orgwell
Offline
Roanoke, VA

I wonder how many of you may be familiar with a site called JamBase.

Like Last.fm, I've been a member of JamBase for years, and it's been an invaluable aspect of my musical life.  For the unaware, its main purpose & function is as a database of (international) live-music events, filtered by a handful of criteria: artist, location, date (range).  It also relays information about many regularly-touring acts, reviews particular shows & festivals, and even provides regular feature-articles about a wide variety of themes.  JamBase also has a certain social-networking function, but I find this to be rather lacking (perhaps since Myspace/Facebook took off).

One thing that I particularly love about JamBase is how it can help me to find music playing in an area that I'm not very familar with, when I just happen to be in for a few days at a time.  Stored favorite-artists decrease the amount of time & energy one has to spend filtering through the entire site's listings for a particular area, and they've even added a feature to e-mail you when your tracked-artists add a show in "your area" (user-defined).

The site started as a fairly intricate Phish fan-site in the late-90's, and still retains much of its jam-focused content.  However, like many (American) music-festivals in the last decade, JamBase has diversified its coverage, to include much more than ______ (stereotypical jam-band), including many aspects of folk, americana, world, indie, alt-country, and of course, the encompassing grip of electronic music.

I always go to JamBase first, when searching for shows around the country, and I believe my first attempt in a chiptune fashion was for.. Anamanaguchi?  Honestly, I was a little surprised to find that they did, indeed, have an artist-page.  But, none of the other three acts on the upcoming 8-Bit Alliance Tour did.   ...so I added 'em.  Anyone can submit an artist, and add certain (limited) informational components to their summary; though I haven't tried to submit any artists' music yet, just in case (tracks can be displayed via LaLa).

other 8-Bit Alliance artists on JamBase:
  - Sabrepulse
  - Henry Homesweet
  - Starscream

I've stalled on adding the full 8-Bit Alliance Tour, for a few reasons:
   a) I wonder what the chiptune desire is on JamBase at the moment, and if it'll be worth my time to go about adding these shows, especially as close as it's getting to the start of the tour.
   b) Adding a show requires a significant amount of legitimate information.  [Honestly, I just don't wanna do it.]
   c) I slightly wonder if the artists themselves may not care to be listed on this website.  (highly doubt this)
   d) I thought that the artists themselves might be interested in developing their own profiles, and didn't want to overstep my desire to help.

Sorry for a lengthy post!  If you'd like to gander at my own profile, to get an idea for what's possible if you sign up, here ya go.  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Turtle413
Offline
MA

Love Jambase.... All you Chip Artists should submit their tour dates on Jambase!!! Btw some of you awesome Chip Artist's should look into playing a Festival called "Camp Bisco"...it's right up your alley, as far as electronic music festys go....(I hate the Disco Biscuits btw)  smile

orgwell
Offline
Roanoke, VA
Turtle413 wrote:

Love Jambase.... All you Chip Artists should submit their tour dates on Jambase!!! Btw some of you awesome Chip Artist's should look into playing a Festival called "Camp Bisco"...it's right up your alley, as far as electronic music festys go....(I hate the Disco Biscuits btw)  smile

Great suggestion on Camp Bisco!  I went in '07, had a great time (first time seeing Holy Fuck, actually).  It's consistently one of my favorite festival-lineups every year -- so much different electronic music, but primarily focusing on live-acts, many of a more psychedelic slant.  As dubstep keeps inundating the jamtronic scene, however, more chip influence can be heard; I don't think it'd be a stretch to see some chiptune artists at Camp this year or next.  It's only 3hrs. from New York City, too, so maybe there could be a draw of some sort from NYC's larger chip fanbase.


a handful of previous artists (other than The Disco Biscuits, of course):

campbisco.net wrote:

Nas and Damian Marley, Snoop Dogg, Kid Cudi, Thievery Corporation, DJ Shadow, MSTRKRFT, The Roots, Asher Roth, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), Girl Talk, Shpongle, Younger Brother, Bassnectar, and !!!


[re: hating tDB..]
I used to hate on them so hard, for a number of reasons.  But the general consensus is that they've gotten a lot tighter in the last 2+ years, just as one of their closest peers began to slide off substantially (STS9).  I decided to catch a recent tDB show in Baltimore, just to see if my take on 'em might be different, and I absolutely loved their performance (I was sober, btw).  Now eagerly awaiting their mid-Atlantic run in April.

Sabrepulse
Offline
London, UK

edit - I read your post now wink

I don't like the idea of not having exclusive control over what information/music is available through these sites....

Last edited by Sabrepulse (Feb 26, 2010 2:04 pm)

calmdownkidder
Offline
Liverpool, UK

I would like one major website for gigs/events, there's far too many (Facebook/Myspace/last.fm/dontstayin/outlar to name a few off the top of my head - one website that specialises in this (and could somehow link to last.fm/facebook etc) would be invaluable!

orgwell
Offline
Roanoke, VA
Sabrepulse wrote:

I don't like the idea of not having exclusive control over what information/music is available through these sites....

I started these few just to kinda test the waters.  When you initially submit an artist's info, they require a legitimate contact e-mail for that artist (meaning I had to locate one first).  Their profile-updates, aren't as open-sourced as wikis; JamBase has real people to sift through the updates they receive, so something like "Sabrepulse was raised on kettle corn & vodka" probably won't make it through.  Also, I've never submitted music for an artist, because I assume that it requires a little more authority over said tunes.  I highly doubt that one's profile would eventually misrepresent them in any way.  Last.fm's artist bios stay clean; I don't see why most fans would feel to need to mess with something that isn't theirs (I bet many are unaware that they even could).