Not having the knack but being lucky anyway.

I am a pretty lucky guy. I mean that in a lot of ways but today I'm going to focus on one particular way in which I'm lucky. Having played in bands for just over 15 years, most of which ranged from shoddy to awful I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of excellent people. Most lucky of all though is that some of these people have gone on to promote and put on punk shows as a side part of their everyday lives. As well as being an awesome thing to do in general it's also allowed me to carry on gigging, not only that, but carry on gigging with some really great bands at shows where the atmosphere is also excellent. The reason this is so lucky for me is that without these friends I would have absolutely zilch in the way of upcoming shows at the moment!!

I don't know what it is about trying to contact promoters and venue owners by myself that I seem to be doing so wrong but I really suck at the whole thing. I know I said I would rather only play the odd shows here and there rather than get sucked into the Monto Culture way of things but fuck I'm not telling the promoters that! For some reason eliciting any kind of response from people that do this sort of thing for a living is just beyond my powers, and the only people willing to acknowledge I exist outside of my circle of friends are the people that are coming at me with a contract and a demand for at least 20-30 fans who will state that they came to see me!

I wonder if I'm too polite in emails, maybe the problem is that I'm sending emails? has the counter-culture not quite caught up to this method of communication yet or does it spurn it as sending an email is not punk enough? How many times is too many when sending them another message? Will I incur the wrath of the punk police if I send more than three requests for a single response? Maybe the problem comes back to being in too niche of a musical genre for promoters to be able to fit me in to most gigs?

I love my friends for allowing me to play at shows that have numerous other acts that could take that slot. The thing is though I don't want to become a burden on them, asking over and over for them to have to make extra effort on my behalf so I can play more shows. There has to be a knack to this whole thing and unfortunately I'm falling short of the mark. I think I should talk to the guys in the Demon Smiles crew since they're practically drowning in shows these days and are clearly doing it right.

I am eternally grateful to those friends of mine that put me on at shows, because without you I literally wouldn't have a musical career.