And What Do We Have Here?

Friday evening we are playing Westchester First Fridays again. We set up the band down at the corner near the table and at the end of the row of food trucks. We don't have a generator and so I run an extension cord from us up along the sidewalk about twenty feet and then across the street to meet with the cord loaned by our benefactor which plugged another twenty feet away in front of her shop. I bought this extension cord so I could string Christmas lights across my large house. This food truck event is cool, because there's a big audience with lots of people and we have people listening. And we get the average in tips. I keep trying to get it going with out truck events, but it's not exactly working. I'm trying to plug the band into the truck event public media thing and find other crowded venues like this one. I'm beginning to think this is the way to go rather than try to get us into clubs and coffeehouses where they expect you to bring an audience. You can't do that unless you you have already built an audience somewhere.

And I'm beginning to get an inkling of how the truck thing works and if I'm right, I may just be able to plug myself in anywhere, but I need a generator. What happens if the band just shows up at a truck event where there is no live music and just sets up and plays?

We Got Listed On The Calendar! - I'm Joining

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A Nice Version of One Of My Songs

What We Missed

This is the gig I turned down for Friday night. Think they'll miss our two songs?

The other one

There was another come-on from a guy that promised bookings and great things. Turned out he was setting up auditions - 5 of them- in fact around LA and all these bands were supposed to appear and audition for him. I assume he will take you on if you audition and are willing to pay him for his services. My band doesn't do auditions- it's pure silliness. Especially, when you can get booked on the basis of your YouTube videos.

 

Come ons and wheeler dealers

So, there's a listing on Craig's List in LA for a event featuring new and upcoming bands. I send in my band's stuff. The guy calls me. They are doing a big thing in a banquet hall in a couple of weeks. They want to book bands (for free, of course). They have a Clipper player coming to shake hands. The guy says he likes our band, but he wants to see us in person. I tell him we are playing for 3 hours over at the Westchester Triangle the coming Friday night. It's three minutes away from where his venue is. He says he'll come see us. We performed. No one showed up to introduce themselves, so I figured he came, maybe, and didn't think we were a good fit. So the following Monday there's another ad up on Craig's List for a similar kind of thing, but it was worded differently and didn't discuss the details, so I put our band info in thinking it was a different thing. The same guy calls me. We talk and he says to come over to the venue the next day to meet and look at it. I go. Its a couple like the picture above and they are there renting the hall. They have a teen age looking kid with them that is a DJ. We look at the hall. It is apparent that the guy does not know what kind of music we play and perhaps did not listen to the links at all. I tell him what we do. It's a nice big room with a stage. I tell him we will only come if we get an hour set. But we will rent the use of our sound equipment for the event if they are interested. The woman tells me she has not heard our music and asked me to send the links again. I hear nothing for a week and 1/2. Then I get this message at 11:00 on a Sunday night:

 HI DAN THIS IS -----------; I MET YOU AT THE PROUD BIRD RESTERAUNT, ABOUT THE ---------- MEET AND GREET, VARIETY SHOW ON THE 26TH, IM NOT SURE IF MY HUSBAND EVER GOT BACK WITH YOU OR NOT BUT WE DID VIEW YOUR LINKS AND LIKED YOU GROUP. ARE YOU STILL AVAILABLE FOR THE 26TH? IF SO CAN YOU CONFIRM WITH ---------. THE SHOW IS AT 8PM. IT HAS TAKEN SHAPE WELL SINCE WE TALKED THAT DAY. IT IS A VARIETY SHOW, DUE TO THE FACT THAT WE HAVE SO MANY GENRES OF MUSIC REPRESENTED. PLEASE CONTACT ----------- (323)XXXXXXX, IF YOU ARE ABLE TO PERFORM. I WILL ATTACH AN EVENT FLYER.

THE WEBSITE IS ----------------------. (which is a pin-up site) IT SHOWS A FEW OF THE ARTISTS THAT WILL PERFORM THAT NIGHT. WE ARE ASKING EVERYONE TO PREPARE ONE OR TWO SONGS. TO PERFORM. YOU WOULD BE ONE OF THE FIRST TO PERFORM. ALSO CAN YOU PERFORM THE FASTER SONGS OR MORE UP BEAT SONGS IN YOUR SET. AS SOON AS YOU GET BACK TO ME I CAN LINK YOUR SONGS/VIDEOS ONTO THE SITE AS WELL. P.S. HOW MUCH WOULD YOU CHARGE US TO USE YOUR MICROPHONES AND SPEAKERS SHOULD THAT BECOME NECCESARY? THANK YOU

I emailed back saying we wouldn't participate if we couldn't do an hour set. But I was still interested in renting sound equipment to them (thinking that if they wanted that, they might agree to an 1 hour set. This was the response:

OH, OK I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND, PLEASE FORGIVE NEGLIGENCE IN CONTACTING YOU BACK SOONER. IT IS MY FAULT I THOUGHT THAT IT HAD BEEN TAKEN CARE OF AND DID NOT CHECK. IF WE DO NEED TO USE YOUR EQUPMEWNT I WILL HAVE ROBERT CALL YOU BACK A.S.A.P.

Not a peep.

Here I Am

Here I am.

Lots and lots of music

Rhubarb at Westchester First Fridays channeling our inner Old Crow Medicine Show. Really played three days in a row with Ed here. The band did this and then went to the Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair and played on the main stage:

And then Ed and I played Melrose Trading Post Sunday morning. This last one is one I wrote. The banjo was a little too loud and my voice a little low- but what are you going to do.

Did discover a thing you have to do at a bug stage with a sound guy who's never heard the band, you need to announce who's going to solo in the next number- so he will give them the sound they need. The first fourth of Betsy's banjo solo wasn't because the sound guy didn't realize that's what we were doing.

I got a comment about Amish folks being referred to as Nazis in a previous post- I just thought the picture really summed up the attitude of these web Folk calendar people because I know that they are all 70 and still polishing their Peter Paul & Mary vinyl. 

Folk Nazis

I've been trying to get the band's booked gigs up on Folk Music Calendars on the Web, Nothing happens. So I emailed two of them. A guy from Folkworks.org finally responds saying they don't post Farmer's Markets because there are too many of them. He doesn't bother to address the fact that we are on the Main Stage in Manhattan Beach for a major yearly fair. Or the main stage at the Brentwood Art Fair.

The second one I got was from this woman - you can only find her if you type Alive & Picking into Goggle- why do I bother?

"Hi: please provide the telephone number for each venue at which your group appears, in order that the listing can be verified before we publish it. Thanks! "

 -----Original Message-----
From: Dan McNay To: mkaldin Sent: Tue, Oct 2, 2012 4:07 pm 
Subject: Folk Band Schedule 

Hi, I was wondering how we can get on your schedule of events? 
 Thanks 
 Dan McNay 

Like I'm trying to get up a fictitious listing so people can show up and look for us in vain?