Calender

[Alex Conti]

I know the site looks like it's going to be changed alot but I really loved the calender view with all the logos and links ect.  It was a really cool aspect of the calender and now it looks like every other venue's calender.

[Dave]

There will be a link from each show to a page that will have the logos and admats and so on for each individual show. Not a huge page with all of them so you don't need a lot of stuff to load. It will take me a bit though.

[Alex Conti]

ok sounds cool and practical.

[MetalChris]

Are the old show listings from the past several years gone? I see that November 09 still has some but it seems everything before that has not been kept.

[Dave]

Are the old show listings from the past several years gone? I see that November 09 still has some but it seems everything before that has not been kept.

I'm assuming you mean the Calendar Archives. I will work them in somehow at some point but that is a lower priority than getting some other things done. I have to completely redo those pages as the code in them has gotten really screwed up over the years, unfortunately the previou guy used Front Page so I need to clean all that up.

[blueyez]

I don't like the calender. I think not having the bands name in its original script makes it harder to look for bands I like and on some of them the name of the tour is not even listed.

[Dave]

If I know the name of the tour it is listed directly under the date, all of the current information was taken from the old calendar. Don't worry, enough of you diehard old calendar fans have complained that I will have a link to the old style in awhile :-), like I say above it needs to be redone. Give me a little time here please.

[tenchimyo]

I agree with the one chap about how it is kind of hard to locate /pick out bands (logos helped on the old calendar).

HOWEVER the entire site looks a LOT cleaner and more professional now, and I do see that this is a work in progress.

But I would argue for visibility (logos or a band photo) rather than uniform text.
An example is Ram's Head Live : http://tickets.ramsheadlive.com/

The events are pretty easily separated and stand out to the eye (usually).

Just some thoughts

[Dave]

I'll do what I can when I can, the other problem with all of this is a matter of time. Most if not all of these other venues hired a company to do their site, that could devote 1 or 2 or even more people to working on it full time. I'm doing this on the side and it's difficult for me to take the time to search out a band's website, find a decent pic of them and resize it and come up with some descriptive text about them, especially if it's a band I know nothing about. What I could really use is a volunteer or 2 to find these things and write small blurbs about the bands that I can put on the schedule.

I have a section on here that I figured people would post reviews of shows and thought later we could get people to write articles about things such as the local scene (or lack thereof) or a particular genre or whatever, but no one has written anything. Soooo, here's a callout to any of you that want to do that sort of thing. I know some of you already do (Chris for sure) but if anyone wants to become a writer here's your chance to get a start.

[MetalChris]

A good resource for finding the official homepages and MySpace pages (there's so many fakes it can be hard) is the the Metal Archives at: http://www.metal-archives.com They're very thorough and list almost every band in almost every metal sub-genre (except glam, hardcore and nu metal) including small local bands, assuming they have at least a demo out already. If you scroll down on a band's profile, just under the discography section, the first section of links lists the official pages. If that doesn't help Wikipedia will usually have official links at the bottom of any particular band's page. Though they won't have as many obscure bands and local bands, they do have info on bands of almost any genre.

And as far as writing about the local scene and such, that's hard to do here when we're not allowed to talk about events at other area venues. It's hard to encourage communication while censoring at the same time. I know that's probably not your decision, but it's still an issue.

[Dave]

Thanks, I don't have a problem finding websites etc though, I have a problem having the TIME to do that LOL. And there's no problem mentioning a band playing somewhere else in a review, the problem is advertising another show somewhere else.

[Randyjames16]

I'm liking the very professional and organized look of the new calendar. I agree with the suggestion that an image of the headlining band should be included next to the show date, but I really think a short description of who's playing is unnecessary. The ones for Ram's Head and 9:30 Club are usually written poorly. For example, when Opeth and Enslaved played at the 9:30 Club earlier this year, Opeth got a whole paragraph that was clearly written by a non-metalhead fan of the band, and all Enslaved got was a sentence. Something along the lines of "Enslaved are a progressive black metal band from Bergen, Norway." 

Anyways, I think Sonar's got the right idea: http://www.sonarbaltimore.com/flash.php
It's to-the-point. One gets all of the show info, who's playing, and it has an image to entice the eye (the image for Marduk that was up for their Nov. 23rd show was priceless), but the whole flash scrollbar stuff is a bit too much.

Keep up the good work.   

[MetalChris]

What I meant before was, it's hard to talk about the local scene while not able to talk about upcoming shows at other venues. If I want to suggest someone checks out a local band that's not on the Jaxx schedule what am I supposed to do? Just wait til the show is over and tell them they missed it? It's like trying to talk about football but only being allowed to talk about 1 team and past games, but not any upcoming games involving other teams. Not trying to be a jerk, but it's hard to talk about the local scene when you limit it to one venue.

[Dave]

I understand, the reason the stickies went up about not advertising another venue is somebody posted ads for shows at another venue with bands NOT playing Jaxx too, just an ad for that venue. That's all I'm trying to avoid is overt advertising strictly for a venue, not mentioning in passing "hey this great band is playing at Sonar and hopefully they'll come to Jaxx" or something like that. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

[Freyjastear]

I don't like the calender. I think not having the bands name in its original script makes it harder to look for bands I like and on some of them the name of the tour is not even listed.

I think I have to agree.  When I first came to the new calendar I was not impressed without seeing the logos.  I'm sure it's easier to maintain this way, but this is just what I feel!  Even tho the old style was sooooo old school HTML lookin' I still dug it's layout!!