Today we’d like to introduce you to John Filippone.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m a lifelong musician and songwriter. I started a songwriting circle meetup to meet other musicians in Austin. I ran that group for a couple of months, then I lost the space I was using for my meetups. So I went looking for a new way to make friends with musicians and others in the music scene. That’s when I started promoting.
I started by filming artists at shows and posting reels and stories to Instagram on the account, @austinmusiclove. When the Instagram collab feature came out, I jumped on the trend and started tagging artists as collaborators instead of just tagging them. The collab feature basically provided an easy way of giving artists free media of their performances. Most are happy to get any photos or videos they can get their hands on and they collab and share right away. Some are a bit more picky about what they post but that’s ok, I’m never offended if they don’t want to share or collab.
Then I got started with booking artists and running events. I found a place where I can host backyard concerts and a food truck park where I could host an open mic. And I have a house concert series which you can follow on eventbrite or in my linktree. And that’s where I am at today. I run small events, book local acts, and provide free media to the community through Instagram.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve seen a lot of support from the community. People reach out all the time to say they love the Instagram page and seeing local artists get exposure. Overall it has not been easy, but I’ve seen positive feedback every step of the way.
Putting on events can be very stressful. Making sure people will show up and everyone is going to have a good time, making sure you have enough help to run the event and get media, and the list goes on. It all can be pretty daunting. On top of that, the weather can wipe out your plans at any time.
But at the end of the day creating unique experiences for the community and opportunities for artists is something I’m grateful to be able to do. It seems like in this industry, what goes around comes around. And as far as I’m concerned, I have felt the love come back around rather quickly so my cup is full.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Austin Music Love is a community brand built around the live music culture that we are so proud of in Austin.
AML started out as an Instagram page where I promoted artists by filming their live sets and making reels. The page grew quickly especially as artists shared and collabed with me on posts. The page is all about promoting local artists and creating a place to see what the local Austin music scene has to offer, not just the big touring acts that come through.
AML events so far, including a house concert series and an open mic, have had great turnouts. I’m especially proud of the open mic because we allow artists to bring backing tracks so that we can support hip-hop acts and other genres that can’t perform without their tracks. Because of that, the AML Open Mic at Thicket Food Park might be the only open mic in Austin that supports hip-hop acts. Hip hop and rap seem to be underrepresented in the Austin live music scene compared to its popularity. And I’m happy to help provide a platform for it.
You can follow all the AML events on Eventbrite: https://www.
I also just launched the website beta, austinmusiclove.com, which allows you to find local music events in Austin with an Airbnb-like search functionality where you can see events on a map, filter for dates and features, and search for local artists. The site is currently live with hundreds of events. There are about 1000+ live music events in Austin on any given week and over 90% of them are small venues featuring primarily local artists. As the website matures and is well tested, I aim to include as many of those small events as possible.
What were you like growing up?
I have diverse interests and I’ve always been an all or nothing type of person. I’m very good at some things and very bad at others. I’m either interested or completely disinterested.
I can thrive socially but I’ve always been an introvert. I love people, I just need to recharge often and I enjoy alone time.
I’ve always gravitated toward music as many people do but music doesn’t define me. It is just one of the things I chose to put a lot of time into when I was young. I started playing guitar in 5th grade and practiced daily through college. I prized my CD collection. I had posters of Jimi Hendrix and Yngwie Malmsteen on my all. I am still an avid musician and love making music and I plan to release some soon.
Later in life, I found a passion for entrepreneurship. I’m not what some would call a purebred entrepreneur. When I was a kid, my brother walked around the neighborhood with a wagon full of pumpkin seeds he cleaned out of the pumpkins in a pumpkin patch he grew to sell them to the neighbors. I was mortified by the idea of going door to door like that. But in college, I started doing freelance web development to earn some extra cash and I found out that I actually enjoy sales and I was able to make some decent money selling website development and design services over the phone.
Contact Info:
- Website: austinmusiclove.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinmusiclove/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinmusiclove
Image Credits
Ash Soefje
