[NewMusic] Bay Area Information for Musicking Peoples

[Matt Davignon]

Hi Charity,

I'm glad you're taking the initiative to do this!

The biggest local resource is probably www.bayimproviser.com. It has a
list of venues, artists, and the calendar is what prints into the
monthly Transbay Creative Music Calendar that you see at venues.

The Venues page of www.bayimproviser.com is in need of a good weeding
- many of the venues listed don't exist anymore or don't feature "this
music".

On the list, these are the ones I know to be active and at least
somewhat welcoming to people who aren't in a pre-determined group of
musicians or nationally/internationally famous:
1510 8th St Performance Space (near West Oakland BART)
21 Grand (25th and Broadway, Oakland)
Artists' Television Access (21st and Valencia, SF)
Edinburgh Castle (Tenderloin, SF)
G3 Lounge (Inner Richmond district, SF)
Hemlock Tavern (Tenderloin, SF)
Luggage Store Gallery New Music Series (6th St. and Market, SF)
Mama Buzz Cafe (24th and Telegraph, Oakland)
Meridian Gallery (didn't they start again?) (Union Square, SF)
Outsound Presents: SIMM Series (9th and Mission, SF)
Starry Plough (Near Ashby Bart, Berkeley)
Stork Club (24th and Telegraph, Oakland)
Temescal Cafe (49th and Telegraph, Oakland)
The Lab  (16th St. and Capp, SF)

There are other active venues, but they're not as likely to accept gig
requests from folks who aren't famous or already working with the
venue. (Or I forgot about them.)

To contact Luggage Store or the Outsound SIMM series, send an email to
Rent Romus (rentromus at yahoo.com). I'm also a contact for the Luggage
Store.

Some helpful information about asking for gigs anywhere:
1) The best way to get a gig is to go to the venue to see a few shows,
and say hello to the people working at them. After a few shows, tell
the folks that you'd be interested in playing there. That way we know
you understand what the venue is about. When we get gig requests from
someone who's never been to the space, we think there's a good chance
the band will be something way off, like new agey stuff, straight
jazz, or some garage band.
2) If the venue operator isn't already very familiar with your music,
it's necessary to let them hear samples before they commit. In many
cases, giving them a link to your website or myspace page is fine. A
cd works too. Personally I don't use a cassette player anymore and I
don't know if anyone else does.
3) A bio is very helpful, and should include some description of what
instruments the musicians play, and what they sound like. Positioning
statements and lists of musicians you've played with are virtually
useless to us curators. The ideal length would be somewhere between
the size of this paragraph and twice that.
4) Very important - Having a gig does not ensure you 'exposure', or a
flock of adoring fans. It takes effort to get people out to shows,
since there are so damn many of them. The above listed bio helps.
Getting the word out helps too. Tell all your friends to come. Kidnap
their pets. Share some bills with musicians who are not your roommates
or classmates. (And where do you meet these folks? Go out to shows at
the venues I listed!) At the Luggage Store, we have a new unofficial
policy of not booking 2 sets of 'newbie' musicians who are from the
same group of friends. It's not because we're mean, but because those
are the shows in which all the audience members are the bands'
significant others.


Regarding Radio - KALX, KUSF and KFJC are all supportive stations.
KFJC is especially good to us, and offers the most on-air performance
opportunities. They're well worth the drive down the peninsula.
Regarding KALX and KUSF - the friendly DJ's are fans and musicians of
the scene - get to know them. (Gregg Scharpen is from KALX, Jacob
Huele, Noella Teele, Chris Cook & Prem are from KUSF.)

Web radio - Matt Ingalls has a streaming radio station called
"sfsound" which is focused on the experimental music that comes from
our community. You can find it at sfsound.org, or on a search at
shoutcast or live365. Yes, he accepts submissions.

Record Stores - Amoeba and Aquarius are the ones I go to. Amoeba's
big. Jim Kaiser of Petit Mal and NF Orchest is one of the buyers. Andy
Way from Maleficia also works there. Aquarius Records is on Valencia
St near 21st, and is more specialized. They have descriptive cards
attached to most of the cds, keep their listening stations up to date.
Most importantly they really know their stuff. Subscribe to their
email list to keep up to date on new releases in a variety of
interesting musics from around the world.

Matt Davignon


On 8/14/07, Charity Chan <charity.chan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I'm currently in the process of putting together a list of Bay Area
> music resources for music students at Mills (to be sent out once at
> the beginning of each semester).  The idea is to make it easier for
> students to find out what there is available in the Bay (concerts,
> venues, mailing lists, radio stations, places to buy CD's etc.).  I
> know that there are a lot of good websites already up, but this is to
> help save on the confusion and difficulty that a lot of new students
> (especially from outside of the area) might experience when they
> first arrive (it also saves on at least several hours worth of google
> time).
>