Correspondent Ben Conniff tells you how to become a pop star.
If you want to make it big as a musician these days, selling CDs isn’t going to cut it. Much like our shopping, dating, social interaction, and (ahem) media, the music industry is now dominated by, and reliant upon, the internet. But for music, this may not be a bad thing.
Enter GigMaven.com, a brand new website that connects under-the-radar musicians with performance venues. The process is simple: the venue posts open dates in their calendar, interested bands apply, the venue filters through the information compiled on the bands’ pages to find the perfect fit, and the best band gets the gig. The simple online process removes snail-mailing sample CDs, days of phone tag, and scrambling to find last-minute acts from the process, leaving each party more time to do what it does best: play music and sell us beer.
The internet is saturated with music sites and networking sites, but CEO Howard Han says the fundamental service GigMaven provides separates it from portals like MySpace. “It’s music, of course, but it’s also a business transaction: filling a spot, getting a job.” Han abandoned his own job banking at UBS to found the company when he heard that his musician friends couldn’t find work. In the few months that the beta site has been up, GigMaven has already helped over 500 member bands find gigs in five different cities, and they’re constantly expanding. So if you’re sick of being the creepy band that’s still playing high school dances and bar mitzvahs, sign up and you might just get a real job.
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The guy in that picture is James allison from the band Blastronauts and they f'ing rock!
www.myspace.com/blastronauts