Marin Local Music is a social network for people who support live, local music in Marin County, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Other online social networks such as Facebook or MySpace seek to create virtual, global communities with technology. MLM starts with a very real community and simply uses technology to organize, inform and promote its members and activities. By maintaining a single focus on music in a small geographical area, it is possible to include every possible facet of the community and get the most complete coverage. The technology not only makes information easily accessible, it also enables each of the individual members to contribute on their own. This keeps the information fresh, relevant, and personal to keep things interesting.
Marin Local Music promotes local bands, publicizes local merchants, and produces events in Marin County, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Marin Local Music has been involved with "Stop the Spray", "Home Away from Homelessness", "Search for the Cause Gala" and many other events.

History

MLM is created by everyone in the network, but the network itself was created by Shelley and Dave Champine.
Shelley has been producing, managing, and promoting live entertainment for over 20 years. Her degree in theatre with emphasis in stage management and direction formed the foundation of her career. Upon moving to San Francisco, she joined Beach Blanket Babylon and worked in numerous production roles for nearly 11 years. For several years while raising two wonderful kids, she took side projects in corporate event planning and theatrical production. With kids came a move to the suburbs, but she never lost her desire to get out and dance! After continuous frustration scouring newspapers and trying to convince her friends that there really was nightlife in Marin, she decided to apply her considerable organizational skills to this very real problem. With the encouragement of numerous musicians and venues, Shelley started La Vida Local Events to promote live events. What better way to promote events than to provide the most comprehensive list of everything to do with music in Marin?
This is where Dave gets involved. While Dave also has a degree in Theatre, his career is in technology. He has been designing, building, maintaining and marketing networks and software for nearly 20 years. His experience includes building the e-mail network for Charles Schwab and directing software product development for systems used by millions of users worldwide. Dave also founded his own company and has been general manager for multiple software product lines - the opportunity to work together with his wife and bring together their combined skills for such an obvious need was too good to ignore.
Marin Local Music has only been up and running since June 2008, but the response has been overwhelming. Already there are hundreds of entries for bands, venues, and resources in every corner of Marin and over 110 live music events going on every week! The website is bursting with information and there are new visitors and users signing up to add information every day. Sign up if you haven't already and you too can support local music by posting pictures, commenting on events, bands, and venues and helping to get people off the couch and on the dance floor.

Technology

The website itself is built using Drupal

Drupal

Drupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...

, a powerful, open-source content management system. This provides a very flexible, scalable way to present information and allows other members of the music community to contribute content.

External links

• Norcal.FM is a website dedicate to the local music scene in northern California. Norcal. FM is an Internet Radio Station.
• Marin IJ Article Article in the Marin Independent Journal about Shelley Champine and Marin Local Music
• Marin IJ Article Article in the Marin Independent Journal about local Battle of the Bands event co-produced by Marin Local Music
• Pacific Sun Article Article in the Pacific Sun mentions Marin Local Music
• Pacific Sun Article Article in the Pacific Sun about local Battle for the Stage event produced by Marin Local Music