Despite the best efforts (one hopes) of promoters and venues, people miss shows they would have seen had they known about them.
Chris Marstall, a Cambridge, Mass., software engineer, hates it when that happens. And through his Tourfilter.com Web site he launched about a year ago, he wants to keep it from happening to any music fan.
"I just wanted to create a site that worked for me—something that would solve the problem I had, which was I was missing a lot of shows," Marstall says. "I did it because this is what I want. This is a site that I would want to use."
Tourfilter is basically a search engine for venue Web sites that tracks who's coming to town. Fans sign up, put in the 100 or so bands they love the most, and Tourfilter gives them an e-mail heads-up when that band is in the area.
"The whole thing is engineered to make it really easy to find out about your favorite bands," Marstall says.
Fans of live music are digging the concept, having entered a stunning 17,000 band names into the database. One devotee, lindseyjean18 in Los Angeles, entered more than 1,000.
"When a hit comes up, I take a look at it and send an e-mail out to all the people tracking that band," Marstall says.
Going to the source has proved a more workable method than tracking thousands of band Web sites. "The club Web sites are authoritative, there are a limited number of them and they're easy to find," Marstall says. "And you always know where the show is."
Now the clubs are coming to Marstall if a show—or their venue—is missing. And fans are coming. Tourfilter is growing at a pace of about 30% per month, anticipating 120,000 unique visitors in April.
For the fans, Tourfilter is "totally free. Just come to the site and start typing in your favorite bands," Marstall says. "Once you put in your name and password, you can go away and basically 'set it and forget it.' You can come back and check the calendar listings or just never come back, and we're still going to send you an e-mail if Sparklehorse comes to town or whatever your favorite band is."
Currently, 24 cities are on the Tourfilter map, and Marstall will add another 10 in the United States this spring. It's also international, with Dublin, Melbourne, London, Toronto and Vancouver on the list.
What's truly fascinating about Tourfilter, though, is the depth of the bands. Anyone who knows every act listed on Tourfilter needs to get a life. "I like to say that we're the deepest of the concert services out there," Marstall says. "To come up with a list of 17,000 band names is not something any organization could do."
The reason Tourfilter is so thorough is because its users are telling it who these bands are, Marstall says. "We're not trying to create a 'top-down' database of bands. Tourfilter's system is more of a 'bottom-up,' user-driven, grass-roots approach. Which is, I think, better-suited to get really broad coverage, especially on local and regional bands or bands that haven't toured in a while."
Marstall uses the word "clubs" a lot, but he's really talking about any kind of venue—60-100 rooms in every city. "If they're playing live music I want them in the database, and they usually are," he says. "Most of the audience I'm talking to is going to shows in clubs, and people probably already know about the big arena shows, but I cover those, too. I sent out notifications for Justin Timberlake at AllState Arena [in Chicago], and I sent out notifications for Sonny Rollins at a jazz club as well, or Beethoven at a symphony hall."
A look at the Nashville page for April shows, for example, yields Southern Culture on the Skids at the Mercy Lounge, Bill Lloyd at the Bluebird Cafe, Ghostfinger at Grimey's, Alison Krauss at the Grand Ole Opry, Birdmonster at the Pilot Light, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Cannery Ballroom, Pink Nasty at the Basement, the Decemberists at City Hall, Susan Tedeschi at the Belcourt Theatre, Kenny Loggins at the Wildhorse Saloon and the Killers at the Ryman Auditorium, to name a few. I pay attention, but no way would I know about all these shows. Until now.
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