London, a global cultural capital, is teeming with talented yet unsigned musicians. Without the luxury of managers and PR focus groups, and with previous safe havens like MySpace being taken over by the big labels’ latest protégés, it has become increasingly difficult for these bands to get noticed. What was needed was an independent online space exclusively geared at unsigned bands, allowing them to promote and manage themselves and above all, to get heard.

We created Bandman, the anonymous hero of the London music scene. Through his website, we created a personality that amateur band members could relate to. This isn’t a slick corporate funded cash-cow, it a place for like-minded musicians to get together, promote themselves and share experiences and knowledge of the London music scene.

Bandman gives you the tools to manage your band, and network with other bands, promoters and venues. You can listen and rate and review all music posted on the site. We also created a Facebook application that allowed you to search and play the music hosted on Bandman whilst on Facebook and allowed you to share your playlists with friends. Whilst enriching the Bandman experience, the application helped to drive traffic to the site.

Bandman has become recognised as the leading website to promote London’s unsigned bands. The site currently hosts over 2,000 tracks (EMI only has 10,000) and around 800 bands and we’re extremely excited that soon many more bands will get to know their new mentor. The site has also been asked to team up with a number of unsigned festivals... perhaps in the not-too-distant future we will start seeing Bandman events!

We are currently moving onto phase two of the project and we’re extremely excited that soon many more bands will get to know their new mentor.