The idea had been building for a while. We kept seeing bands that were really great musicians, but had no idea how to market themselves - there was no band website, no CDs being handed out. The crowd seemed to be made up of their mates - you could spot this because the audience came and went with the band (come to think of it, that was usually why we were there!). Of course then after a while the bands were getting discouraged and splitting up. It was tragic.

We still see a lot of bands do a whole set who don't talk to the audience or even tell you who they are! We see bands who are either apologetic about their music or so arrogant it just turns us off. We even see bands who bring CDs along, but who are too embarrassed to try to sell them at a gig.

All this kept building up until the first trigger, which was a band called Eusebio. We thought they were a really great mainstream band, but they didn't seem to be getting anywhere.

The second trigger was the demise of BristolLiveMusic. That was the nearest thing to what we thought this area needed. Up to then we had been thinking that there didn't seem to be anything for the local groups that really provided everything in one place.

Actually we've got pretty eclectic tastes. We like what we like. In our CD collections we've got pretty much everything you can think of from baroque to German new metal.

If we were forced to pick out our favourite top five local bands at the moment, we'd have to say The Wraiths, Emily Breeze, Figment, Venus Bogardus and Clumsy. Saying that, there's a load of great stuff out there. Bristol and Bath are really fantastic places to live if you love great music of pretty much every genre. We play the local stuff as background music while we work on the site.

The site started out pretty basic, with just band, venue and gig information, plus a News page. We then progressively added some Band Support stuff - promoters listing, recording studios, where to get T shirts, badges etc, photographers, tuition, website design etc.

We added our own MP3 player in autumn 2006. We now have three players - one on the main site and two on our Myspace site. Video is next on the list.

The forum was added in mid-February 2007. The Forum was one of the real strengths of BristolLiveMusic. We'd really like to get people talking about the bands and the gigs.

As for the future, the site is for everyone in the local area, so if there's a demand for a feature, we'll do our best to include it - just email us.

The site is primarily to promote any band within the BristolBands area, which to make it simple is any artist based within the BA and BS postcode areas. That's actually a pretty big area including Weston, Frome, Thornbury, Yate and Midsomer Norton.

We'd like to do more, but there are only so many hours in a day....

BristolBands.com is a FREE resource for the music community in the Bristol/Bath area. We do it because we love it and think it's important.

If you're a music fan, all we want from you is your opinion and support - for example send in some reviews and photos - we'll credit you if we can use it.

If you're an artist, all we ask is that you support us by giving your content free as well. We'll list any of your local gigs we know about and add a link to your website (if you've got one).