To Blog or not to Blog…. (that’s the question)

And the answer? Well that’s quite simple… its yes.

Blogging is an important part of our lives, whether we actively seek out blogs ourselves or not. Blogs can provide us with information we may otherwise have no access to. Blogs provide content for news articles, reputable blogs can be a source of research, they also provide an interesting look into social history.

But what isn’t discussed is the importance of blogging from a music scene point of view, well that was until this week, when BBC Introducing Lancashire partnered up with Creative Lancashire and hosted a soundBytes industry session.

The discussion focused on the importance of blogging both from a music scene perspective and also from an industry view point. Amongst those that attended where local music bloggers and industry delegates, including Manchester blogger Joe Sparrow writer of the blog A new Band a Day and Liam Walsh – album plugger to radio stations.

The discussions, which will be broadcast in two weeks on BBC Introducing Lancashire, made a good argument for why bands in particular need to get into blogging. I for one agree with this, as was stated in the session, bands need to create their own publicity, and a blog is a very easy way to do this.

Bands need to connect and engage their listeners. And whilst it is true that Facebook and Twitter are a great platform for this, Blogs can offer a better reading format and, once set up and the link passed to Facebook friends, can be a more concentrated area in which to link tunes to Soundcloud or YouTube channels. Let’s face it, can any one of us say we catch every status update or tweet from our contact lists…. No.

So a band set up a blog, and their fans read it, is that it?. Well no its not. As was mentioned by some of the industry delegates, the music industry and the press look to blogs to get more information about a band or singer songwriter. At BBC Introducing, when researching a band we will look to blogs and Facebook etc. to see what they have been doing, to see what material they have out there, we are not the only ones.

Gone are the days when bands looked to the press to create a buzz about them, sorry bands but that is now up to you.. you need to create the buzz i.e.: make yourselves accessible, put your tracks and gigs out there for people within the industry to see, and most importantly give interviews and tracks to reviewers and local bloggers. This brings me to my next point.
A local music scene is not just created by bands. It is in fact created by bands, venues, promoters and journalists.. especially local bloggers all working together. Each of these areas depends on the other to make the whole scene work.

In a recent interview (which will be blogged about soon) I spoke to film maker Jon Spira about his new documentary “anyone can play guitar” the film focuses on the Oxford music scene and features big names such as Radiohead and Supergrass, but the aim of the film is to show that these bands did not get to the heights they did on their own. Without the local press and the local promoters, these bands would not have had the platform to even start.

I asked him how the Oxford music scene survives and his answer was this “Oxford works, because it’s a community and if you look at how it all started, it’s about participation. You need to participate before you can take anything out of it…. Everyone goes to each other’s gigs, everyone just supports it as a music community”.

This is a true statement for any town or city. If you want your music scene to be vibrant, then help it along, in which ever area you can. This is not only aimed at music, the same would apply to photographers or artists, create the scene, create the buzz.

If you are interested in hearing the session that went on this week, it is due to be played out in a few weeks on BBC Introducing on BBC Radio Lancashire – I will status update on Facebook… and of course on here.

And in the meantime here’s a few blogs for you to check out:
www.anewbandaday.com
www.deadlyrhythm.com
www.angelofmetal.com