Monday, April 11, 2016

OTHER SOURCES: Locusic

In this edition of Other Sources, the feature where we show other places you can find and hear Iowa music, we present the website and app, Locusic.


"Locusic is a music streaming service focused on Local Music. There are tons of amazing artists within just a few miles of you. They deserve our attention. You deserve to experience their music. That's why we built Locusic. Based in Des Moines, Locusic is currently live in central Iowa and the Minneapolis area."
- from The Des Moines Music Coalition (DMMC) web site

"Locusic, short for Local Music, is a music streaming service focused on local bands/musicians.

"You open the Locusic web app, pick a genre, and music will start playing from the local music scene – wherever you happen to be (as long as we're live there). We're currently only live in central Iowa and the Twin Cities, but will be rolling out to the rest of the US.

"Music lovers:
Listen to music for free
Discover great local bands

"Bands:
Get FREE airplay in your community
Get exposed to new fans
Sell more tickets to your shows"
- from Locusic's Facebook page


"Think Pandora, but for local music, and you have Locusic. Locusic is an Ankeny-based local music streaming service focused on local bands and musicians and plans to officially launch this weekend in Des Moines.

"'I wanted to do something to help the local music scene and also local businesses,' said Jake Kerber, founder of Locusic. 'I’ve seen great local bands and heard people talk about how great they are, but then they just can’t get any traction. Their music’s better than what’s on the radio, but what can you do? Ultimately I came up with a system where the two groups can help each other.'

"When a listener opens Locusic they are prompted to select a genre. Based on the genre and the listener’s location, Locusic will select and stream music from local musicians based within 50 miles of the listener’s location.

"'I hope Locusic can increase the general public’s awareness of the high quality and vast quantity of music being produced by artists in our area, ' said Kerber. 'When someone’s looking at a list of local shows, they’ll have heard of the bands via Locusic and be able to make a more informed decision of which bands to go see – and ultimately go see more local shows.'"
- from The Dish on Des Moines website

"Locusic is like Pandora in that it is an online site that streams music. However, unlike Pandora, Locusic only plays local bands and artists.

"It has a wide variety of genres—from rock, pop, soul to classical music. There are local artists such as North of Grand, Bright Giant, The River Monks and Dead Horse Trauma.

"Kerber said that it is easy for local bands to upload music to Locusic.

“'If they are within 50 miles of Des Moines they just register for a free account and they go to the account settings link under "My Artists" and they click "Create an Artist Profile" and just start going,' Kerber said. 'They just upload their MP3 files and it is all pretty much just automatic.'

"Kerber has certain expectations for Locusic’s future now that the website is up and running."
- from The Simpsonian magazine

Locusic website and homepage: http://locusic.com/

Locusic's Android app: http://www.locusic.com/blog/locusic-android-app/

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