WooThemes (http://www.woothemes.com/) has just announced a new theme for musicians called Unsigned. To build the theme, the company worked with band managers and promoters as well as real, actual musicians in order to make a "rockin'" theme that is both "classical" and "jazzy" with a little but of "afro-beat" thrown in.
The theme includes modules for events, discographies, and SoundCloud comparability for uploading music. You can also use a sales widget to sell music and merch instantly. The theme supports "tours" and events separately, so you can plan your cross-country van trip and your tour of the Baltic states using the same system.
Sure you could use services like Bandcamp but this offers a bit more customization, allowing musicians to "riff" with their designs while "playing a mean licorice stick" in the CSS.
Most important it gives musicians quite a bit of control over their online presence and because it's a WordPress solution service providers can offer a one-stop-shop for up-and-coming bands. Now they just need a way for the site to split up into multiple sites when the bassist sleeps with the singer and breaks up the band and the drummer wants to do some solo trance work.
Here's the full feature list for your edification:
Artsits have full control over the technical nature of their exposure (functionality developed to anticipate artists needs w/out any extra coding)
Almost completely controlled by widgets, making it hugely flexible (something users have been asking for)
Events module — completely custom, can be grouped into categories, status automatically determined by its start and end date and time, custom display options
Actually comprised of three different widgets + a custom "tours" page template
Venue listing + links to online ticket sales available
Discography module — albums can be displayed and sorted into categories w/ cover image, unique catalog ID and release date
Each album has an audio player and the tracks can be managed using native WP lightbox windows
WooCommerce functionality — WooThemes knew it's one of the most important needs of an artist, letting fans listen and then immediately buy if they want, we think this seals the deal for most bands
Photos — easy management of multiple galleries, sorted into your categories complete w/ cover images
Actually comprised of two different widgets specifically designed for the musician use case
Videos — easily embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, etc. w/ optional posterframe (standard WooThemes video widget allows for seamless switching between videos)
Band Profile — easily add in each member, role, biography and order in which all images are displayed
This is the "About.me for bands" piece
Soundcloud integration — automatically connects to SoundCloud and pulls in the user's tracks and playlists (this is your one-stop shop!)
Data is cached for a month to avoid speed issues and high load
And of course, a customizable look — change to a light style, change your logo, update your background image, all in a matter of minutes
You can check it out here (http://www.woothemes.com/2012/01/unsigned/) and get a 12% discount on the them until February 2 with the coupon code UNSIGNED12.
TechCrunch