, list a "home" page. Could be their domain if they have one, could be Facebook, or Soundcloud, or YouTube, whatever seems to be a good home base for them.
2b - Link one song directly. This could be audio only on Soundcloud or Bandpage, or a video on YouTube. However,
please only use links instead of embedding so this thread doesn't become ridiculously hard to load.
2c (optional) - Any additional links like alternate pages where more music and videos can be found.
3 (optional) - Link any city-specific resources that you may have found useful in doing this research.
Feel free to give your opinions or highlight anything you think is particularly good. I'd also suggest not getting too concerned about finding "the best" right away. Finding good music is always hit or miss, and sometimes something you may think of as "meh" might be perfect for somebody else. It might be that one person finds the first few acts, then another follows up and uses those bread crumbs to find more, which opens up parts of that scene normal searches miss, etc. Finally, do this in whatever way makes it fun for
you. If that means sticking to your favorite genre, great! If that means searching obscure small towns in countries we've never heard of, go for it!
Again, if the thread grows, we can create index posts from time to time, and I'll link to them from this first post so it will be easier to browse the finds we've made.
Happy hunting!
