Great gig in the sky
Getting gigs just takes a little perseverance and
confidence
The other day I decided to drop in the
local CD Warehouse to see what blues CD's they had in stock. Always the one to
kill two birds with one stone, I thought I should bring along some guitar
lessons business cards to drop off. After purchasing the Blues Brothers first CD
in order to learn a couple of songs for my set, I noticed a guitar in the window
of the Cafe Mocha coffee shop next door. I decided to pop in and see if they had
any live music. They were quite excited that I played blues and after a short
chat I had a weekly gig.
As it turns
out, the coffee shop was brand new, only having been open for about six weeks
and they were looking for ways to promote the business with live music. I fit
right in with their plan. I quickly burned a few CD's to put on their counter
and made a nice little box and retail promo kit for their customers. After
playing the lunch hour just once, they asked me to play every Thursday night for
$20 plus tips. I had already sold one CD two days later wen I played my first
Thursday night show! I also dropped off a couple of posters I quickly printed up
on my Mac so they could promote the shows. I pocketed nearly $30 my first
show.
Excited about my success at Cafe
Mocha, I decided to pop into another new coffee shop a few miles down the road.
i had just seen their ad in the paper the day before. I popped in and quickly
fell into a discussion about blues music and CeDell Davis, a famous Arkansas
blues artist that was playing three days later at the coffee shop. Within 10
minutes I had a paying gig three weeks down the road. After years of trying to
get ANY gig in Austin, I was finally starting to get some shows in of all places
North Little Rock Arkansas!
I
attribute this to the fact that I play acoustic delta blues, a style that's
quite common nationwide but still very unique in this market. Also Little Rock
is a small market and the folks here don't have access to the thousands of
artists in a place like Austin where I was just another 'guy with a guitar'.
Here I am a "Texas bluesman". This is what I expected when I decided to move
back here a year ago after living in Austin for twelve years - a big fish in a
small pond syndrome.
Posted: Thu - February 17, 2005 at 11:27 PM