I sent out Cds to 30 different college radio stations. Felix thought that would be a good idea. “You gotta get that college radio airplay.” A month or two later he asked me about it. “Yeah. ” I said.” I only got 3 responses, No, Maybe and We’ll see.”
But along the way I found out about EPKs. An EPK is an Electronic Press Kit. It is a page with hyperlinks to your music and your press. We have that great review from JOONBUG and Kosi had set up a Bandcamp page. Oh yeah. That was interesting.
I went to Bandcamp to set up a page for The Goddess Lakshmi. I found out that the name had already been taken. “That’s odd.” I thought. Who else has a band named The Goddess Lakshmi? Well. There is that marching band in India. I went to the page and there were my recordings and a crappy grabbed from the internet photo of the album cover. Lyrics were included with minor mistakes here and there. Who did this? Some crazy fan? I hit the contact button and wrote: “Who are you?” It was Kosi. And I thought I was going mad.
With our blog, Bandcamp page and review in place on an EPK I suddenly began to book gigs. We now have a list of NYC venues on our resume; Fat Baby, Leftfield, Parkside Lounge, Goodbye Blue Mondays, The Way Station, Silvana and Shrine. None of these gigs pay anything.
I had been against playing at these predatory bars but then a fellow musician told me. “They are all like that, even Mercury Lounge, Arlene’s Grocery and Rockwood. They don’t pay a dime. But if you book them you can use it to book tours. You make your money out of town.” And then there is this. Recently I was in Puerto Rico staying near Rincon, a very posh dot on the map. There was a flashy magazine for the area called Coqui. I called every bar, club, restaurant in that mag and only found a tiny handful of clubs that had Musica en Vivo, Live music. It made me realize what a treasure we have here in Manhattan. There must be 50 or more clubs with live music on the L.E.S. an area perhaps one tenth the size of Rincon. It is a Mecca for music in a staggering multiplicity of genres. So. Enjoy it while it lasts.
