WILLIAMSBURG — George and Dawna Marsh, also known as Mr. and Mrs. Red Shoes, frequent local establishments offering live music. After seeing the struggle for publicity so many local musicians face, the couple jumped in to help.
“I started going out to hear live music at Cogan’s and Paul’s Deli in Newtown and being a photographer, I’d bring my camera and take pictures at the shows. It just kind of took off from there with everyone knowing who I was and I figured that this would give me an in with the bands to get paid gigs in photography and marketing for them,” George said.
Always having a hard time finding out who was playing and where, George decided to buy a domain name and shared it with a Facebook page that would list various musical happenings in town.
“My main issue with that was that there was no chronological order to the events on the Facebook page. Sometimes, I’d even share events that had already been played. There was just no order to it,” George said.
He then discovered Facebook events have an option to share the event to a calendar on a phone. But without a way to transpose his iPhone calendar to the Facebook page, it still didn’t provide a solution.
That’s when 757LiveMusic.com was born.
757LiveMusic.com is a calendar listing that updates as George adds local gigs to his calendar. The calendar supports events in Williamsburg, Gloucester, New Kent, Yorktown, Toano and Charles City.
“You can find out what’s going on today, tomorrow, or three months from now. It became really popular. We went from over 700 followers to almost close to 2,000 followers within a year. The calendar was just increasing weekly with visitation numbers,” George said.
While helping local acts get the word out about their gigs, he also hopes to bring more traffic to local venues that showcase local musicians. George’s calendar showcases over 55 venues in the six localities it serves.
Despite all the venues and artists on the local music scene, George still relies on relationships to make the calendar work.
“If I’m struggling with one thing, it is getting the bands and venues to reach out to me. 90% of what you see on the calendar is what Dawna and I find on a daily basis just scanning Facebook,” George said.
A new feature on the website is the 757LiveMusic YouTube Channel, where George and Dawna interview local bands, feature local venues, host album release parties and more.
“The important reason to subscribe and follow us is that I post band photos and live videos and such weekly from the shows we attend so people that subscribe and follow us will also see and hear a variety of music and venues that they may have never considered,” George said.
In the future, George hopes to continue to add more features to the website, including an area for the public to feature potential gigs and a section for the bands to research and create contacts with potential venues for gigs.
Overall, George is just happy to support the local music scene.
“Dawna and I vicariously live through all the amazing talented musicians and bands. When we walk into the venue our fans, venue owners and staff and the musicians and bands will introduce us and we feel like rockstars,” George said.
To keep up with 757LiveMusic, follow it on Facebook, Instagram, and the website.