Well I’ve been playing music and living in the San Francisco bay area now for roughly 3 months. I was looking at my “gig schedule” last night and feeling pretty good about the November bookings. It’s not even close to a full schedule I know but its not bad for only living here a few months. At least based on my other moves and trying to get established with legitimate gigs.
By the way, you may have noticed I’m using a Google calendar on the “calendar” page. I finally decided to learn how the calendar function of my gmail account worked. It turns out it works great. I think its relatively intuitive and easy to understand by just selecting it and poking around. Then I find that Google has included some code to copy and paste into the web page to display the calendar. Thats pretty easy. Even for me 🙂 I had been looking for a wordpress plugin to do just that. No reason to install a separate plugin now.
So now when I update the calendar in my gmail account titled “gig schedule” it shows the update on my website calendar. Pretty slick!
Anyway, I’ve moved several times in the last 8 years and I’m getting better at finding gigs and places to play when I move to a new area. I can’t say I’m naturally good at that. Before I started following my wife’s career I just went where the jobs were. Thats how I landed in Vail Colorado in the late 1990’s. Thats how I played on the Norwegian Cruise Line in 2006. Thats even how I ended up playing in Las Vegas and then touring around Texas in the early 90s. Now that we move when she gets a new job or relocated I’ve got to get established all over again in a new area. That requires some “door knocking” and “cold calling” on my part. You know, more aggressive sales techniques than I’m comfortable with. That being said, I am selling a product I believe in. You know, ME and MY music 🙂
Thanks to everyone who is helping me fill that gig schedule too. There are some really kind and generous food and beverage managers and F&B directors giving me a chance to make music in their venues. All I’ve ever asked for was a chance (“audition”). Thanks to Justin and Rob at Crab Landing in Half Moon bay. Thats a great place to perform my acoustic solo and I’m looking forward to adding the December schedule there. Many thanks also to Joanne Leblanc for getting me on board as a steady bass guitarist in “The Fugitive Blues Band”. I love singing solo but also love playing bass in a band. Joanne’s Fugitive band line up is top notch and I’m really enjoying playing bass guitar with her and the boys!
OK, enough for one blog post! Happy Thanksgiving and on with November!!
Wil
