This is not so much a post as more a survey. I suppose just like me, many of you are musicians, artists, actors, playwrights, poets and what not in their own right. How do you feel about using (or perhaps abusing) cvilleMUSE to make your own performances known?
Personally I am tempted every time I see my own band not listed in the weekend outlooks, but I also feel it takes away from the integrity of the site if I stared posting about my group’s upcoming shows. On the other hand, since one can always post anonymously and pretend that one is just a well-wishing friend, this may be a more honest way of doing it.
I just wonder what everybody thinks.
Popularity: 37% [?]
Byard I’m glad you added this to the discussion. From a personal standpoint, I could probably help you out a little bit on this. Since the MUSE began almost a month (wow, has really almost been a month already), I have done my very best to cover as much ground as possible. I’ll be the first to admit that they are things that always fall through the cracks. There a couple of ways to go about addressing your question.
The first is by dropping me a line via email about your band’s upcoming show. I’ve had a number of bands do this already. If you send it to me, I’ll make sure it gets on the site.
shaun@spicybear.com
That’s the first possible answer. Keeping in my mind that I deal primarily with the music side of things. I do what I can to highlight other events outside of the music spectrum, but music is primarily what I do. And if I find that my inbox is getting so overloaded that it takes me two hours to go through it all, then we may have to re-think this possibility. But to this point it’s been working.
The second possibility is that each week we could create a “Find Me Here” post; the body of which would read “Local artists give us the heads up.” And then allow artists to post in the comments section what they’ve got on tap for the week ahead. The when, where, how much, etc. Each week a new “Find Me Here” post highlighting that week’s performances as submitted by the artists themselves.
Thoughts? Other possibilites? Let me know.
Shaun, I like the weekend show recaps - Nailgun has ‘em too but here they seem to be more than a day in advance. I dig that. And Byard - drop your CD off at SpicyBear attn: squidtank or Shaun and one of us will review it and post it up here.
I like Shaun’s second idea. People should be able to pimp their own shows without bothering Shaun or being embarrassed… and people should also be able to easily AVOID the show-pimping posts if they want to. This seems like it would accomplish both. It also eliminates the “my, um, friend has a show” BS that Byard mentioned.
i agree with pk 100% on this.
The weekly “Find me here” sounds like a really good idea. After all, if you just want to know who is playing, why not look into one of the two papers that do this professionally. But a “Find me here” would allow a little self praise along with last minute heads up (as in: we’ll be spontaneously joined by synthesized spoons and a guest glass harpist tonight).
Squidtank: I sent one of them in the mail about a week ago. It has an orange food tray on the cover
find me here could also work for folks who want to alert you of things not “me” i like it.
[…] Local Charlottesville artists! In response to a question posed by one of our readers (who also happens to be a local musician) we here at the MUSE have decided to create a space where […]