It’s a bit ironic that I’m writing this post on music sites that make sense while getting spammed with TicketWeb emails to see artists I don’t follow in a place I don’t live. This after talking with Gabe Benveniste about SonicLiving, the concert and community site he started while working in IT at Pixar a few years ago. The “digital to analog lifestyle converter” in one of my favorite social media applications with its ability to scan my Pandora and iTunes for most listened to artists and let me know about shows that my friends and people whose tastes I admire are planning to attend.
Benveniste, 27, is not a musician but a concert aficionado who was inefficiently scouring for shows and feeling frustrated by his friends’ rickety concert calendars in the early 00′s. After dropping out of Berkeley High and leaving with a slew of new media projects for the school, Benveniste started the concert site, which formerly went by hellaphresh.com and coldchillin.com. After giving SonicLiving concert scheduling capability and the ability to search users’ computers for their tastes, the social component of the site was added and friends can see each others’ upcoming plans for concerts. Users frequently sell tickets to each other at face value, a nice anecdote to Craigslist price hikes and scalping.
The importance of reestablishing local communities is the site’s most important function, Benveniste said. “There was a lack of true connection among people living in different places who liked the same music,” he said.
For a site with 11,000 users, far smaller than Upcoming or iLike, it’s one of the most active concert sites in the Bay Area. He’s working to increase the site’s user base in other cities and to engage with people in an industry he describes as “post-album sales.”
A concert chat feature has been proposed to allow users to compare thoughts on live shows, but it’s an idea Benveniste approaches hesitantly. The plus side: instant feedback and community engagement; the minus: missing the point of seeing a live music performance and making the musicians feel as if they aren’t playing for an attentive audience.
Very excited for this weekend in La-La to see friends and some of the exhibits from Women In the City, a series of outdoor works by renowned feminist artists. Since February the project has taken over billboards, movie theaters, and screens throughout the city to “penetrate the urban and social geography of the city.” The work looks intriguing (not to mention that no viral art exhibition within reach could keep me away).
This Wednesday brings the first of the New York Times interactive webcasts for women entrepreneurs this summer. Times columnists and business reporters will discuss transitioning and leadership over the course of the three presentations (which unfortunately start at 3:30 PM on the West Coast but could be worth the time). I’m most interested in the reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom’s conversation about the importance of professional connections for female entrepreneurs. (Because I’m so aversive to networking. Or not.)
Paris design shop Grapheine must have had a ball cutting up old Bollywood films for their BombayTV site. Users can pick short film clips and add their own subtitles–it’s simple, costume-filled, and bound to revert to second grade humor. Pick different sample sequences or use Jaman’s subtitler if you’re looking for something a little more, shall we say, challenging.
Tomorrow marks our third week of practice with Team in Training for the Monterey Triathlon in September–thankfully it’s not a swim in the Bay just yet, but I want to kick off the most important part of the race: raising money for people with leukemia and lymphoma.
I haven’t done a triathlon in the past, oh, ten years, but I figure there’s no better way to honor my late cousin Julia’s life than getting out there and trying something crazy that also helps other people. She was always quick to break into a wacky dance or run, and she’d love the idea of meeting a bunch of people around you to do something unexpected (such as say, an Olympic distance tri). And if there were costumes involved..well, forget about it. You can see a little tribute of her here on Current.
Team in Training supports research for blood cancers that are a bit different from the kind that Julia had, but I’m participating with thoughts of her and the 823,000 Americans currently in need of cures for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. My teammates and I are going to be training around the Bay Area this summer to offer hope, support, and, of course, funds for people with these diseases. I hope you can help (even if it’s with a comment).
I’ll keep it updated with photos of myself (hopefully upright) on the bike and run. Donations are tax deductible and enable life-saving research. I cannot tell you how much the help is appreciated.
And now, off to the races.
As a longtime reader of Bitch Magazine’s commentary on popular culture, academics and media, I’m excited that a piece I wrote about SF arial dance troupe Flyaway Productions last year landed in their pages. Choreographer Jo Kreiter’s performers have an ethereal quality and are breathtaking to watch, even (or especially) above Chinese donut shops in the Mission. See the magazine’s latest Genesis issue–it’s a great tribute to Bay Area dance pioneer Kreiter’s vision.
This week brought the Embarcadero opening of the film Surfwise about a doctor and his wife who raised their eight small children in a 24-foot camper while surfing up and down the US coast and Mexico. The documentary depicts the upbringing of seven sons and a sole gutsy daughter and their recollections of “Doc” Paskowitz, a visionary and somewhat hostile father. The bright design elements by SF production house Mekanism are beautiful, and you can only imagine what a bear this project was to edit after eight years of interviews. The family members’ stories about sexual angst and sharing clothing on the road ultimately make for a fun romp of a film, and it’s just enough to get you on the phone this Father’s Day.
Tokyo-based culture blog PingMag turned me onto new designs from Afro Coffee, a South African roaster whose iconic packaging is instantly memorable. It doesn’t take much to get me talking about my affinity for coffee or Cape Town, but this company’s efforts to get people thinking about where the coffee they drink comes from is admirable. As Ping quoted Afro’s Grant Rushmere:
“‘Our goal was to refocus people on the origins of coffee – that it in fact originated in Africa before being discovered by the Arabs and from Yemen, exporting around the world. Many people don’t know this, so we attempt to capture and celebrate this African spirit in our packaging and all we do.’”
Primary colors and beach-themed fabric are used to create coffee bags and tea tins that I’d love to see stateside. I’m not sure that drinking Afro Coffee will people’s solve problems of “no money and no ladies” as the roaster promises, but it’s certainly fun enough to help you get past that. The caffeine helps too.
