what are some other options for a free website for your band. i hate myspace and the new layout. facbook isnt very band friendly.. is there anything people use that is good and known?

I'm still learning it, and working with it, but reverbnation may turn out to be the answer. Not nearly as popular, but much more music-oriented.

Reverbnation could be cool if there were more people on there.

i looked at it..it seems cool but also way too mainstream for my liking..ultimately what i want is a place like the obelisk to host band pages..how cool would that be..

Couldn't you do a Blogger website? I don't know what's all involved, but that may be an option. I think I may officially nuke my band MySpace......for the last long while, it's been more hassle than it's worth, and call me skeptical, but I think that there's a bit of a backlash to anything too easy, and there will be an extended period of where it will force bands to go back to traditional websites.

i would like to see this place host a band page for regular members..doesnt have to be anything over the top..just a simple profile page for members bands..

Yeah same here .. it would be awesome to network with other bands .

^^^^Agreed^^^

What about a Wordpress page? Utilizing some additional free media hosting sites that allow embedding, like bandcamp, soundcloud, flickr, vimeo, etc. for the media content. I've seen a few band websites of that type that look really good, are easier to navigate than something like Myspace and can play high quality media files. The only real expense would be hosting if you wanted a "www.bandname.com" URL instead of the native Wordpress one.

The website for my work uses a similar type model, in execution, though it was designed, executed and all the hosting and whatnot handled by an outside company. We're able to log in and edit or add any text or media we want to it pretty easily.

ReverbNation works pretty well, unless you are an artist who plays in multiple bands who wants to promote all thru a single page. Then it's fuckin useless cause you can't specify which BAND you are playing with show to show. If you add the band name to the list of artists on venue, it creates confusion for promoters. On the recent Mother Truckers west coast tour promoters were asking about "The Danny G Band". Axed all dates and page has been sitting useless.


With FB now there are things like RootMusic.com which you can use for a BandPage on your musician profile. Doesn't send out the auto show memos like RN or have as many attached features, but at least you can post your dates and state which fucking band is playing.


MySpace was the best about 2 years ago, before they started fucking with it. Now I don't even look at any of my 5 separate MySpace pages anymore

What's up with bandcamp?

I've noticed a few bands using it.

http://bandcamp.com/

This one time at band camp...

I was actually going to suggest Bandcamp with Facebook.

This is a band I manage and I'm only using it because it's an example of how to run bandcamp, not for promo. By all means, feel free to go look and NOT listen to the stuff because I'll feel better about trying to be subjective as opposed to just trying to advertise...

http://shellfin.bandcamp.com

On there we have the album listed as "Name your price" download and then I have attached physical CDs and T-shirts to the album. With all physical items you get free downloads to the album. It's basically a customisable online store. Bandcamp only take 15% of your sales which is better than your average distribution deal. We use that site successfully with our facebook page.

Facebook is handy because it's where all the fans and potential fans are. We can interact and find other bands and their fans very easily. It's one of the BEST tools a band can use, if it's used properly. We will regularly make updates about where the album is for sale, and post new songs to the facebook page from Bandcamp.

Poked around on bandcamp, I'm going to have to seriously look into that.

And to think, I'm starting threads on other forums looking into some type of label to re-release my solo album. Could just do it there and save myself the hassle...

I can't suggest it enough, we decided to release that way because it was starting to get a bit of buzz about it, but since September we've noticed just about every independent band is also going that route. I put the other artists I manage on there since then.

The best part for the band I linked is that we've received a LOT of unsolicited love from various different websites. The Sludge Swamp promoted us and we got 800 hits from them. We know because bandcamp tells you what links people are clicking to get to your site. So now when we have new stuff to promote, we go STRAIGHT to the people who have given us the most love as well as the ones who've given us the most success. The blogs and forums who don't provide as much traffic for us are the ones who we spent less time on.

I know that 3 people have clicked the link in this thread. I also floated one of my lesser popular bands on this forum to see what sort of success they'd get and about 25% of the links that have been clicked in the last few days have been from this forum, and this less popular band is the type of band where only their friends are into them (but they do have a great deal of friends), so normally the only action we see is through Facebook or their website. Because of this success I'm going to go and make a post about this 'good' band in the "band updates" section because it's bound to be successful.

Yeah bandcamp is great. We have been using it since September. That combined with Facebook has worked pretty well for us. http://monobrowmanband.bandcamp.com

Uploading tracks to Band Camp as I type \m/,

I like seeing that. More bands need to use bandcamp.

<Management/industry ramble>
Bands need to accept the fact that CDs just aren't selling to the volume they once did. I've read studies that say if an artist sells 1000 cds now, that's equivalent of an artist who sold 10,000 cds 10 years ago. That's a pretty shocking statistic. The way the industry has changed, the same amount money that people aren't spending on CDs is being on live performances. In order to keep that money, an artist must now entice the fan to come see them through their music. If that means giving away the music for free, then so be it.

Bandcamp is so good because it appeals to everybody's senses. There's the people out there who don't want to pay for music at all, and then there's those who just HAVE to have the CD. There's also an even smaller group of people who love the band that much that pay what they really think the album is worth, and offer more money than you're asking. Shellfin, the band I manage, has earned an average of $1.50 per download and considering <shameless promotion> they've been put in 5 "best of 2010" lists we've obviously had a lot of hits.</shameless promotion>.

The key is making sure you don't hide the bandcamp. You've gotta link it to your social networking pages/website/etc. Make sure people who know the band, know where to buy the cd. But you can't use bandcamp as a complete substitute. When the Shellfin album hit retailers we actually had a pretty big response. People, all of a sudden, seemed interested in buying it from the retailer at a higher price.</ramle>

Buy your own domain name, yourbandname.com, costs $10 a year and set it up with bandcamp or blogger. Basically you'll have yourbandname.com instead of bandname.bandcamp.com as your url. Looks more professional to me.

Slightly better than that would be to get a shared server space that costs $80 a year (try http://interactiveonline.com) and set up your own wordpress site or something if you want to get all fancy with blogs etc. You could then assign music.yourbandname.com to the bandcamp page.

^ Genius.

Hardly. I do this sort of a thing for a living, so just ask for further tips.