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Headline: "There's No Place Like the Zone" There's no place like the Zone (www.thezone.org). Kansas City's one-of-a-kind local music website carries up-to-date information on over 200 different area bands and over 200 area venues, in addition to its calendar, musicians resource area, classifieds, forum, editorials, reviews, interviews, great photographs, and graphics. The Zone also provides a monthly local band spotlight for the newspaper, The Bug as well as local cd reviews and music calendar for The Entertainer. Only 2 and ½ years old, the website has tripled its staff since the beginning of 1999, and, since March, it has been sponsoring "Zone Monday" local music nights at Kansas City's world famous music club, the Grand Emporium. Receiving hits from over 300 "unique clients" (different visitors) a day, the Zone is arguably the greatest single promotional resource for both Kansas City area musicians and fans. When I first encountered the Zone, about the time of its first birthday, the strength of its foundation was already apparent. At that time, I was a live music writer for another area newspaper, and upon my first visit, I found the site to be an invaluable resource. Unlike other calendars, which are arranged by venue, the Zone's calendar provided a listing of, on average, three or four shows for any day of the month, and, unlike the weeklies, the coverage extended over a month into the future. It was easy to plan ahead with that timetable. But the Zone also offered something more valuable. With its forum, reviews and columns, it provided a space for musicians, promoters and fans to talk to each other about their enthusiasms and concerns. Though the forum could descend into a prolonged gripe session or trip off into a roast of a favorite local character, it always aired viewpoints between people who would not be talking to one another any other way. Stripped of the social stigma of the nightclub floor or the expert-to-reader nature of newspaper dialogue, the Zone built a real sense of community. Feeling isolated and burnt out as a music writer who had bounced between virtually every local music publication over the past decade, I desperately clung to the Zone when I found it. Within six months, it was my local music writing home. I am happy to say that the rewards of the relationship have only grown with time. By the time I became a regular contributor to the Zone, I knew that what made the website so unique was the self-effacing visionary who put it together, Danielle Nelsen. Having exchanged numerous e-mails with her and having visited her own personal website (which simply blossoms with creative energy in the form of evocative graphics, photographs, poetry, and journal entries), I was dying to meet Nelsen face-to-face long before I did. The lead singer of the Glitter Kicks at the time, Tawni Freeland, assured me that when I met her, I'd love her - "so much energy!" she said. She was right. Though Nelsen dismisses compliments with a grimace and a sniff, she has the exuberant focus of someone who has found a way to hold fast to her passions. Slight with short hair and twinkling eyes that complete her pixie-like hair, Danielle Nelsen seems absolutely indomitable. When asked about her earliest musical memories, she glibly provides just the metaphor to complete the puzzle. "I remember listening to tapes in the car with my mom. We moved all the time, and when packed up in the car we used to sing along to her tapes." In high school her musical passions led her to sneak into clubs to see bands. It didn't take her long to find her niche. "I remember seeing a lot of local bands, and no one would be at the shows. It would be a really good band and no one would be there hanging out. I thought, 'there has got to be a better way to get these bands some support. They obviously weren't out to make a living; This is an art, their passion. They all work day jobs, and they have family obligations. How could they afford better promotion?' I wanted to provide free promotion, and that's why the Zone is still 100% free. Musicians don't have any money!" She took action. "I decided to put together a mailing list of people who were interested in receiving information about local music. I sent out a mailer. In about two months, I had about 800 people signed up. I was sending them out weekly, and it was getting complicated." That's when she enlisted the help of musician Joe Fortunato (of Avondale) to build a website. She credits his talents with giving the webpage its striking design, which she also knew was critical to this project being a success. Her instincts paid off. "I learned that if it looks nice, and if it's informative, you can really help a lot of people. If people don't take it seriously, then people won't take the bands seriously, which defeats the purpose." In the summer of 1998, Nelsen met another friend who would become invaluable to the Zone over the course of the next year and a half. While going to graduate school at the University of Kansas, Emily Skitek, began going to the Bottleneck "...just because there aren't that many live music venues to choose from in Lawrence. It just happened that there were always great bands playing and I had a blast watching them." Though she had a background in Biology/Pharmacology and Toxicology, Skitek became an intern for a web design company in Lawrence. She signed up for the Zone's original e-zine mailing list. One night, a friend introduced her to Nelsen at the Bottleneck. Their friendship developed over a six month period before Skitek started working on the site. Last winter, Skitek started updating band pages; then, when the pull of a number of commitments distanced Fortunato from the regular workings of the page, Skitek began to play a larger role. Since March, Grand Emporium goers have known Nelsen and Skitek as the dynamic duo behind Zone Mondays. After working all day at their paying jobs, the two hit the Grand Emporium around 9:00 to give away local promotional materials, including cool Zone freebies like bumper stickers and keychains, as well as sell T-shirts. During the night they hit the stage to promote the effort and visit tirelessly with musicians and fans who want to know how they can make use of the site. During this period, the Zone staff has grown to eight staff members, including two new staff reviewers, a new staff photographer and someone to create and update the band pages section of the site. With this staff, the Zone has promoted events at the River Market and also, for the second year in a row, provided the best coverage anywhere of SpiritFest, with an extensive calendar before the event and reviews of each of the rockstage shows, band interviews and great photographs within days of the event. Not surprisingly, strain has accompanied all of this effort and the pats on the back come few and far between. What is amazing and encouraging about both Nelsen and Skitek is how well they deal with the disappointments. Sounding wise rather than bitter, Nelsen recounts, "With SpiritFest, Emily and I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning to get that coverage up, and no one commented at all. I get e-mails everyday that say, 'Hey your website sucks because you don't have so-and-so band,' but those don't bother me anymore. What I have learned is that you cannot please everybody, and if we don't have a band up, it's because we don't have the information. We're not mindreaders." Skitek adds, "She deals with it better than I do a lot of the time; you just have to learn to blow it off. You just have to accept that this is something I do because I enjoy doing it". And Nelsen makes a point of welcoming criticism. "Constructive criticism is incredibly great," she says with earnest enthusiasm. "If some says, 'can you put your venues list in alphabetical order,' that's really helpful. I want to do it how the people want it, but I can't do it unless they tell me." To add to the familiar stress, the Zone is facing new challenges all the time. Nelsen and Skitek have started booking the bands for the Grand Emporium Zone Benefits, which calls for great diplomacy such as making elementary decisions as band order. They also plan to release a compilation cd, featuring about 15 area bands, in the near future. And the Zone has received some of the attention it deserves. It has been featured twice in The Kansas City Star, MTV Online, and Nelsen has been a radio guest on on KCHZ, KKFI, and KLZR. It has also received the respect of a large segment of the local music community. The Zone recently incorporated as a non-profit, and Skitek emphasizes that a whole process of growth accompanies that change. "We are learning IRS tax laws and writing sponsorship letters, learning how to get other people to support us. There's a whole business side of this that we are looking at and trying to figure out how far to take it. It's something really personal becoming more of a business, and we are trying to decide at what point we want to draw a line. Our short-term goal is to consistently bring in enough money to cover our costs." Nelsen emphasizes that she wants to take this work as far as it will go. "I'd like to have the Zone as its own publication, and I'd like to make a living off of it." But whatever shape the future Zone takes, Nelsen is sticking with it, "as long as I can." Anyone who loves local music will want to do the same. (visit the Zone at www.thezone.org)
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