As The Ginn Sisters starts playing their locally loved music at a local club in Austin Texas, the lead guitarist looks out at the large fan population that this show has gained over the past few months. With a dimly lit room and people anticipating the first notes of our most popular song, Heart and Bones, I was able to gain adrenalin by just seeing the number of fans. What was once just a small band, is gaining a steady fan club, and traveling to local areas to perform concerts.
What is the secret behind this sudden increase in the band's fan recognition, and how do people all the way in Massachusetts have any connection to small bands in Texas? Many wouldn't expect the answer of this to be found in one simple website.
If you've ever known an independent musician or band you know how hard it is to gain support or publicity for small or local gigs. On Gruvr.com a google map displaying streets, buildings, and landmarks acts as a background for the small red musical notes that symbolize concert locations near by. Each red note is located precisely over the location of an upcoming concert or musical event. Depending on your location would depend on where and how many musical notes are displayed on the map. As one proceeds through the website, information pertaining to local bands is displayed in an easily accessible fashion for fans to keep track of.
Continuing on through the website there are comments, ideas, and opinions that are posted on the carefully monitored message board. This site builds off of other peoples input and feedback. With a multicolored emblem in the left corner displaying the text "Track bands, discover local music, stop missing great shows," the site provides a brief description.
The site was introduced a little over one year ago, providing a very new idea to the world of music. The main creator of the site stated, "I listen to Pandora.com a lot, and last fall while I was listening to this obscure singer, Jana Hunter and decided to see if she had a myspace. When I found out she did and was from Texas, I was surprised to notice that she was playing that night- right down the road, just nine miles away."
Gruvr provide music fans to track down local events that might be of interest. When someone logs on to this site, their current location is determined and the website automatically offers concerts within a certain number of miles from their location as well as with appropriate dates. It does not cost anything for a band to post its upcoming concerts even though it does cost the website money to trace the location of each person who logs onto the sight to provide a personalized map just for a specific area. "We are hoping to get enough users to support the site, and are thinking of selling t-shirts to support this site as well as make it more recognized," wrote the co-developer of the Gruvr website.
After the site has tracked down its viewers, Bands are then able to personally post and track their upcoming shows and events for their fans to view and also keep track of. This site is accessible to anyone who is searching for local concerts; however it also has an area of the website that allows bands to log in and track their concert location and date. Unlike similar websites, this is the only one with a visual map, and a different approach to networking in the music world.
"This website began as a father son project. I wanted to become involved in a project that would help interest my son in building things on the web and to teach him the power of information to reach many people. So he and his friends contributes and since they are younger, and I am a single 'gurvr-dad', and 'gruvr-dude's' mom is very paranoid about the web it seemed like a great project for me to become involved in," writes the main developer of the Gruvr website. During this time he also mentioned that the other people who are directly involved in working with this website include "only a handful of people all over the world, including a guy in Siberia and one in high school in Romania." Gruvr continues to be one of the few if not the only website of its kind to be a world wide tool and is the only one right now that provides the technology to map out concerts for the entire world.
This website goes beyond just a few clicks of the mouse; it introduces the public to a lifestyle of music. "Gaining support for a small music gig is hard to do for many low budget bands, there is just not way to incorporate the price of advertising and spreading the word into our lifestyle; and from what I can tell from the Gruvr site, this seems like very unique way of getting outsiders of the music world involved." says a musician.
Bands and musicians can create their own personal maps that can be viewed by their fans on their personal websites, such as myspace, through Gruvr. When individuals use this Gruvr application on their own sites, they also have the option to have their fans receive e-mails when there are upcoming concerts in their area. According Gruvr's myspace, "Once you put the Gruvr map on your myspace, it starts gathering data about users who track your tour of bookmark shows… After a while it builds up a map of people who are actively searching for you."
Gruvr.com has big plans for the future and is growing in popularity with bands as well as fans. As stated by username Rickdini, "So I guess there really are a lot of musicians in Boston. Seriously though, I see a lot of potential with Gruvr… It could be the quickest way to find new music... Power to the music."