crazybobbles

Ticket in my hand and thinking wish I didn't hand it in

I’m a big fan of Google, I use Gmail to manage all my email accounts (I have about 15 addresses floating around that all forward to Gmail), I use Google Reader to check out new content on sites via RSS feeds, and I use Google Calendar to manage all my appointments, gigs and other bits and bobs I go to. Anyway, this isn’t about google. This is about Last.fm (sorry got carried away from Google advertising).

Most of my music is scrobbled and sent to last.fm, it’s useful to get music recommendations and have an overview of your listening patterns (and making sure Muse ISN’T the most listened artist in your charts!) Anyway, most of that stuff we already know (if not, visit them at www.last.fm), but one feature I love most is the events section. Most ticket websites send updates of gigs they currently have on sale but usually it’s for bands that are well known and will sell well, what happens to those bands you like that are small and wee? This is where the super useful events section comes into play, it recommends you gigs to go to based on the music you’ve listened to, so if you’ve been rocking out to Okkervil River, boom, you get that gig they’re playing in Shepherds Bush Empire, if you’re stomping out to Tilly and the Wall, boom, it tells you about their gig at the ULU (which I’ll be attending), if you’re admiring some Philip Glass piano solos, boom it tells you an Opera made by Phillip Glass is showing (and boy aren’t £11 tickets to see an Opera epic?).

Gigs I've been recommended in October, ignore dragonforce, I only like that song featured on guitar hero :p

So yeah, definitely use that page, why did I mention Google? Well I use Google Calendar to track all my events and whatnot, what I’ve done is basically subscribed to a calendar generated by Last.fm (in a lovely standard ics format) which plots all gigs I could potentially go to (in London, god bless Last.fm) onto my calendar, meaning I can book them if I feel like seeing them. Today I’ve already booked tickets to see Wolf Parade, Emiliana Torrini and a few others for the last quarter (work related terms tut tut). The venues are very wee (well Koko is kinda wee) so I’m glad last.fm was here to the rescue to tell me that they were playing. Tickets were all under £15 so that’s good. Moral of the story, use last.fm, it’s an epic tool for new music and for giving you recommendations for gigs you can go to, though I suppose it only works when you live in areas like London where the mass venues are stuffed with gigs left right and centre (and surround left, surround right and lfe if you’re into 5.1 digital dolby surround sound like me, mmm).