Upwards, onwards

Over a year ago, I sent an email to all the musicians I knew in DC, and some I didn't, about a "Music party idea." I described it as a house concert with about ten bands, each playing 3-4 songs, mostly comprised of one-off bands that "form just for this event, practice together a couple times, and maybe come up with a goofy name for themselves." I wanted to meet more musicians and I wanted a house show where the bands could have as much fun as the audience because they didn't have to play the whole time. That process led to what you now know as the Flashband Project.

Flashband events have been a lot of fun and the community of musicians they've built - even with only four DC events so far - has been incredible. They've also been a lot of work. I had big ambitions to do full events (40 musicians) quarterly, with smaller 5-band events in between. But even with the addition of Caleb Astey and Amanda Kirby helping with the website and events, I've still only managed to pull off four Flashband events in the past year. With a full-time job, music playing, and a handful of other activities it was stressful trying to follow up with musicians, find venues and organize logistics for the meet-and-greet. About December, I started thinking - I either need pick up the pace and commit to growing Flashband, or stop doing it.

Flashband gets official

So I'm picking up the pace. A month ago, I quit my job - making room mentally and time-wise to explore how to grow Flashband. Part time work at ICF, where I worked a few years ago, gives me a bit of a parachute - but my goal is to make it into a sustainable organization that can support me and whatever staff needed to scale it. Obviously it's always a bit scary to start something new like this, but very exciting at the same time. I've been thinking and scheming about this for over a year now - and I'm really happy to be giving it the shot it deserves. 

What does this mean for Flashband?

We're going to be growing - upping the frequency of events in DC, learning how to run them better and easier, making the website into something that really helps the process, and moving Flashband to new places. We may be in a different place in six months, but for right now that means: 

• Getting organized - Incorporating as an official organization, tracking finances, and improving the website.
• More frequent events - Starting with DC, we'll be working to grow the network of musicians and do events more often. Our best way to do that will still be friends telling their friends, so if you love Flashband spread the word and put us in touch with connectors you know. 
• New cities - We're doing our first test drive of a Flashband event in a new city, in my hometown of Wilmington NC on June 8. Over the next 6 months we'll slowly start a few more cities, probably near to DC, while we figure out how to run the events better. In the medium-term, we hope to spread much wider than that. 

What does this mean for me?

Growing Flashband is going to take a lot of work. I'm doing this because I love it, and because musicians keep telling me how much it means to them. But while I'm bootstrapping along, I kindly, humbly, ask for your help - any kind you can give me. If you're willing to throw in a few dollars to help  pay our server fees, bus tickets to visit a new city, and help my savings last a little bit longer, I'd be most appreciative - you can find a link on our new donate page. 

More valuable than that, though, is your expertise. From marketing and legal tips, to help running events, to contacts for "useful to know" people in new cities, a little can go a long way and there's lots of areas where you know more than I do. Email me any time with ideas - you can always reach me at humphrey.neal@gmail.com.

Keep in touch

We'll be updating this blog weekly, with everything from cool tools for musicians to progress on the project. I'll also be sending out a monthly email summary - if you haven't already, join the Flashband mailing list to get these and make sure you're the first to find out about show announcements.

Thanks to all the Flashband musicians for great times so far, to Caleb and Amanda for their help getting Flashband established on and offline, and to all of you for your support. 

-Neal

DC Music Listing Sites

We here at the Flash Band Project love all things music – especially going to see shows. I'm a bit of a procrastinator about making plans for them, though, and don't keep close track what shows are coming up, so my method for choosing what shows to go to is usually pretty disorganized.

Resolving to see more live music in the new year, I've been looking into better ways to find shows happening around town. The way I see it, there's two broad ways most people might look for live music – time based (I want to see a show on Saturday!) or band based (it would be great to know if Basia Bulat plays in town). Let's take a look at what works best for each path.

Time Based
For me, this is the most common. I'm making plans for the weekend, and I want to know what my options are. If you've been around DC for a while, you start to get familiar with the main options. Most straightforward is to go to the venue websites. They usually give you the richest information about each of the bands – photos, links to the band websites, videos and sound files. Going to each site individually is a pain, though.

Next up are sites that list shows from multiple venues. The best known local options are probably City Paper and the Washington Post. Of the two, City Paper is a lot cleaner and nicer, and appears a little more comprehensive. Then there's loads of national and international aggregators with very level of show lists. The problem is, you can start with one of them and find a decent list of shows, but plenty are inevitably missing. You visit another one to try to fill in the gaps, but mostly you have to sift through the same show list. What we need is a comprehensive list.

From all my searching, for live music listings in the DC area, Show List DC is definitely the most comprehensive. The format is super basic – simple text listings by date – but, on closer inspection despite having a fancier interface doesn't actually offer more information.

Recommendation: Show List DC

Band Based

When you want to know when a specific band – or, more likely, a lot of specific bands you like – are playing, a different approach is needed. Big bands sell out early, and its easy to miss shows if you don't read each listing.

In comes Song Kick. There are a bunch of show listing aggregators out there, but from those I've looked at they're one of the best. They aggregate listings from 100's of sources, mostly things like the online ticket vendors. This gives them a pretty comprehensive list of shows – not quite as good as Show List DC since they lack the local connection (they're based in the UK), but rivaling City Paper, if not better. The best feature, though, is that their main feature is tracking artists. You can set up alerts for any bands you like so that you get an email whenever they book shows near you. Integration with your Spotify, Facebook, and iTunes lets you pre-populate that list of tracked bands as well. If you like a cleaner interface for time based searching, they can be a better starting point than Show List as well. Good stuff.

Recommendation: Song Kick

Hope these sources are useful to you – feel free to comment below if you've used either of these and like/dislike them or have recommendations for any better sources for finding live music.

-Neal