Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] NMOC: Australian Music Database

ALEXEI alexeis@usa.net
Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:14:20 +0300


For those who still have strength left from the "Yes, let's go/No, let's stay"
discussion (aka Forum), my offer to assist in something far less productive.

I'm beginning what one may call real work on a database of Australian music,
after years of gathering information and collecting CDs.  I opted for MS
Access as the storage/processing tool for reasons of easy connectivity to
other MS products, widely used.  (I could enter all data in Oracle but I don't
want to spend more time on designing the interface than it deserves.)

The initial concept of the database was to be a cross reference tool to help
the user quickly and efficiently find information about a musician/group
(e.q., N. played such and such instruments in band X, sessioned in for band D,
produced so and so etc.)  The idea has evolved since its inception, but now
that I have actually started entering data, it becomes increasingly obvious
that I may still be overlooking things that absolutely require inclusion.

Currently, the fields are:

1. Act (musician or group)
2. Genre (boogie, rock, ambient....)
3. Years (formed, disbanded, adjourned...)
4. Place (e.q., Canberra, moved Sydney)
5. Musicians (all the names I can find, including session players)
6. Connections (side projects, producing others, name-changing...)
7. Discography (I absolutely don't want to do it because I simply won't be
able to keep up with it, but that's probably the first thing others will look
for... guess it's a must)
8. Highest chart entry (album or single, Oz, US, GB, NZ....)
9. Web site (official first), contact info

I welcome suggestions about what else may or should be included.  It can't be
something very ambitious, like the above-mentioned discography... but if it's
something doable and raising the efficiency and value of this whole endeavor,
drop me a line off-forum (sorry, list)

Alexei