This Is Not Good-Bye

Sorry folks  - there are no new photos this week. Instead, I have a bit of an announcement to make. But when you get to the bottom of the page, you will find the live music listings for this week, as always.

I began writing a blog in 2011 as a way to stretch my mind. I wanted to start writing just for the fun of writing, like I did so many years ago. I had read that writing a blog was a great way to exercise that part of the mind. If you go back to the early posts, you can see that I wrote about things other than music quite frequently. I was singing with Skynny Skynyrd back then – and would find myself going out to see other bands on our off weeks so I could get used to the late night weekend schedule. So I started writing about the bands I saw.

I heard often that our local music scene was drying up because there was no real support for live music in the area.  I knew I could only see so many bands in a weekend, but maybe if I told others about them, more people would go to see them. Maybe musicians who weren’t playing would take one night a week and go support another band. If the owners of the bars and venues saw an increase in traffic, maybe they would be prone to booking more bands – maybe they might even pay a little better (I know – wishful thinking, right?). In other words, by supporting other bands, I was, in a sense, supporting my own band. A thriving music scene builds upon itself. Successful bands and venues inspire more bands and venues. We might never be Austin or Nashville, but the Quad-cities' music scene is growing and can continue to grow.

I started receiving messages regularly from people wanting to know if I knew who was playing where that night. So I took to scouring the local news media and Facebook to try to list every possible band I could. And I began to include visiting bands that played at some of my favorite venues. Often, those bands had locals opening their shows.

I’ve had people come up to me at shows and thank me for making this information available every week. The information has always been available – just spread out among many different outlets. And some of it isn’t as available as it should be – there are many weeks when I discover shows after my blog has been posted on Thursday. Sometimes I find out about them after the fact. At this time last year, I was approached with this story: a local musician moved here from another state and was trying to find out what sort of music was played in the area. He found that he could get the names of some bands and where they were playing from local news outlets, but had no information about those bands and the sort of music they played. It was like roulette. He wished my blog had been there when he was first getting started in the area.

I turned that information over in my head for the past year and the ideas began to tumble around. My blog was a clumsy way to make band schedules available. Facebook wasn’t any better than the news outlets… we needed something that pulled it all together, yet didn’t totally depend upon me to pull all that information together.

My blog is experiencing growing pains. It is time to expand… and maybe automate a little bit. And how about letting the bands and venues contribute information?

So there you have it. The birth of an online live music magazine.

No, it’s not good bye. It’s hello… again.  I’ll have more information for you very soon – as I hope to go live with at least part of the site before the end of this month.

Meanwhile – here’s this week’s live music:

Thursday – Chuck Murphy is playing at The Cooler and Two Peace are at Rookies. There’s a concert tonight at Codfish Hollow – with Dustin Smith and the Sunday Silos, Hugh Bob and the Hustle, Willy Mason, The4OnTheFloor and the Yacht Club DJs. This IS the last concert of the season. It is a barn after all. If you’re going, dress warmly!

Friday – The Redstone Room is the site of this year’s Moondance, with the Whoozdad’s and Ellis Kell band (and friends). David G. Smith is at Rustic Ridge, Chuck Murphy is playing Big Shots, and Pepperjacks has Detroit Larry. Larry Bo Boyd is playing at Cool Beanz, Night Light is at Bleyarts and the Franti Project is jamming at Barrelhouse Moline. You’ll find North of 40 at Hero’s Pub, Lynn Allen at Rascals and John Primer at The Muddy Waters. The Rusty Nail has The Funktastic Five, with Jeff Jackson and Rob Dahms opening, and Cody Road is playing at Martinis on the Rock. RIBCO has Cato Falls, SubAtlantic and Keely Filgo.

Saturday – Crossroads is at Mound Street, Purgatory’s has the Wild Oatz and The Dirt Road Rockers are playing Mulligans. Rascals has The Afterdarks, My God The Heat and Killshakes. Machine Gun Willie is at Wilton’s Building 311 while 1^st Impression is playing the Brew in Muscatine. Justin Morrissey is at Big Shots, The Rusty Nail has Vodkaseven, and the Mark Avey Band is playing at The Muddy Waters. Racer’s Edge has The Knockoffs, Chuck Murphy is at Bleyarts, and The Gratest Story Ever Told is playing Martini’s on the Rock. Bier Stube Moline has Dr. Heat and Bug Zappa, Sinjo Thaw Mash, Darling Slag, Blue Movies and Helicoid. RIBCO has 1380, Dynoride and Echos and Afterthoughts. Maureen Carter and Erin Moore are playing at Rozz-Tox, Joe Tingle is at Barrelhouse Moline, and Barrelhouse 211 has Twisted Mics.