But I still really want to get to know new artists and listen to new music. MySpace used to be a pretty good place to discover new and budding indie artists, but MySpace is not what it used to be anymore. I used to also love discovering music on AllMusic, but using the website was always a bit of a clunky experience.

Band of the Day for iOS gives you everything these services provide, and more. It’s a great place to get to know less-known singers and bands, read about them, watch their videos, listen to some music and view entire discographies – all wrapped in a beautifully laid out app which is a joy to use.

The Costs and Benefits

What Band of the Day basically does is introduce you to one new band (or artist) per day. That’s 7 band a week, 365 bands per year. The app is free to download, but only free to use for one week. If after the said week you’re happy and wish to continue getting to know a new band every day, it will cost you $0.99 a week or $9.99 a year. Not bad considering what you get.

The app also lets you rate bands, collect favorites and share on Facebook, Twitter or e-mail. There’s also a hidden gem which makes the whole thing even more appealing – the Band of the Day mix tape. Read on to learn how to find it!

Discovering Music

Band of the Day is built around a calendar where each day of the month is associated with a different band. You can browse a month back to all the already featured bands, and the best part –  you get a brand new band every day.

You can simply tap the days of the month to get a one-liner bio about each artist, and if you’re interested, tap the name or the day of the month again to view more in-depth information.

The Q&A part is a bit raw, but it provides an entertaining read and a way to get to know the actual people behind the songs. You can also read a nice bio, complete with pictures, and of course, watch some videos and listen to songs (some full, some excerpts).

In the “Albums” section you can view the entire discography and listen to excerpts from each and every song. A single tap on “Buy” will open the iTunes store where you will be able to buy the songs or album (providing you live in the right country, which I don’t).

Wherever you are in the app, tapping the tab icon at the bottom left will bring you the previous page (using beautiful transitions).

The  videos section includes some full YouTube videos of the band which you can watch from start to finish.

Rating and Sharing

Tapping the star icon on a band’s main page will lead you to your lists. These are your favorites, you recent views and you Facebook Band of the Day friends. The favorites section will remain empty until you rate some bands – a task which is surprisingly not intuitive.

If you wish to rate a band, go to the bio or Q&A section and tap the small red “Share” button at the top. You can do the same in videos , but this will rate and share a specific video, not the band.

You can then select how many stars you want to give this band (or video), and choose how (if at all) you’d like to share it.

Rating and sharing songs is a bit more tricky: For this you have to access the featured songs, which are full songs you can listen to by each band without buying anything. To access these, you need to tap the “Play Song” icon that’s hidden at the top left of each band’s page.

Here you’ll find some full songs you can also rate and share by tapping the “Share” button.

Mix Tape!

Earlier in this post I mentioned the mix tape. I didn’t find any mention of this in the app’s iTunes page, but this is one of the coolest features the app has to offer. When in the Featured Songs page, tap the arrow and note icon on the top right. This will flip the screen over and give you access to the coveted Mix Tape.

The mix tape is basically a playlist consisting of songs from last month’s bands. I even found songs from future dates, which might give you a glimpse of the upcoming bands. I’ve been listening to the mix tape for the entire duration of writing this post, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s like your very own private radio of obscure indie bands. You can continue browsing the app or even other apps on the device (that don’t require sound) while listening to Band of the Day’s music.

Bottom Line

It’s been a while since a single app has made me so happy. Band of the Day is every indie music lover’s dream, and even though it’s still not perfect (some slow moving mix tapes, missing top charts), it’s still an awesome app for both music lovers and music creators.

What do you use for music discovery? Have an experience with Band of the Day you want to share? Tell us all in the comments!

Going to a live concert for your favorite band is one of the most fun and exciting ways of supporting the particular band you are listening to.  But what’s the best way to track their tour dates and where they will be appearing?

Here’s 3 websites that can help you out with that.

Songkick

Songkick is probably the newest and most user-friendly band tracking web application that I was able to find, and seemed to do a relatively fine job as well.

To begin tracking your favorite bands, simply sign up (a one step process), then either download the Songkick software, add artists based on your Last.fm profile, or add artists manually. If you decide to add artists based on your Last.fm profile, Songkick automatically scans and adds all of the artists in your Last.fm profile that had active upcoming tour dates.

This can be particularly helpful, as it was in my case, when you have hundreds to thousands of different artists that you would rather not add manually. (Songkick has been previously covered on MUO here.)

Eventful

Unlike Songkick, Eventful tracks all of the events in your area, arranging them in various manners, including popularity, ticket sales, genre, etc. Thus, Eventful can be helpful for those of you that may not have as large of a music library, maybe just a more wide range of musical interests, or possibly just want to go see as many live performances as possible.

