HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SCENE IF YOU HAVEN'T DISCOVERED IT YET?

Photo by: Meg Lavender

If you are a frequent concertgoer or like to talk about your favourite bands and artists online on different social media platforms, you must have heard the phrase ‘support your local scene’ once or twice. Okay, once or twice is an understatement. This phrase is thrown around that much that it has lost its meaning and impact. So, what do people mean when they say, ‘support your local scene’?

There’re a couple of possible answers (if we are only looking at music, which is what we are doing).

Go see local artists and bands live and listen to their music.

In the world of streaming services, albums and singles are easily accessible online. If the songs aren’t on Spotify or Apple Music, it is likely that you can find them on SoundCloud or Bandcamp.

Get involved in the scene.

Most scenes have at least a few ‘home’ venues. These are often unprofessional, and the people work there voluntarily. There are many things you need to think about when organising gigs - these venues can always use extra help, and there are so many ways in which you can help; promotional work, bartending, stage set-up, the list goes on and on.

Now, to support your local scene you first need to find your local scene. You might think that there aren’t any fun bands in your area, let alone places to go see them, so in this post, I want to show you some ways to discover your local scene and its bands.

1. Bandcamp

Bandcamp is an international platform for small artists to sell music and merchandise, and it is likely that all your favourite bands sold their first singles and EP’s on Bandcamp. If you go to Bandcamp's website and scroll down on the homepage, you will find the 'Discover' option. You can select what genre of music you want to discover, whether you want popular music or recently released music, but most importantly you can select a location. If you select your city (or the nearest big city) and the genre you like, Bandcamp will show you all albums and singles released on their website that follow those criteria, and voila, local bands are discovered.

2. Opening acts

Big artists frequently bring well-known artists on tour with them, but smaller artists often don’t have the budget to bring a known opening act. Often, they bring a smaller artist on tour, but what happens most regularly is that the venue arranges a local opening act. Make sure to arrive early to see these local bands when you go to a gig and check out their socials. It is likely that you will find small venues where they play and other local acts that they play with.

While you’re at the gig anyway, buy their merch, whether it’s a CD or a shirt. Small bands can always use financial support - touring and playing shows is not cheap, especially not if you don’t have a big following!

3. Spotify

It is impossible that you don’t know a single local band. Try to think of the most local band you know, or the smallest band in your country, and go to their Spotify page. Spotify has this beautiful feature that allows you to discover similar bands called ‘Fans also like’. When you click it you will be given around twenty artists similar to the artist on that page, and often these are bands from the same area or scene.

Another way to discover not necessarily local but smaller bands on Spotify is by listening to the ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist that is generated for you every week, or by going to the browse page and then clicking 'Discover', you will find artists like your favourites.

I can’t imagine you not finding a single good, local band after using one of these three tips. It is true that some cities really just don’t have a music scene, but there will always be a city close to you that does have one, and in the case of your country not having a huge music scene - which is a thing in non-English speaking countries where there are mostly American and English music charts - there will always be acts on a national level that you like.

Every country has good bands, it is not just London and California that produce good musicians. You just have to go out and discover them.

Article by Cyan