Side Street Sounds

Get Into Get Your Gig On 

If you’re a musician in the Rochester or Finger Lakes area and you’re not already Facebook friends with Randy Fluker, you’ll want to add him to your list.  Randy isn’t a musician. He’s not a  venue owner or a booking agent. He’s simply a huge fan of live music, and he wants to help promote it to as many people as he can.

Eight years ago, Randy and his girlfriend, Christine Piano Thompson started the Facebook group, Get Your Gig On, formerly known as Get Ur Gig On, Be Seen Here. Almost every day, they painstakingly create a list of every live music performance they are aware of in the region and publish it to the group. They receive no compensation for this service. It is done for the love of live music. 

There are a number of Facebook groups and pages that promote local events in the area but Get Your Gig On has become one of the largest, boasting over 8,500 members. At the time he started the group, there was another group that listed musical events in the Rochester area each weekend. Fluker notices, however, that this group frequently listed only the most popular bands and venues.  “I started looking around and I realized two things: 1) there are more music venues than were being listed, and 2) there’s live music happening during the week as well.”  He started listing the gigs of the other venues. Little by little, he discovered more and more venues that offer live music.  “It didn’t happen overnight.”  He friended as many local musicians as he could on Facebook and paid close attention to shows they mentioned and added them to his own list. Eventually, musicians and venues started posting their gigs to his group page on their own.  

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the “gig list” would have upwards of 150 listings on a typical Friday and Saturday.   During the pandemic, the list dwindled in size. As venues shut down or were limited in capacity, many musicians turned to live streaming to keep their music alive. Randy made sure to include as many live stream shows on the gig list as possible.   A sure sign that the music scene is coming back to life is that the gig list is once again growing. A recent Saturday in June listed 85 gigs.  That number is expected to grow as pandemic restrictions continue to be lifted.

Although they are not themselves performers, Randy and Christine have become well known in the music community. They try to make it out to three or four performances every week. Musicians throughout the area recognize them and often go out of their way to acknowledge them for the service they provide in keeping music lovers informed of local performances. Although they have their favorites, they do their best to see a wide variety of music styles and support as many live music venues as possible.  All the while, they maintain full time jobs. Randy is a truck driver, and Christine is a nurse. “Get Your Gig On is like a full-time job crammed into our spare time,” said Fluker.  He does it because he genuinely enjoys sharing the rich variety of music available in our area.  If money were no object, he says he’d love to have his own live music venue.