Walled calendars equal walled tours
20071202491
Did you know I like Trans Am? They are going to be in town in a couple days. Tickets are $55 plus fees (which is much cheaper than I initially thought). I saw them eight months ago for $10. Thanks Tool.
Tool is huge. And has an interesting fan base. Trans Am is tiny by comparison. Even though there is certainly a part of me that cringes thinking about the sort of folks this tour will expose their music to, I try to be thrilled for them. But there’s the disappointment of not being able to go to the show because, well, I’m a frugal beast unwilling to give Tool a bunch of money.
The real point
Being on a bit of a kick with their music lately, a week or so ago I randomly checked Trans Am’s website to see if they were touring any time soon. I didn’t expect them to be but it never hurts to hope. As expected, their tour dates still showed last spring’s schedule. Oh well. Then a few days later I picked up one of the local weeklies and saw a promo for Tool w/Trans Am. Impossible.
But it’s true. Their fake website even says so.
First thought is bands are too lazy to update their websites. But that’s not fair. Five years ago they did update their website. Their single internet headquarters. Now most bands have at least three internet homes: official, myspace and label. Never to mind the possibility of eighty other social sites. So which to keep update? You can hardly expect a band that plays shows regularly to keep every online home fresh. I tried managing to keep show listings for a band updated on an real website, myspace, virb and purevolume for a week and gave up.
While I doubt I’ll every prefer any network account site over an actual domain, I can see the appeal of spending more time on a band’s presence on certain networks than anywhere else. Those sites get more traffic. Not only do people tend to look on for a band on myspace before looking to rest of the internet, but Google often ranks the myspace version above other search results.
Unfortunately, of all the band related social networks, myspace is the least accessible. There is no reasonable way to pull data in or out of it making services like Upcoming.org or PodBop less useful since you’ll still end up maintaining more than one schedule. Laziness isn’t killing band websites, walls are. And overload. And widgets are the new 1998, remember?
Oh, and Tool.
Comments
Skateboards and bikes are better at nights. 0 comments.
$55 – exactly why i find myself only going to the $10 shows. I dont like to pay much more than that to get kicked in the face. Heck, I can usually do that for free :D
Normally I’d agree with you. But Trans Am found the loophole that says websites with horses are exempt. From everything.
don’t tell shannon you don’t like tool… i think she’d kill you faster than this so-called vendetta of ours is taking place. ps-the snow is falling like nobody’s business out here…. where’s your snowboard??? oh wait!!!… that’s right, skateboards are way cooler. suckah!
blah Tool…good musicians, but only one good song: Sober.
$55 for one show wouldn’t kill ya. Just imagine being a basketball fan and paying $55+ every time you went to a Blazers home game. ugh.
sports=lame