Sean Moeller can't even remember how he listened to a Vampire Weekend song for the first time. When looking back on life as a music consumer in the late 2000s, it's easy to understand why. This was a transitionary period, before the rise of streaming services like Spotify, but in the midst of physical media's decline.
Music had, mostly, gone online — either legally, via platforms like iTunes, or illegally through sites like LimeWire — and that meant discovery had gone online, too. This is the era that in 2006 gave birth to Daytrotter. The music discovery service, started by Moeller in Rock Island, was founded with the goal of showing music fans something new.
The approach was simple: an artist, while passing through the Midwest, would drop by Daytrotter's studio in Rock Island to record a few songs. The site would release them, and its followers would have something new to check out. In 2007 and 2008, Daytrotter held sessions with indie bands like Fleet Foxes, The National and Death Cab for Cutie.
The site revolutionized discovery, and is an obvious ancestor to modern music stalwarts like Audiotree Sessions and NPR Tiny Desk performances. Eventually, Daytrotter started booking live shows, which flipped the music discovery pipeline upside down: attend a concert, then find your new favorite band, not the other way around. This spirit, Moeller said, was central to the Daytrotter vision.
"(Bands) don't have to be known quantities for you to get something really valuable and s.