Where to Go to Find Live Music.

So you're a RADAR advocate for ArtiSans Label. You have business cards, studio flyers, brochures, and artist referral forms. Now you need to meet some artists!

Many of you are in bands, or have friends that are in the live music circuit. You are already aware of local shows and where to go to see live music, in fact you are harrassed everytime your friends band has a gig. But how do you find out about live music shows and venues aside from your friends? Below are a few resources to help you find where to go in your search for bands and live music.

ReverbNation: Are you registered on ReverbNation? If not, register immediately. What is ReverbNation? Jen Creed wrote a fantastic blog about it a few weeks ago, and it is an excellent resource for music fans as well as for bands. All you have to do to find out where you can catch live music near you (once you are registered and logged in) is click on the "shows" tab on the top of your main page. Then you can search for shows in your area by genre, date, distance, etc. Also, when you meet a band you can become a fan of them through ReverbNation. Then you can keep in contact with the band and choose to be updated about any future shows they have.


Village Voice Media Publications: Village Voice Media is the brilliant company behind LA Weekly and OC Weekly (for local So. Cal residents) and Village Voice in NY. They also have publications in Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Nashville, and many other cities. These are free publications that you can pick up in your city or check out online. Venues often place ads listing their show calendar throughout the paper, but there is also an entire live music section where you can find live music shows for the week. On their website, you can search by venue, band, location (city), and genre.

CityGuide: Go to http://citiguide.aol.com/ and enter your city. Then you can choose the tab for "live music" and search for live music in your area (provided by when.com which is apparently another website where you can search for things to do).

Festivals: I have to say....I love festivals! I love to go as a patron, and I love to go to perform with CONJOB. At Festivals.com you can search for festivals in your area, they even have a list of music events.

Festivals are personally my favorite place to play music, and also my favorite place to go see music. As a performer, it is great perform for people who are there to soak up the atmosphere and have a good time. The members of CONJOB will usually hang out most of the day when we play a festival, passing out stickers and fliers and promoting our show. We'll even throw back a few beers with people in the beer garden. We have made more new fans at festivals than at most of our shows combined. The opportunity to meet people and network at festivals, especially music festivals, can't be matched at a bar or club.

Obviously these aren't all the ways to find bands to go see, (there is this fantastic thing called Google which can help you to find anything you need at all), but these websites should get you started in your search for bands to refer. So, now that you know where to look - go see some live shows!