Another neat feature of Eventful is that it if you see that a certain tour date is not in place for an artist in your area, Eventful will even allow you to add a concert for any artist and “demand” that they come by writing a short reason (optional) to attempt and get a large enough following for your area.

In any case, Eventful is one of the better user-friendly band tracking web apps for concert tour dates, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Gruvr

Gruvr is unlike any other band tracking web app I have seen yet. Instead of doing the “conventional” tracking, Gruvr finds all concerts in your area within X amount of miles and shows them on a map with details of each performance. Gruvr even creates a detailed RSS feed for your specific area to let you stay on top of the most recent acts in your area all the time.

Gruvr can filter performances based on certain bands, future venues, area, etc. and can even email you when your favorite band is playing in your area. Furthermore, Gruvr can filter artists, venues, and performances based on the number of ticket sales, then get you a list of the best seats with their prices, all without seemingly depending on other third-party sites.

Check out other posts by Renee and Albijheet on other cool ways to track bands.

What do you use to track your favorite bands? Tell us in the comments!

Image Credit: kainet

For anyone who has struggled through trying to get tickets for a popular show, it becomes apparent very quickly that the odds are stacked against you.

You may be under the illusion that if you sit online, or on the phone, with Ticketmaster the very moment that tickets go on sale, that you have an equal and fair chance of getting tickets as everyone else. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

That’s why I’ve listed 4 sites to serve as alternatives if you’re desperately looking for that concert ticket which is unavailable anywhere else!

How to Get Tickets Despite the Ticketmaster Monopoly

The truth is, the event ticket market is stacked higher against you than a Vegas casino. A venue that accomodates 20,000 wild fans can sell out in about the time it takes for you to log into your computer. While Ticketmaster has the appearance of fairness in that ticket sales start at exactly a certain time (usually on Saturday), sales take place through so many outlets that available seats can disappear in minutes.

To make matters worse, while you may think that the moment the clock strikes 9 a.m. on Saturday that you have a chance to get the best seat, think again. Before the tickets even go on sale, entire batches are claimed by the artist’s own organization, corporate sponsors, season pass holders and others. At least 20% of available seats are already gone by the time the doors open for sales. Even worse, professional “scalpers” who have contacts within organizations such as the National Associate of Ticket Brokers, are somehow able to grab up the best seats in the house long before you ever pick up the phone to make that call.

However, never fear – just because Ticketmaster says that all seats are sold, you still have options. We’ve already covered a few cool applications like Roosterfly, which lets you compare event ticket prices, or FanSnap, an app that lets you search for available event tickets. However, I wanted to review 4 of the best websites to get awesome seats at popular, hard-to-get-into shows.

TicketCity – If You Can’t Beat Em, Join Em

Because of the fact that so many groups and organizations have access to the best seats before you do and you really want to get good seats for the show (especially after Ticketmaster has sold out), your best bet is to track down and purchase tickets on the secondary market — since that’s really where all the best seats are. It’s a dog-eat-dog market even involving corruption and bribery, in some cases.

Brokers (essentially scalpers) use inside connections to garnish huge blocks of tickets for sale on the secondary market. Case in point is TicketCity. Randy Cohen, CEO of TicketCity, told BNET in an interview:

We have relationships and contracts with people and venues. Through our relationships, we’re able to get tickets.

TicketCity covers just about any sort of event you’d probably be interested in including sports, theatre and concerts. There’s even a large button to click if you’re interested in selling your own tickets to TicketCity! There are also ticket specials in select locations and a 200% money-back guarantee. This is obviously one of the “big dogs” of ticket brokerages.

RazorGator – For Hard-to-Get Tickets

Another major broker of event tickets is the very popular site RazorGator. It even touts itself as the place to go when you’re dying to get popular tickets and can’t find them anywhere else. How does RazorGator get these rare tickets? Wouldn’t you like to know?

RazorGator is a pretty cool site, and it covers more event types compared to many other sites. Where else could you get tickets for a rodeo, Cirque du Soleil, and a Nickelback concert all in one place? You get a 100% money-back guarantee and there’s even another section of the site called “Fan2Fan Exchange” where fans can either exchange or sell tickets. Sort of like a third market for ticket sales.

Fox World Travel Tickets – Travel & Tickets Go Hand in Hand

Fox World Travel is a travel agency based out of Wisconsin that eventually realized that a large majority of what their clients wanted to do when traveling included obtaining tickets for shows, games or other events. The agency entered the world of ticket brockerage at their site, where you can find tickets for just about any kind of show.

This is only one example, there are lots of other travel sites out there that offer access to tickets, so make sure to hunt them down. In fact, ask a local travel agent in your area - they likely have access to blocks of popular even tickets as well.

