What's This Music For?

Your local entertainment magazines or websites can be a good source of information about local music.  We have two that I’m aware of in our area of northeast Tennessee, The Loafer and GoTricities.  Both have weekly listings of what bands are playing at which venues, plus occasional articles spotlighting local talent.  However, the online presence of GoTricities, which is, of course, Gotricities.com, has quite a bit more to offer the music fan.  The music section on the site has several nice features.  One is a listing of local/regional bands, broken down by genre; each band on the site has a photo, blurb, and links to their own site(s).  Unfortunately, this list is not necessarily up-to-date or complete, which is understandable; as quickly as bands come and go, the staff maintaining the site have an almost impossible job of maintaining all the information themselves.  It’s ultimately up to each band to request that they be added to or removed from the site.  Within its limits, though, it’s a good birds-eye view of the local music scene.

Another feature of the site is Radio GoTricities, which features streaming audio of various bands’ material.  You can play all genres, a sampler, or only a specific genre.  This is a nice feature, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be updated very often, and I’m not sure how much it’s used.  It’s a shame, because it’s a nice feature.

And speaking of shames, GoTricities also hosts a set of forums, collectively called “The Buzz”, which has fallen into disuse.  At one time this was a good place to get the inside scoop on what was happening in the local music scene, but for whatever reason, posts are few and far between these days.  Additionally, there are sections containing music videos and reviews, but these also appear to be neglected these days.

Despite its shortcomings, and the air of abandon that hangs over parts of the site, GoTricities.com is still a valuable resource for those interested in our local music scene.