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The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band [1] In March of 2009, the band went from a blog-looking thing [2] t

The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band [1] In March of 2009, the band went from a blog-looking thing [2] that collected email addresses to putting every social channel front and center. [3] By November 2010, they had iTunes Ping, Twitter, an iPhone app, Facebook, Myspace, the bassist's twitter feed all being pushed in huge tiles. At the time this was extraordinary, since many artists did not have a handle on social at all and definitely were not pushing people "away" from direct connection like this. I believe the idea was to allow many platforms to get between you and your fans/followers, but to allow the fans to choose which platform that would be. As the OP suggests, this can be a lot of work. [1] Coran Capshaw, the band's manager created an early dial-up ISP company in Charlottesville that went on to become MusicToday. was responsible for major tech advances in live entertainment [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090219153059/http://www.davematthewsband.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090219153059/http://www.davema... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20101105102023/http://www.davematthewsband.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101105102023/http://www.davema...

csharptwdec19 6y ago
> The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band Judged. However, on a more serious note, I new people who were -very- attached to bands/musicians based on interactions they had on MySpace and LiveJournal. One problem with any online exposure in the modern web is that the bar from 'unknown' to 'trolls flooding your inbox' is pretty low. I do wonder however whether small time performers wind up trapped by this: When they are first growing they probably can't pick the ideal "Social Media" person, which may limit certain exposure and opportunities.
- bredren 6y ago
  > Judged You don’t know the half of it. I ran a DMB blog and large online community. It was where I did a lot of my first web programming. :| Whatever you think of their music, DMB and their fans pioneered a bunch of areas. One of the most forward decisions by the band was to allow online distribution of their live recordings. Being mainstream at that point meant it pushed torrenting of the live shows into the workflows of many people who wouldn’t have otherwise have been exposed to the tech. It also drew the hackers of sorts to their scene who would illicitly capture and record IEM streams, mix them with mic recordings then combine them with stealth monopod videos to release bootleg copies of entire shows. Only the Radiohead fans came close to the amount of enthusiasm in the DMB scene back then. That said—if I could go back I’d pick Radiohead to follow.

csharptwdec19 6y ago

> The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band Judged. However, on a more serious note, I new people who were -very- attached to bands/musicians based on interactions they had on MySpace and LiveJournal. One problem with any online exposure in the modern web is that the bar from 'unknown' to 'trolls flooding your inbox' is pretty low. I do wonder however whether small time performers wind up trapped by this: When they are first growing they probably can't pick the ideal "Social Media" person, which may limit certain exposure and opportunities.

bredren 6y ago
> Judged You don’t know the half of it. I ran a DMB blog and large online community. It was where I did a lot of my first web programming. :| Whatever you think of their music, DMB and their fans pioneered a bunch of areas. One of the most forward decisions by the band was to allow online distribution of their live recordings. Being mainstream at that point meant it pushed torrenting of the live shows into the workflows of many people who wouldn’t have otherwise have been exposed to the tech. It also drew the hackers of sorts to their scene who would illicitly capture and record IEM streams, mix them with mic recordings then combine them with stealth monopod videos to release bootleg copies of entire shows. Only the Radiohead fans came close to the amount of enthusiasm in the DMB scene back then. That said—if I could go back I’d pick Radiohead to follow.