TicketsToGo – Small Can Be a Good Thing

Were you ever in a situation where you were dating a girl you really wanted to impress, and she said something along the lines of, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to go see the Lion King on Broadway but they’re sold out for months!” Now, how cool would it be to have a buddy who you could call on your cellphone and say, “Hey, dude… could you hook me up with a couple of tickets to the Lion King?” Well, at TicketsToGo, you’ve got that dude to call.

At TicketsToGo, you place an order for a show and even if it’s officially sold out, this independent broker will access a “a large network of professional suppliers” to locate an available ticket for you. You’re surely going to pay a lot more for it – but at this point, when you’re dying to see the your favorite band or singer, and completely bummed out that there aren’t any seats left, does it really matter, if it means you can get in the door? Definitely use TicketsToGo as the last option, but at least it’s an option that you have.

Have you ever had any success getting hard-to-get tickets? What resources do you use? Share your insight in the comments section below.

More than a couple of you suggested JamBase, a site I’ve become a huge fan of. It’s a great tool for tracking concerts, festivals and more, and a useful community based around live music.

JamBase is all about live music ““ in fact, the tagline of the site is “Go See Live Music.” Funny how that works. Once you create a free account with JamBase, you’re opened to a bunch of different ways to track artists and shows, and even discover new shows you might just love.

On the homepage, even if you don’t have an account, there’s some cool features to be used. In the (kind of compact) interface, there are album and show reviews, articles about artists, a news ticker full of music headlines, and even a widget called “JamBaseTV” that’s full of podcasts and videos of live shows. In the mood to see a show today? There’s a “Show Finder” right on the home page to show you what’s playing nearby.

Once you’re logged in, the first thing to do is pick some favorite artists. You can do this manually through the site, or by uploading a file from your iTunes that lets JamBase know who you’re listening to. If you upload through iTunes, you can pick and choose among the artists JamBase finds, so you’re only tracking your favorites.

If you don’t use iTunes, finding artists on JamBase is easy, because JamBase provides you everything from sample songs from to lists of a band’s other fans ““ it’s easy to figure out who you like, and who you’d want to make sure not to miss.

Once you’ve got some artists to track, you’ll be able to easily see who’re playing live shows, when, and where. When you find a show you’re interested to go to, you can add it to your JamBase calendar. JamBase wants to act as your own personal hub for the music you’re going to see.

If you don’t want to keep everything on JamBase (personally, I don’t need another calendar), the site also offers the option to send the concert information to a friend (or yourself, presumably), or to save it directly to Outlook, Google Calendar or Facebook.

JamBase also provides you with a widget of all the artists you’re tracking, that you can embed into your website or blog. For any music junkie, it’s a cool way to display who you’re listening to or watching live.

The community within JamBase is another useful part of the site ““ despite my constant wariness about niche social networks. You may look around to find out what other people with similar music taste are going to see. JamBase also has periodic giveaways of concert tickets and other music-related prizes, which is more than enough to keep me poking around the site for a while.

The biggest reason to use JamBase is that it smartly integrates with the other apps you use ““ it plays nicely with iTunes, where most of us have all our music; it works with Google Calendar, ever the popular schedule-holder; and you can do a lot just by email, for those of us outside of it. JamBase is a great way to find your favorite artists, and make sure you never miss them coming around.

How do you find concerts near you? You may also want to check out Renee’s article on Keeping Track of Live Music In Your City, it’s worth reading!

Photo: Anirudh Koul

Other than my Tuesday fix, though, I try to not spend too much time tracking bands and albums all over the place ““ talk about a time drain!

Thankfully, I’ve set up a pretty loophole-free system to make sure everything I need to know ““ album releases, concert dates, and the like ““ gets in front of me when it’s supposed to.

Here are the three apps I use:

BandsinTown

BandsinTown has a couple of great features that make it a useful one-stop spot for finding all your favorite bands. The site works almost completely by search, in one of two ways: either by band, or by location. Location’s a great one: Bandsintown automatically figures out where you are by your IP address, and then lets you search based on your spot. You can choose how far away you’re willing to go, how much you’re willing to pay, and whether you want major artists or indie acts ““ Bandsintown weeds it all down for you to show you only what you really want to see.

Searching by bands is great too ““ a quick search for, say, “Coldplay” brings up all kinds of useful information. You can see bios, your dates, discographies, and tons of other information that might be of interest.

If you create an account with Bandsintown, you can set a few artists as your favorites, and be notified any time one of your favorites is coming to do a show near you. Personally, I get a weekly digest, in my email, of all the bands I like and might like who are going to be nearby. It’s a great way to stay on top of the game, particularly if you’re a die-hard fan of a particular band.

