I’m sure there’ll be plenty on the blog this week featuring Tea Leaf Green, including a review of the their new album and reviews of their two-night stand at the Coda in NYC. There is something about Tea Leaf Green that is starting to sit right with a lot of people, and this post isn’t even about their music.
Tea Leaf Green’s website is one of the best band websites I’ve ever seen. It rivals any big-name band that might have a web budget (which I’m sure is slightly secondary or even tertiary to their cause at the moment), and it’s love can be summarized with a few points.
News Feeds / RSS — Tea Leaf Green use news feeds to disseminate their information. What’s more, they have an RSS feed for their news, shows, and setlists–they even have a feed that combines everything in one, easy-to-bookmark spot where anyone and everyone can get their Tea Leaf Green news. Lesson: Don’t rely on the bloggers. Don’t rely on the fan sites. Don’t plunk all your news on some HTML page under /news and expect that people will have that bookmarked. Get your information out there and make it accessible for as many people as possible.
HTML — This page was not overloaded, bloated, and s***tified by adding Flash intros and automatic jukeboxes, etc. None of that crap bombards you as you just try to check out their site. Look at the Secret Machines website. Frustrating and not easy to use, in my opinion. Lesson: Flash is a web-design secret of the past. It usually isn’t necessary when a simple band webpage, with news, music, photos, etc. can easily be created through CSS and HTML.
Forums — If done right, these are key to any band fan’s appreciation towards last night’s show, new album, lack of tourdates through your hometown, etc. I’ve seen that many bands like this to be outsourced to the fan sites, but I usually find that they are better moderated and controlled when the band has to make sure they follow what gets posted.
Those are just a few things that really matter to me and hopefully some band webmasters will take notice. And, this serves a great link of admiration for me and I’m glad to see that an up-and-comer has their s*** together. Not that we didn’t already know that already…