RTP-area local music and culture

[local506 AT gmail.com]

>Six months ago the conventional wisdom was that it was slow suicide to try 
>to go head-to-head with
MySpace in the "quick-and-dirty band website" space.

Funny, six months ago I was praising Myspace, despite it's clunkiness,
for it's simplicity which met my needs perfectly.  A bands myspace
page allowed me hear/see any band that wanted to play 506, plus follow
where else they were playing...all laid-out on one simplistic page (as
opposed to the guesswork that came with many bands websites.)  To this
day, almost all of the links on our schedule go to myspace.com
accounts, for that reason.

However, I've noticed a new trend where bands are beefing up their
myspace pages with video and other 'widget's' that are NOW making it
more difficult to find the info I might be looking for.   I think all
of that stuff is great for band's fans; however, one of the points of
a myspace page was to help you get those fans in the first place.

So, even though I think it's an uphill battle, I do think myspace
could be unseated by someone who was more focused on the basics...glenn