I’m a lot like most of you. I’m fortunate to be a small part of the Charleston live music scene being a performer in 40 Years Too Late and Blue Mystic Dream. As part of those bands, we cross paths with a few venues, other bands, and service providers. I also own SpinJen Productions, a well equipped recording studio with top shelf video recording capabilities. In that capacity I also meet a lot of people in and around the Charleston live music scene.

Actually, I should introduce myself. I’m Dave Poole, and you can learn more about me and my background at DaveRocks.net. Take a quick look and come on back.

But at the end of the day, I’m just a lover of live music, like you. And I get frustrated with unmanaged Facebook groups pushing duct cleaning, venue websites that aren’t regularly updated, and similar disasters on artist/band pages and sites. There is just no reliable and common place on a Friday night after dinner to see who is playing where in Mt. Pleasant. Or Downtown, West Ashley, Folly Beach, or Summerville. Or to see where a favorite band is playing.

So that’s where CHS-LiveMusic.com intends to be, at least initially. We’re working on a site and app that serves those purposes. We hope to also provide different tiers of service, meaning a band or venue might be able to buy a better placement of themselves in a list. Or sponsor an event or day. Or offer ways a band can promote itself or a specific performance. But the lists of who is playing where and when will always be FREE and front and center. This is supposed to be easy, and we intend to keep it that way.

We’re working on building content that features bands, venues, and service providers. Interviews and podcasts with popular, interesting, or up and coming artists. New venues or those offering LOTS of live music. And service providers that might be of interest to bands or venues. We’re going to make sure our content focuses primarily on things of broad interest to Charleston live music lovers, but also recognize that a good chunk of our audience will consist of bands and artists as well as venue owners and managers.

Here is what to expect from us - and when. We’re targeting our initial release of the website in the latter half of February 2025. We believe in rolling out what we have when we have it, and stay in a position to provide a positive experience - meaning the ability support what we publish. We ALWAYS welcome feedback, feature suggestions, content ideas, and anything else you think would enhance the experience of users using CHS-LiveMusic.com. I can’t promise we’ll always implement your specific suggestion, but we’ll hear you and believe me - it will have in impact on what we provide.

Once we publish version 1.0 in February, we intend to publish a new “release” every month to add new capabilities. Content will be updated daily - just like every day your schedule has additions, cancellations, and updates. As a gigging musician, and owner of a service provider organization, I get it. Stuff happens. All the damn time. And we’ll be right there as it does!

Lastly, during this startup phase, go to our contact page and provide us your information. We’ll keep you posted on progress, ask you for your feedback, and update you on new releases. Let others know about this and help us gain some traction with other artists and bands, venues, service providers and live music lovers. The more we have in the community, the better. And thanks again for hanging around and making the Charleston live music community one of best reasons to live here!

• Dave