Kasey Rausch, Mikal Shapiro and Louis Meyers attempt to create a comprehensive Greater Kansas City Music Directory

Imagine a digital Rolodex of every musician, venue, shop, organization, manager and concert photographer in the Kansas City area. Now, imagine the work it takes gathering and cataloging all of that information. Such a formidable task demands an ambitious team. Folk artists Kasey Rausch and Mikal Shapiro, who also co-host River Trade Radio at KKFI 90.1, decided to take on the challenge.

Inspired by the successful Texas Music Industry Directory — in its 24th edition, with more than 18,000 listings — Rausch and Shapiro have been gathering information on the local music scene for the last few months. Together with Louis Meyers, Folk Alliance International’s former executive director, they have compiled more than 600 listings for the first edition of the Greater Kansas City Music Directory (inserted in print copies of this week’s issue of The Pitch). The GKCMD is out this week, its debut coinciding with the 27th annual Folk Alliance International Conference & Winter Music Camp, as well as the first annual Music Fair, which take place in downtown Kansas City February 18–22.

We called Rausch and Shapiro to discuss how the directory came together and what it means for the music community.

The Pitch: How did the idea for this project come about?

Rausch: Louis Meyers and I were thinking about how to reach out to the people in different pockets of the local-music community, and we realized there wasn’t really an efficient way to do that. We started talking about the need to create a directory, and we brought in Mikal Shapiro, my partner in glory, to brainstorm.

How did you begin collecting information?

Shapiro: We started within our own circles and worked our way out. We wanted to make this as inclusive as possible, and create a picture of the music community that was diverse in scope and covered all the genres that we could because that’s what makes this thing fly. We began with posts [on social media and in The Pitch] telling people about it. A lot of the groundwork came by word of mouth, just telling people to tell other people about it.

Rausch: And it’s become very clear that we’ve only skimmed the surface. There’s a lot more work to do, and it’s going to be an ongoing process. It’s very far from the comprehensive guide we want it to be, so even after the first printing, we’re going to be working really hard. We’ve hardly broken into the world-music community or the hip-hop community in Kansas City, and that’s really important to us.

Tell me about some of the uses for the directory.

Rausch: It’ll be used internally within our music community for people to connect with each other and become aware of the other genres of Kansas City music that they might not step their toes into. It’s also a resource for people coming into Kansas City, and for people to connect to the community.

It’s also a way for us to show that Kansas City has an economic value in regards to the arts and music, to show the city itself that the music community is vast. The idea behind that really is that when you support your area musicians, you’re keeping that money in your community. So it’s connecting people and showing, financially, that we matter and we count.

Shapiro: I feel like the city is moving in a direction of supporting the arts more and more. We’re hoping that the city will see that there’s a huge value in our music community, a value that justifies creating more events, which in turn will build tourism. We’re modeling it after the Texas music directory that came out of Austin and helped galvanize the scene down there. We’re looking at that model looking forward and trying to respond to our community — what does our community need here in KC, what is different and how can we respond to it.

The GKCMD is available in this week’s Pitch, but where else can people find it? How do you plan on keeping it current?

Rausch: After the conference, we still have to connect with some area establishments for placements, music stores and venues. There will be an online presence, so even if folks missed the sign-up cutoff for the first printing, they can still be listed on the online version. Our hope is to do a second printing and take it to South by Southwest, and from there we hope we’ll be printing annually, making it available at different venues and shops as well as online.

Shapiro: It’s worth mentioning that these are free listings and that anyone can sign up if they have a business or if they’re a professional musician. They get 50 words to describe themselves — that’s a lot of space. It makes the directory readable, and you can’t do that with the Yellow Pages. You can read about these projects that are going on in your hometown.

Rausch: It’s also important that people understand it’s not just for musicians. We’ve got graphic designers, people who do logos for bands, photographers who shoot live shows. It’s anyone involved in the music industry.

This just sounds like an insurmountable pile of work. What’s the reward for you?

Shapiro: I feel like we live in our own bubbles sometimes, in our own niche groups of people, and I am interested in seeing those bubbles connect more. That’s what makes a vibrant city, and music is an incredible connector of people across all kinds of barriers.

Rausch: No one has tried to do this here yet. We’re sort of the guinea pig of getting it off the ground, knowing full well that this is not something that Mikal and Louis and I can do alone. This is a huge community project, and hopefully the community will embrace it.

Shapiro: I think it also helps that it’s not a new idea. There are models out there — Austin has something very similar — and it’s encouraging to know that we’re not alone in this.

Rausch: And I think, at the end of the day, Mikal and I just have a great love for our city.