NEMUSICDB is a community driven datasource designed to help musicians and fans find their next favorite spot. We're primarily focused on the greater New England region.

The project is being developed so that all of the information and features are open and available for anyone to use.

Not from New England? Help us build a network of great places! Download the files and make your own version. We'll happily link to it.

A Brief History of the Project

• Summer 2022: Gotta Play Somewhere

  • I joined a band in Fall 2019, right before the world ended, and we managed to stick together through the pandemic. 2022 was the first year that live shows got rolling again after COVID and we started looking for places to play. It wasn't obvious where a band that no one ever heard of could jump on a stage. So, we started looking at where bands that we liked in the area had played recently and made a list. That list eventually became a spreadsheet, with about 100 spots in and around Massachusetts.
• Spring 2023: Everything's Closing

  • We eventually got out there and started playing gigs. But, I kept having different versions of the same conversation whilst hanging out.
  • "Oh wow, I have been here since COVID. It's so different now."
  • "Did you hear that place closed? There's no where to play near there now"
  • The Boston area had been bleeding small venues for a long time, but it accelerated after the pandemic. I had the thought that the venue list could be useful to others trying to figure out where to go next. I just had to clean it up first.
• Summer 2023: Spreadsheet Ain't Good Enough

  • Originally, I had forked the Google Sheet into a publicly viewable version. But, Sheets is clunky and if you aren't a geography whiz, you might not realize which towns are next to which cities.
  • To get the most out of the data, I needed to make something that could:
    • Ingest a cloud-based data source
    • Arrange that data onto a map
    • Filter and search for data
    • Allow click-to-show/hide functionality
  • After fretting that I hadn't done any web development in a decade and this was going to take a while, I remembered that Tableau can handle that feature list and Tableau Public is free.
• July 2023: v0 is Launched

  • It took just one pot of coffee on a Saturday morning to get the first Tableau prototype up and working. The original version was just built for desktop viewing. I had heard of Neocities as a throwback hosting site and thought it was a good fit. I signed up, embedded the Tableau Public code in basic page, then made an instagram account to let people know about it.
• August 2023: More Features and More Data

  • I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I started plugging the project on the algorithms, but I got a lot of positive feedback out of the gate. I thought a lot about how different personas would interact with the tool (fans, small artists, solo acts) and kept adding and refining features. I got a big boost from a couple people early on, who passed along their own venue data, and helped grow the map beyond Massachusetts.

    • Connecticut venue data provided by CT SETS
    • Maine venue data provided by PORTLAND NOISE
    • Added a tab for Resources - a list of sites that help support local music in the region
    • Started tracking Festivals that feature regional artists
    • Started tracking Reherasal and Practice Spaces, as more and more in greater Boston close.

  • In a month, the project had already doubled to 200+ venues
• Winter 2024: Feedback & Redesign

  • A few months in, I wanted to figure out how well the tool worked for other people. I ran a short user survey to hear about how people were using it, how easy it was to use, what could be improved, etc.

    • Re-designed for mobile use: Most people were looking at it from their phone
    • Restructured data to utilize custom geographic filters: Tableau's embedded map tools were tricky to use
    • Added a How To overlay to help people figure out how to use Tableau on mobile
    • Track venues in neighoring states: Short drive from some parts and helps plan out small tours
    • Regional promoters added to Resources
• July 2024: One Year In

  • At the one year mark, the project had documented 540 different venues in the whole Northeastern US.
• April 2025: v1 built out Full Site w/ Embedded Dashboard

  • After a long spell of screen burnout, I finally started updating the website and planning the next upgrade of the map tool. The Resources data will get its own page once I figure out what the future state looks like for data hosting and ingestion.
• Year End 2025 v2: Polished Site w/ encoded Web App

  • I am planning to finish developing a typescript based map to replace the Tableau version by the end of the year. With Microsoft's support of Windows 10 winding down, my hardware ineligible for the upgrade, and some dumbass tanking the economy, I will be switching over to Linux until I can buy a Mac. Which means I can no longer maintain the Tableau version.

Questions? Comments?

EMAIL: NEMUSICDB@PROTON.ME

INSTAGRAM: @ne_music_db

BLUESKY: @nemusicdb.bsky.social

New England Music Directory v0.4 on Tableau Public

Add to the Venue Database

Add to the Resource Database

View the datasource