2010 in Review: Year of Local Music

This is just one post in my wrap up of the year 2010. If you would like to read the rest, click here to the main post.

I noticed a rise in local band coverage in 2010 and it's about damn time. As more bloggers pop up in Austin (because that's what we need, more people thinking thier personal opinion is what more people need to read), the more local bands are getting coverage. Most of the so-called coverage is usually a show preview with a flyer, but at least some local bands are getting their name out there.

I love that there are the more established professional publications and sites are covering bands right from our musical town. When I started SoManyBands back in 2003, I was pretty much one of the few (if not the only person) giving the local and unsigned bands a chance. Every now and then, the Austin Chronicle or Statesman would cover a band but usually, it was only after they got a following or had a band member with family connections within the music business.

But when MySpace came along and embraced the music pages, bands that weren't signed to a label or weren't overplayed on MTV or the local radio station were finally getting heard. Then soon after, bloggers started coming around.

While there may be crazy amounts of bloggers in this town (I remember reading somewhere that Austin had one of the highest number of bloggers), there are very few publications out there that are truly devoted to giving the little man the press they deserve.

I think Big Western Flavor is doing a great service with local music. Sometimes the ego needs to be tame, but the fact that he gives local bands a chance when so many publications don't because there's nothing in it for them, is pretty damn awesome.

The Backline Show podcast is another outlet I think is doing a great job getting some local bands coverage. As I mentioned in my 2010 in review post, his interviews are genuine and he doesn't make his shows all about him.

There are just too many bloggers out there who don't hide that they're in it for the free perks that come with our job: guestlist spots, advances of albums, access to the bands. And what makes it obvious? The low quality of writing on these blogs, but certainly the lack of shame bragging about the perks.

Granted, we're not there yet. There are still a lot of bands that get overlooked because they're not the new "it" band at the moment. That shallow mentality that seems to ooze within the music community of "this band is gonna bring me a ton of hits," sadly still exists and will probably never go away. I find that ironic considering a lot of music fans love to have that "I know them before you" mentality.

But looking how far the press has come since I started in 2003 is pretty freaking amazing.