Tourdates

I caught up with Jarrod from the up-and-coming London based music website to check out Tourdates’ benefits for us and how we can contribute all the way from Newcastle.

E: What were your motivations for starting the website?

J: We came up with the idea in 2001 from being frustrated musicians ourselves, and seeing how we and others had little chance of exposure when we were unknown. This was before blogs, of course.

E: So how does it work?

J: It’s like myspace, but without profiles of cats, dogs and pole dancers! It’s just all about the music.

E: What can we do on it?

J: As it works similarly to myspace, it’s like a music community for bands and listeners- bands can add their gig dates, mp3s and videos, and everyone can have their own music blog.

E: So… how does it differ from myspace?

J: We have transposed the form of the website into free zines in London called ‘London Tourdates’, of which 35,000 copies are distributed weekly. Although this is currently restricted to the capital, we are hoping to expand the magazines out of London in the future and get all our online content published. As well as this, the music plays continually when you are on the website, not breaking off when you are searching through the sites pages as on myspace.

E: Has it been successful so far?

J: Yes, 7000 unsigned bands are now featured from being online just seven months. The influences of the unsigned bands direct the users to artists with similar influences, so unsigned bands are made massively available to users. We have had 1.5 million visitors since the start.

E: What other features does the site have?

J: It has an Unsigned Chart [check out here!] which we are eager to expand awareness of. It is created genuinely, from plays and download numbers, instead of the commercial marketing of the real charts. Our RSS feed helps to expose this top 40 to as many people as possible, so real talent can be discovered from it.

E: What are your future plans?

To expand the website further afield, and also get more bloggers- anyone can sign up and if we like their writing they can be promoted to featured writers and get published in the magazines!