The Wee Lollies played shows for the better part of 2012. And there are few signs that we’ll be slowing things down for 2013. For all of last year, when it came to carting around all of my gear I frequently found myself in checklist hell. Every time we’d have a rehearsal or play a show, I’d tear off a little slip of paper and construct a gear checklist based on whatever old checklists happened to be littering my desk (and there were many!). I’d consult the list as I loaded all of my gear before a show to make sure I had everything. And then I’d consult it again after the show to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind. Many shows required different setups. And sometimes old gear was retired and new gear was added. So the checklists weren’t always the same. But as you might imagine, they were similar.
In the fall of last year, I got the idea for a checklist app for gigging musicians. I wanted to ditch the Post It notes and use something a bit more structured. I wanted something that’d allow me to record the use of gear, keep track of lost items, and be better organized when it came to keeping track of shows. Granted, there are already a LOT of general purpose Android checklist apps on the market. But I felt like there really needed to be an app specifically targeted for gigging musicians. So I decided to build one.
Thus Roadie Assist was born.
Roadie Assist is a fairly simple app. It allows you to supply information for all of your gear and upcoming gigs and then lets you associate that gear with gigs. Each gig has a load-in and load-out checklist that let’s you ensure you leave what you came with. If you lose an item, Roadie Assist will keep track of that too. If you supply address and contact information for a gig, Roadie Assist will allow you to navigate, email, or dial a number right from the app (assuming the device supports any of those features). And for quick gig creation, Roadie Assist features templates that allow you to create predefined gear lists that can be used as starting points for new gigs. I often use the template feature to differentiate between acoustic-only shows and shows where I need to haul in my electric guitars and effects.
If Roadie Assist interests you, pop over to the Google Play store and install it to your Android device. It’s only 99 cents. And if you find bugs or have ideas for “must-have” features, be sure to let me know!
-Shane
On February 23, all four of us Wee Lollie folk piled into my tiny living room and recorded a live, acoustic set. We had been talking about doing it for a while, especially since we had been rehearsing and performing acoustic so much. After weeks of coordinating schedules, we finally managed to find an afternoon to do it.