I am delighted to announce that one of my from-scratch websites is now up and live on the internet!

http://www.chicagorootscollective.com

This was a very interesting, fun, and close-to-home project for me.  The Chicago Roots Collective is a seriously awesome new organization of ten bands in Chicago, working together on shows, events, and collaboration to build community around Roots, Americana, and songwriting-driven music in Chicago. My band, Cobalt & the Hired Guns, has been part of the collective since it’s inception.  I was very excited to build the CRC website, and really appreciate the financial support of the CRC all chipping in to cover my fees.

I am VERY pleased with how the site turned out.  Here are some of the features I am most pumped about:

• “CRC Radio” button: This is a pretty little image in the right sidebar which, when clicked, opens up a pop-up mp3 player that features 2 songs from every band in the Collective.  I love that it becomes a playlist of 20 great songs that you can listen to while browsing the site, or just turn on while doing other work.  When I am building a site for a musician, I tend to listen to heir music on repeat as I build, and this worked out even better than usual on the CRC site!
• Individualized pages for every band: This was probably the most time-consuming part of building this site, but also the most rewarding.  Under the “Bands” page tab, you can see that each of the 10 bands has their own page that features a bio, mp3s, press quotes, video, and links to their other pages on the web.  These pages can serve as EPKs (Electronic Press Kits) and are much more integrated and fun to look at than professional EPK sites such as SonicBids.
• Secret pages for the 10 bands to share information: What you can’t see are several hidden, password protected pages that allow all 10 bands to share information in a central location.  This kind of information sharing was one of the founding principles of the Collective, but they were not able to do so efficiently until now.
• User-Friendliness x10: As you know, I am all about the training and making sure that once I build your site, you are comfortable with updating and maintaining it from there (if you want to).  This CRC site takes that idea to a new level, with at least 10 different people logging in and adding content for their bands.

Please go take a look around the site, and drop me a comment letting me know what you think (or any bugs you find….)

-Matt