Wired
If you are an avid reader of this blog you already know that the Seattle Band Map is a project that showcases the Pacific Northwest’s vibrant music scene by visually documenting the thousands of bands who have performed and recorded throughout the decades. The Seattle Band Map is a creative collaboration between KEXP’s Rachel Ratner, local musician Keith Whiteman and web developer Golf Sinteppadon. They took the project online after running out of physical space on the paper map and the resulting website, which is still growing thanks to ongoing input by Seattle musicians and fans, has turned into a collaborative piece of informational art. By tapping into the knowledge of the crowd, the project has become a sort of oral history of rock ‘n’ roll for Seattle that is quickly spreading beyond Seattle’s city limits. The Seattle Band Map went live two weeks ago with only a few groups listed; today it includes more than 2,000. The information architecture that shows the relationships among bands is evolving: Ratner and crew want to make the linkages more descriptive, such as a green line for “played a show together,” a red line for “shared a band member,” a yellow line for “collaborated on an album,” etc. Check out the Wired article with the hyper-hyperlink above and maybe even make an addition to the Seattle Band Map.