Regional reigns

As Greg McNair strummed his bass, he chanced to glance the crowd. What began as a gathering of a few had turned into a dance floor, and they were singing to his music.

McNair knows sometimes the only band that can sing “Sweet Home Alabama” is the one at the Courtyard 280 and that “Freebird” is only done right by the packed five-person set at Superior Grill.

He has played music in local bars and establishments for the last eight years as part of Best of 280’s Sexy Tractor Band and the M-80s. A man about town, he takes his part in the music scene seriously, and networking is his break from reality.

It was from his place at the microphone that McNair developed a new idea for a publication to highlighted himself and those like him.

“I’ve got a lot of friends out here who are like every other struggling, starving artist,” McNair said. “They’re extremely talented, and perhaps they’re being underutilized or they’re not able to use their talents at all. So it’s an opportunity for me to help those people do what they’re best at and be able to pay them to do it.”

So, with the help of Tina, his wife of 23 years, he conceptualized Regional Musician Magazine, an online magazine that works to capture that essence of local music around the country.

After a painstaking process including a botched Kickstarter campaign, Regional Musician’s first issue launched in July with highlights on bands and music across the country.

Inside, featured musicians answer 35 questions, which gives readers an in-depth look at the artists.

“When I write these questions, I want the artist to be creative,” McNair said.

From there, a roundtable of selected musicians and McNair’s peers read the questions and score them. Using those scores, bands are selected for publication. Further, the magazine will pit regional bands against each other on Facebook using a popularity contest based on Facebook “likes.” This contest is used to determine which band is featured on that region’s front page.

The magazine also contains several columns, including Liner Notes, from other musicians.

“I want to go out and talk to people,” McNair said. “I want to connect because there are humans behind the music.”

Moreover, instead of carrying an issue of Regional Musician under your arm, it’s digital.

“It reads like a magazine,” McNair said. “It’s just as functional as a magazine, but you don’t get paper cuts and we’re saving some trees.”

Digital has its benefits. If the featured band interests the reader, it’s simply a click away. To hear a band’s song right then, you tap and can hear it immediately.

“There are no lines, there’s no waiting, there’s no, ‘I have to remember when I get back to the computer,’” McNair said. “We make that easy for you. It’s there. Just use it. It’s easy peasy lemony squeezy.”

Ease is what McNair is all about. He’s a family and friends man who loves what he does.

Before his venture into music, McNair graduated from the University of Montevallo in 1993 with a degree in television production and journalism and joined the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy for seven years. Since then, he has moved onto to an aerial photographer by day and hard-core musician by night.

“I love music and I want to be around it,” McNair said.

He intends for Regional to be a family-and-friends-run business. And he’s got the ambition to make it work.

For now, the publication only covers North America, but he intends to eventually cover Canada and a year from now he wants to be in England.

“We want to be able to pull up to Bonnaroo in the Regional Musician tour bus and people be like, ‘Check it out, Regional Musician is here,’” McNair said.