AlbumReminder

It’s sad how excited I get about new albums coming from my favorite bands. I pre-order, sit and wait, and then go nuts when the download finally starts into my iTunes. Only problem is, I’m always worried I’m going to forget, and not be the first to hear the new albums! We can’t have that now, can we?

With AlbumReminder, my worries are gone. By signing up with AlbumReminder and then adding a few of your favorite artists into your account, you can get notifications of new albums from your favorites by email or by RSS. AlbumReminder features over 140,000 artists ““ just about anyone you can think of will be there.

You can get notified either on the release date, or set it to a time before the date. AlbumReminder’s also great about not sending you notifications of each and every version of an album (unless you want it, that is), so you’ll only get the notifications you actually want. AlbumReminder’s a simple way to make sure you know who’s making waves, and whose new album you need to get all giggly and excited about.

Oodle BandTracker

This one’s a lot like Bandsintown, but with fewer features ““ and that’s a good thing, if you’re just looking to stay on top of the concerts in your area. Oodle’s BandTracker lets you search 752,634 bands playing 258,370 shows, to make sure you get to see the ones you want. You can track your favorite bands across the country and always be notified when they play near you.

Once a week, you’ll get an email from BandTracker letting you know who’s coming, who’s cancelling, and what’s going on near you. That’s all there is to it ““ which is great.

Would you like to broaden your musical horizon? Tina has the scoop.

How do you stay on top of the music world? Are you a music lover or audiophile? Let us how you keep track of your favourite artists, in the comments.

Photo: Jeremy G.

My passion is concerts and although I love music, I hardly ever find the time to just sit down and listen to an entire album. Usually, I have material of the bands I like best or am going to see next on my mp3 player to listen to while I’m on the way.

So how do I find out about new bands and releases I like? It’s a five step process…

1. Radio

A good radio station provides more than just good music. In case there is not a good one in your area, you can switch to online streams or podcasts for the same features.

My choice is MotorFM, the radio station of the record label Motor. They mostly play rock, pop, alternative, few mainstream tunes, few commercials, quality news broadcasts, and segments on all kinds of topics. That combination is extremely convenient for me.

They do provide an online stream (however it’s a German radio station.)

Talking about radio stations also reminds of me the program called Screamer which can record and save playing radio tracks to your PC. Check it out.

2. Newsletters

When a band releases an album, they take it on the road for promotion. Since I love concerts, I kill two birds with one stone by simply following tour dates to find out about shows in my area and new releases.

Renee wrote a great article on Keeping Track of Live Music In Your City. Unfortunately, some of the services described are either exclusive to the US or, when community driven, they don’t cover all artists or venues. I found that to be true for all online services I tried, including the Last.fm concert calendar.

Hence, I decided to subscribe to a few major tour management and ticket service newsletters, which keep me up to date on who’s touring my country (Germany). In my case these are MLK, TrinityConcerts, Eventim, and Hekticket .

3. MySpace

For a quick glance at a band’s type of music, MySpace Music is an excellent source!

So when I see tour dates for a band I don’t know yet, I search for them on MySpace to see whether or not I like their music. It also gives me the chance to learn some more about the artist at the same time.

MySpace recently changed the interface of their music player, which not only looks much better, but is also a lot easier to control now.

On MySpace Music they also have a section for concerts. However, even though the profiles are managed by the artists themselves, they are not always up to date. Currently, I have three tickets for three different shows that are not (yet?) listed on the respective artist’s MySpace site.

4. Napster

Once I’ve found an artist I like, I usually buy a ticket for their show and download their music. Since I don’t have the time and patience for semi-legal or bad quality downloads, I use Napster. It’s no longer free, but the monthly plan is reasonable. While I have the program open I also scroll through the latest releases.

For a free and legal alternative I recommend ClipInc, one more tool that allows mp3 capturing from hundreds of preset radio stations.

5. Random Discoveries

Now and then I do find the time to listen to music online. Then I like to use Last.fm, musicovery or StumbleAudio.

Musicovery plays music based on genres combined with mood or tempo and it has an amazingly creative interface. Switching from one song of the current collection to another is easily possible.

While Last.fm certainly is the most popular tool with a huge database and some exclusive material (currently a preview of the new Keane album “Perfect Symmetry”), I like the simple interface of StumbleAudio much better. Besides, it uses OpenID.

If you’d like to know more about Last.fm, I highly recommend Dave’s article Using Last.fm to Improve your Audiovascular Fitness.

How do you discover new music and how do you know who’s playing in town? Any hot new band you would like to share? Comments are much appreciated!