Browsing For Web Design Inspiration

Just for some ideas, I like to browse around to see what other's have done with creating web sites for particular topics. I may start working on a new website with a musician and I am searching for inspiration. Fortunately, I follow a number of independent music acts on Twitter. So it was real easy for me to find good sites for examples. 

From what I could see right away, most of the artists use Bandcamp or Soundcloud as their main web presence for their music. I think that is good. Others just use Facebook which I don't like. You can upload videos and links but FB does not seem very well geared for music. Plus people get easily distracted on FB so your message or product will get lost.

Others use Wordpress or some other blogging platform. What is great about Wordpress is that you can incorporate themes and it seems pretty easy to use. Originally, I thought about using Wordpress to create my own blog but as you can see, I went with Blogger. Wordpress is good for those who are not web developers because you can update your content without having to contact someone such as myself for help, an another web developer, or having to learn web coding languages to update yourself. I think a Wordpress site would be a good way to go but I still need to research how Wordpress would treat audio files. Here are some examples of some musician's Wordpress sites I looked at:

http://benmyersonline.com/  <-- I don't like this site but it's functional.

http://www.evertheory.com/ <-- I like this one but I think you should see the music for listening to right away on the home page.

A few other artists use a good old fashioned website without the additional blogging interface. Here's some that I like:

http://www.empathytestmusic.com/ <-- I like this site because the music is right on the homepage. Plus it looks like the music is hosted on Bandcamp's server so that saves money with web hosting (which is usually pretty cheap anyways). However I have no clue how they coded it because all I see is a bunch of JavaScript and very little HTML and CSS. But I could do something similar.

http://seasonofghosts.com/ <-- This is a really nice website. Very well put together but it seems really big.

I am still waiting for feedback on this web design, so we shall see.

Metallica on Weeklong for Craig Ferguson's Last Stand

These days, I don’t care about Metallica or The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and the host's departure (well maybe I do a little). Back when I worked nights, I used to watch all late night talk shows. Nowadays I am in bed before the 11 o’clock news so I don’t watch The Late Show, The Tonight Show, much less The Late Late Show.

Come to think of it... I don't watch much TV in my spare time, seeing that I work in television I guess I am sick of it by the end of the day. However, when I read in The Hollywood Reporter that Metallica will be doing a weeklong stint to help send Craig Ferguson off, I quickly imagined what songs they would play for each of the five nights.

To start off with, I thought it would be badass if Metallica set the mood with the downright heavy as hell, “One.” Shit it’s a Monday night, we’re in the mood for something dark with a touch of speed metal.

 

"One" is a bit of a throwback so Tuesday night Metallica should play something the tweens in the audience are aware of. Maybe “Fuel” will do the trick. Plus “Fuel” is a slamming mosh pit track and who doesn’t like that?

Wednesday Night, I would go with “King Nothing.” The blood and cum CD cover for Load, from which “King Nothing” was released is fitting for the Humpday theme.

Thursday is the descent into the weekend and Craig Ferguson's last few episodes as host of the Late Late Show. For this night we go baaaaaccckkk. Way back. To say ….And Justice for All. “Harvester of Sarrow” fits in nice here and is under-appreciated in the Metallica catalog.

For the Friday, the final night of the weeklong Metallica stint, it’s a toss-up. A choice the band should make 5 minutes before they go on stage. But my toss-up vote would go to “And Nothing Else Matters” or “Unforgiven.”

Again it’s a toss-up. What tracks would you choose? We’ll see what the band actually plays, starting November 17th late night on CBS.