Google Maps for those Ready to Rock

The European Festival Map is a Google Map of all the summer's musical festivals throughout Europe.

You can use the map to find your nearest festivals. When you click on a festival's marker you can find out the dates of the festival and click through and get details about tickets and the festival line-up from ChooseFest.


Festival Searcher is another Google Maps based guide to all of the music festivals taking place this summer.

The map markers are colour-coded by month so that you can get a quick overview of what festival is taking place when. I assume the size of the markers relates to the size of the festival displayed.


Télérama has produced a Google Maps guide to festivals taking place in France this summer. As well as being able to view the locations of all the festivals on Google Maps there is a comprehensive guide with detailed previews.

It is possible to search the map by location, type of music and by date. It is also possible to get driving directions to any of the festivals and to view Street Views of locations.

Make a Roadtrip Mixtape with Google Maps

Roadtrip Mixtape is a great way to create a play list for a road-trip containing only music by artists that are from the area you are traveling through. Drive through Boston and you might hear Aerosmith or Donna Summer. Drive through New Orleans and you might hear Lil Wayne or Dr. John.

To use the application you just need  to add the starting point of your journey and your destination. Your journey is then displayed on a Google Map. Each leg of the journey is represented on the map by a green marker.

If you click on a marker you can view a list of local artists from that stage of the journey. If you select 'Play this leg' you can listen to the music for that leg of the journey. If you are a Rdio subscriber you will hear the full songs, if not, you can listen to 30 second samples.

Street Musicians of the World

Rhythm of the World is a Google Map of videos of street musicians performing around the world.

So far the map hasn't got many videos but it is still fascinating listening to the different styles of street music around the world. I love the Tibetan buskers and after a couple of listens even the Mongolian throat singers began to grow on me a little.

I'd love to see this map populated with more non-western styles of street music. You can upload videos to the map by completing a short form, so hopefully the map will soon have a few more examples.

Songs from Strangely Isolated Places

The Places Series is a Google Map of songs inspired by isolated locations. Using the map you can select a marker and listen to the song inspired by that location.

The information windows are particularly attractive on this map and allow the user to listen to the mapped music tracks directly from the map.  It is also possible to filter the tracks displayed on the map by genre and by artist.

Find Live Music Events with Google Maps

Music by Map helps music lovers discover upcoming gigs by location. The site uses Google Maps to show nearby venues with upcoming events.

The map uses a color-coded map marker system to indicate when gigs are taking place. A green marker shows an event happening today, orange markers show events happening this week and the blue markers indicate events coming up later.

The events shown are powered by songkick.com. If you select an event from the map you can click through to read the full details about the concert on the songkick website.

World Tour Schedules on Google Maps

Artist / DJ Richie Hawtin has created a gorgeous looking Google Map for his current world tour. Custom map tiles have been used to give the map a distinct design. The dot-matix look of the design is continued in the custom made map markers and information windows.

Dates on the tour are displayed on the map and a slide-out sidebar shows the dates in list form.

The 'One City' world tour continues until December.

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Live Symphonic Balloon Tracking

London has today entered into the fantasy world of steampunk. In what seems like an episode from 2D Goggles a number of hot air balloons have been flying over London blasting out music to the populace below.

Don't worry if you don't live in London or if you have missed any of the balloons' flights as you can replay it all on a handy Google Maps based application.

The map shows each of the hot air balloons and their flight track. If you click on the map marker of any of the hot air balloons you can then listen to the music that was played during the flight.

Sky Orchestra

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Finding Concerts with Google Maps

Transmeet.Tv Music Map

Transmeet.Tv is a Google Maps application for finding concerts and festivals. At the moment the site seems most active in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, although events are also listed in other countries.

Upcoming musical events are displayed on the map using categorised map markers. The lettered map markers help identify the musical genre of each listed concert.

When you click on a map marker the map disappears behind a lightbox type window that displays information about the event and also gives you access to a whole host of rich media. It is possible to listen to music by the featured artists, browse photographs, view videos from YouTube and post about the event to Facebook and Twitter.

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Tom Petty Tours Google Maps

Tom Petty Tour Map

Tom Petty is using the Google Maps API to show the locations of gigs on his latest tour. Pre-sales for the tour start on Wednesday, March 3rd.

Each of the tour dates are shown the map with red map markers. If you click on a marker an information window opens with the address of the venue. The information window includes a 'get directions' option so you can get driving directions to the venue.

You can even listen to a Tom Petty track as you browse the map.

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Tweet Your Music

tweeturmusic

This mashup of play.me and Twitter allows you to play music tracks and then tweet to your friends what you are listening to. The site features a Google Map on its home page that animates through the latest people to listen to tracks on the site.

The Google Map is really incidental to the main purpose of the site, which is to share your musical preferences with your Twitter friends. The tag cloud is probably more useful and provides a good guide to what is currently being listened to and a quick navigational aide to the more popular tracks.

One major problem with the site is that you are restricted to only 30 seconds of each track. Those living outside the USA are restricted to only 30 seconds of playing time for each track.

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Street View Music Video

Editor's Street View Video

Screencast of the Editors' Street View video (minus the music)

I'm constantly amazed at the imaginative hacks developed using Google Maps. This Street View video certainly had my jaw hitting the floor on more than one occasion.

London band 'Editors' have created a unique listening experience for their new album ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ using Google Street View as the backdrop for their tracks (with some added views of their own). On entering the site it looks like the normal Google Maps Street View interface, albeit with added music, except for a radar type control.

Use the radar control to navigate to the red arrows. Clicking on the red arrows takes you to the added Street Views, featuring the members of the band. The new additions consist of some rather nice 360 degree images shot at night. Within each location the user will hear music from the album, which was inspired by the mood and magic of London at night. Each of the nine tracks on the album has it’s own location.

The images feature the band and a group of their fans performing surreal activities which reportedly have hidden meanings relating to the songs - see if you can work out what they are?

Via: Street View Gallery

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Mix-A-Lot's Posse on Google Maps

Posse on Broadway

Google Maps user Adam Cohn has created a Google My Map to track the locations in the Sir-Mix-A-Lot track 'Posse on Broadway'. The map shows the Seattle locations that the posse visit in the song.

I thought it would be kind of cool to use the YouTube API alongside the Google Maps API to produce an animated map that would work in tandem with the song. My animated version is here. Unfortunately there is a bug in the map that stops uploading the locations after 2.30. I can't find the bug but I'm sure someone who's a lot brighter than me will be able to find it and point it out in the comments!

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