DeliRadio

Maybe you've been there, maybe you haven't. But chances are good that this won't be the last you hear about DeliRadio.

"So", you say in your most jaded drawl, "another web site with 'Social' in the title. I'm riveted."

Hold your horses there, pardner. Don't diss this until you've thought it all the way through.

First, notice that it's labeled "Radio", which implies a passive experience. It's not. You heard of Pandora, correct? It's like that, a kinda user-controlled traditional radio.

"So? I got Pandora, now I need another one?"

OK. Getta load of this widget on their front page:

This is the thing you use to generate or "crunch" your radio station. See that big "Location" label? Guess what that means. You can tell DeliRadio to play bands only from or that will only be playing within a certain geographical area. Or go ahead and get completely control freakish and tell it to give you bands that are only playing at a specific venue and time.

Sigh. Yawn.

OK. We'll spell it out - This is the fattest bridge between radio play (ie., fan discovery) and venue attendance yet created.

How about a hypothetical? Johnny wants to take Jane somewhere downtown Austin this Saturday night. Jane loves live music. Johnny turns on DeliRadio, generates a station that's based on Austin. Sets the proximity at 15 miles, sets the time at "this week". BOOM, he's listening to bands that are playing in Austin this week. He hears something cool, he drills down on it. Now he knows who to catch, where they're playing, and what time to get there. AND, in some cases, he can go ahead and buy tickets in advance. Studly. Jane is impressed.

Or Trevor the jazz aficionado decides to browse the local market. Generates a station, limiting the genre to Jazz. Listens to those he's unfamiliar with, quickly discerning the posers from the gifted. Makes a note on his iPad of the gifted's time and locale.

Now, we here at Austin Independent Music are, maybe, slightly more educated about the local music scene than Johnny or Trevor. We could, conceivably, pick the appropriate gig to catch, given any given night. Might. After digging around SongKick and Facebook and Twitter. And calling our friends. Both of them.

So if you're not a student of the local venues and bands? Where ya gonna turn, the Chronicle? You think they have the same taste (or agenda) that you do?

Now we've never met a single indie who didn't want to be on the radio, be it Internet-based or otherwise. And unlike terrestrial stations, or Pandora, getting on Deli is a snap.

And it's free.

So, if you're a gigging band, playing those same venues that Johnny was perusing a minute ago, we're thinking it's a no-brainer - You're wanting on the radio, now you're getting on the radio, and you're playing for people looking for a show to catch.

And (maybe we mentioned this already) it's free.

So go here and Join DeliRadio. Then go fill in the consent form. And it wouldn't hurt to go check out the handy tips here.

And while you're at it, you might want to update your SongKick account too, it's where DeliRadio is getting a lot of their event info. [WHAT?? You're NOT on Songkick? Sigh. Guess we have ANOTHER blog post to write now.]

We'll leave you with, perhaps, our most banal vid ever - A how-to on creating your own location-based radio station. Cool.

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Find out more about DeliRadio on Home Base.

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