Christy Wolyniak, Intern

Driven by the zeal for music and event planning, one Ballard resident has bid farewell to his day job and embraced the struggle and excitement that comes with being an entrepreneur.

A diehard lover of blues-rock, Mackenzie McAninch chiseled his way into Seattle’s music scene after discovering the vibrant social life here. He felt like Seattleites respected live, original music more than fans in his hometown of Cincinnati, who seemed to prefer cover bands.

“I've found that I have to really dig to find the good blues musicians here; and there are some. But in the old days, you had to really search and find those dingy, smoke-filled basement rooms to find the good blues musicians,” he said.

In spite of this, Seattleites’ serious respect for musicians at shows and their deep appreciation for music was enough to hook McAninch. He said the first time he visited Seattle he was into it; the second time he was sold and knew he had to move here.

Music fanatic and writer, McAninch took the reins of pop-culture webzine, Randomville.com when he first settled in Ballard five years ago. Through this website, McAninch and writers scavenge for those killer shows and smoke-filled-basement blues bands, volunteering their time to cover music reviews and stories both locally and nationally.

“I saw Randomville as an opportunity to make something bigger – a place to escape religion and politics,” said McAninch.

Randomville carries with it a steady following of music aficionados from across the country. Its motto: ‘killing indie cred. one reader at a time.’ The Randomville staff writes about anything that they feel is ‘good music’, be it mainstream or a small, groovin’ band with a handful of devoted fans. Their demise of indie cred. is writing about these bands in spite of if people think they are ‘edgy’ or ‘indie’ enough to make the cut.

McAninch has also become well known for his abilities to connect people with events. In August, he started an event-coordinating business he named “National Seat Filling.” He laughed and said he was forced into it.

The problem was that McAninch was a little too good at organizing events and networking people. After he helped nonprofit HCPRN (Health Care Professionals Referral Network) with an event, they began referring other people to McAninch for event planning.

At this point, he did not even have a business, so he had to think fast. McAninch’s website allows people to post their social events or contact him to do the networking and planning for them.

“I like challenges in life. I discovered that after all of those years of working under someone and saying how I would do things differently, that it’s a lot harder than it looks,” he said.

The purpose of his business is ‘putting butts in seats’ according to McAninch. Although he enjoys planning events himself, he said he prefers already-created events that just need help with social networking in order to get people to come.

“My heart is to help people with events and make them successful. It made me wonder why I hadn’t been doing this before,” he said of this endeavor.

With a quicksand economy, McAninch acknowledged it is a scary time to be creating a new business. He always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and is paving his own way at the age of 34. Even in its early stages, he said his business is already making a profit.

“I love being a writer, helping people, and organizing events... It’s a much better reward,” he said.

Various charities are represented on Randomville as well as artists from Jack White’s Third Man Records. This month’s charity features Sean Penn’s J/P HRO nonprofit organization created immediately after the 2010 Haiti disaster. On Saturday October 8th, Randomville writers will assist KUOW with their pledge drive.