How To Land Your First Gig

This is a guest post by Chris Hess. In this post he offers up some tips and advice to musicians wanting to hit the stage for the first time.  Read the post then I’ll tell you more about Chris.

You’re a musician. Fancy. You’ve come to the conclusion that you’re ready to get out there and expose your musical self to the world. Exciting.

I want to tell you something…not to crush your hopes and dreams but to be honest with you. Most folks fancy themselves musicians these days. Most folks are excited to expose their musical selves.

“But I’m really ready. Like, REALLY ready,” you say.

Fantastic. But first, you must find a place to play and you must claim your spot on top of the stack of submissions at the venue you choose. There are ways to do this. Are they surefire? Negs. However, they will at least give your music a better chance of landing on stage rather than in the trash.

RESEARCH YOUR VENUES

Different venues cater to different crowds. Some focus specifically on one genre of music while others run the gamut. Figuring out what venues might actually host your music before you start sending out e-mails and albums will save you more time than you think. Less wasted communication efforts means more time to hone your craft, correct? Or perhaps more time to nap. Regardless, you’re not wasting your time or the time of someone reading your e-mail.

Once you have a venue picked out, take a bit to figure out how the place operates. Get to know it best you can. Have a meal with it. Get an idea of what nights they have live music. Read some history. Figure out why you want to play there. A stage is a stage, sure. But if you find out something about the venue that tickles your fancy, then that excitement should come through when time comes to make contact.

Before you make contact (please note BEFORE), do your best to figure out how the person in charge of scheduling shows prefers to receive submissions. Phone? E-mail? Snail mail? Digital Press Kits? Actual CDs? Poke around on the venue’s Web site and see if you can figure this out. If after that you still can’t find the infos, put a call in to the venue.

3,2,1…CONTACT

You’ve done your research. You’re excited about a place. You know in what format they prefer music to be submitted. Now you just have to hit send on that form e-mail you digitize to all venues or drop your CD-R with what is apparently your musical moniker scribbled on it in the mail.

I jest. Do not do either of these things. Time for some sub-points:

If Submitting Electronically

• Make it as easy as possible to listen to your music. Good ways to go are links to a Sonicbids or MySpace page (I’ve always had the best luck listening on Sonicbids). If you are going to e-mail tracks to the talent buyer, make sure they are in MP3 format. Not WMA or AAC. MP3s are universal and can even be played within some e-mails, depending on the provider. If you are going to link to a personal web site, make sure your music is easily found there and in working order. If I have to poke my way around a site or download a track from some place I’m not familiar with, I usually don’t listen.
• Form e-mails may save time, but I can sniff them out from a mile away. Personally, I give less priority to acts sending out these types of feelers because I’d rather have someone playing who e-mailed because they want to play at the venue where I work. At least take the time to include a personal note that shows you have some knowledge of the venue and the talent buyer’s name.
• Include the dates you’re looking to play and be willing to take opening slots. It’s been said that the quickest way to kill a career is to take top billing.

If Submitting via Mail or In Person

• Make me WANT to listen to your music. In other words, the presentation of your album should reflect the quality of the music. Sharpie scribbles on a CD are not becoming. Neither are cracked cases. Good album art & packaging is worth investing time or money or both in. There could be a stack of demos on my desk and if one comes across in creative or beautiful or beautifully creative packaging, I will give it priority because i am intrigued. Trust me here…I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Here is some required reading from the All Songs Considered Blog: “You Can Tell A CD By It’s Cover” (http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2008/05/you_can_tell_a_cd_by_its_cover.html)
• If you drop an album off somewhere, make sure and include contact info. This sounds like common sense, but more often than you think I get a CD with a “thanks for listening” note taped to it and no contact info.
• Press packs are nice if they don’t look like a book report you’d hand in to your high school lit teacher. I don’t need 4 pages of people you’ve played with and bands you’ve been in and a short history of your immediate family’s personal struggles. Let me know a bit about who you are in a concise and creative manner. When creating a press pack, be sure to reference the two tips above…and do the required reading.
• If by chance you get to actually meet the person in charge of booking shows at your venue of choice, don’t walk in like you own the place. They might be nice enough to let you play their stage. Shake a hand. Be interested in the room. Thank them for at least giving you a listen…and then hand them the most beautiful thing they’re ever going to listen to (refer to the three points above…and do the required reading).

THE FOLLOW THROUGH (also known as patience)

It’s been a little while and you haven’t heard anything from the venue you researched and submitted your easily listened to/beautifully packaged music to. Patience. You can try dropping a line to the venue just to make sure they got the package or e-mail. Sometimes persistence pays off, sometimes it annoys people. Ask if you should check back again or wait to hear from them. Keep looking for venues and submit your music the right way. Eventually, you may get a spot somewhere. When this happens, there are a few things to remember:

• Be on time to soundcheck and be respectful of the venue and sound tech.
• PROMOTE YOUR OWN SHOW. Don’t expect that the venue will do this for you.
• Keep open lines of communication leading up to the show, responding you any e-mails or phone calls you receive in a timely manner.
• Be thankful. Thank the folks at the venue profusely the night of the show and then send a little note of thanks the week following the show. These notes…and the hopefully kind words they contain…do wonders. I will invite someone back to play again because I know they appreciated playing in the first place.

Those are the basics. Be brave, young one. Put your music out there. Make people want to hear it. The extra effort will be noticed. Expose your musical self in the proper manner and have a nice time.

Chris Hess is a good friend of mine so I can vouch for his experience in the music biz. He currently manages a unique not for profit coffee house in Fort Collins, Colorado, Everyday Joes. A large coffee house that is also a music venue. Because of Chris the coffee house has hosted such great musicians as Trace Bundy, Sleeping at Last, David Bazan, Katie Herzig, Tickle Me Pink, and Danielle Ate The Sandwich just to name a few. More of Chris’s words can be found on the Everyday Joe’s blog and Chris’s personal blog Whiskey and Cardigans.

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