CoMoMusic.com

Where can you go to find out what concerts are coming to Columbia? I used to visit all the local venues' sites. That got tedious so I went to Pollstar.com. But that leaves out local bands so I added Columbia360.com and EmergencyUmbrella.com to the list. What a pain. Why isn't there one site with all this information?

Ah, but there is. Earlier this year a new website was launched, intended to be a comprehensive guide for local music. Webmaster Justin Glow, with the assistance of Rex Dickson, "thought that Columbia was in need of a better local music resource." Was it ever. Not only does CoMoMusic hope to be the concert calendar but also a community resource for local bands. Wait...that sounds familiar. "We're different from sites like Emergency Umbrella because...any local band looking for promotion, equipment, musicians, etc. is welcome to add themselves to CoMoMusic", explains Glow.

I decided to see what the site and the people responsible were all about. So I sat down and did an email interview with Glow. (E = me, G = Glow)

E: What is your occupation?
G: I do web design and system administrating for a company here in town. I'd rather not mention what company it is if you don't mind. (CoMoMusic is NOT affiliated with the company I work for!)

E: Have you lived in CoMo all your life?
G: I moved to Columbia in June of 2000. I was born in Kansas City and moved to San Antonio, TX when I was 3 years old. I moved to Columbia after high school to go to college here.

E: Have you ever heard the term "CoMo" in describing local hoosiers?
G: No, I haven't.

E: Where do you see the site in a year?
G: It's hard to say where I see the site in a year. It all depends on the response I get from the users. If people seem to be using the site and enjoying it, I see it as being the best music source Columbia has to offer. I also see it as justification for bigger bands to come to Columbia. If we can show them we have a great music scene, they're more likely to come.

E: Is the site purely informational or do you plan on turning this into a side business?
G: For now the site is purely informational. I don't plan on making any money off of it. If the site gets popular, I can definitely see some of the venues around town wanting to advertise.. and I can't say I'd turn them down.

E: What else do you want to add to the site?
G: The list for additions is a mile long. We're currently working on the messageboard and classifieds system. The classifieds should be pretty cool. Bands will be able to post an ad if they're looking for a new drummer/singer/etc, and vise versa. We have a lot of other very cool ideas in the works.

E: How are you different from MoBands.com?
G: Honestly, I don't know very much about mobands.com. From what I can tell, they're basically a site with a bunch of local advertisements on it. It looks like they do promotion as well. I'm a part of their mailing list, too. Not much action there though. We're trying to create an online community for the music scene here in Columbia. I encourage any and all user submissions -- that's what the site is built on. Whether you're in a high school garage band or a more well known band, we want to help you get your music heard. There are TONS of opportunities on comomusic for free publicity, no matter who you are.

E: Does it cost money for a band to join CoMoMusic?
G: Everything on CoMoMusic is free.

E: What do bands get out of membership?
G: Promotion. A chance to collaborate with other artists in the area. We were pondering over the idea of doing a "big brother" type thing for local bands in the area, where we match up a newer band with a more experienced band so they can learn the ropes of promotion, getting gigs, recording, etc. We haven't made any formal plans for this though.

E: What are your favorite local and national (or international) bands?
G: Oh gosh. This is a tough one. I suppose I could list off all the bands I've ever loved.. but that would be kind of pointless. I enjoy music of all different shapes, sizes and flavors. As far as local goes, I enjoy Ironweed Bluegrass Band, Arpad Leen, Big Smith (somewhat local, I guess) -- (inter)nationally, I listen to quite a bit of indie/punk/hardcore (Against Me!, 30 Foot Fall, At The Drive In, Brand New, Consumed, Limp, Piebald, Refused, Sweep The Leg Johnny, The Promise Ring, The Vandals, Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, Boys Night Out, From Autumn To Ashes, to name a few..)-- I also enjoy the experimental end of things (Aphex Twin, Drums & Tuba, Mogwai, Mouse On Mars, etc.) Big Radiohead fan. I really don't like listing off bands.

E: The Onion article on your site made me laugh my ass off.
G: ME TOO!

E: Why do people have to register to get the most use of the site? (I read the site about this but it didn't seem to answer my question.)
G: We encourage people to sign up for a free account because you need to have an account to be able to submit news, album reviews, show reviews, comments, messageboard entries, classified ads.. etc. The site is built around contributions from the users.

E: Where do you get your info concerning upcoming shows?
G: I get show info from Pollstar, Vox Magazine, word of mouth, kiosks, etc. I suppose if the site gets more popular, venues would directly contact me. Who knows.

E: Anyone can submit a story, as in writing it or just in suggesting a topic?
G: Anyone can submit anything they feel is news worthy (and music related) -- doesn't matter if it's local or national news, but local is preferred. I'm pretty laid back on submissions. If a band was playing a show and they wanted to get the word out, submit it as a news article.

E: Do you plan on getting any sound bytes for your site?
G: I would LOVE to have an mp3 section on the site. That's definitely something we will look into doing later on down the road. Unfortunately, sound files are fairly large in size. Large files = more bandwidth. More bandwidth = more expensive to run comomusic. If we start generating revenue from advertising or other things, hosting sound files will be much more likely. Right now all the hosting fees for the site comes out of my pocket and I don't have a lot of extra money !

E: What has been the reaction from local venues, bands, "local music resources" (i.e. Emergency Umbrella)?
G: Interesting story about Emergency Umbrella. There was an article in the Tribune's Go! early on in the summer, a couple months after we started work on Comomusic. I was excited that there was someone else out there who was trying to organize something very similar to what we were trying to organize, so I immediately gave Billy S. (forgot his last name) a call. I suggested that maybe we collaborate on some ideas. He took down my name and email address and said he'd get back with me. Needless to say, I never did hear back...until about 3 days ago. (after comomusic was launched, of course). Ok, so maybe that story isn't as interesting as I thought it would be.

E: Where do you get ideas for the site? Have you seen similar sites in other cities?
G: Yeah, there are a ton of sites out there, but most of them focus on a single genre. I really wanted to try and cater to all genres.

E: What's your favorite radio station?
G: Sadly I don't listen to the radio all too often, but for the purposes of this, I'll say KCOU! No, but really... if and when I do listen to the radio.. it's usually on KCOU.

E: What's your favorite show on KCOU?
G: The new Live Hour show is pretty cool.

Well its about damn time that Columbia gets a "local resource" free to everyone that doesn't hand-pick who is included. As of Dec 2002, the site boasts 307 members (35 venues, 96 bands). Maybe after other sites crash and fade, CoMoMusic will be the last one standing. Take a look at CoMoMusic.com and judge for yourself.

- Elaine Miller