I finally faced my first major rejection.  I’ve had obstacles before, but any previous rejection was at least disguised as something else (e.g. “You can’t open for our band because our line up is full,” or “You can’t play at our venue because we book three months in advance”  …these could be legitimate, but you never know, they might be hidden rejections).

No, this time it was straight up rejection.  I emailed a number of house concert venues and one of them replied saying no.  They were vague, so I asked for clarification.  Among other reasons, they won’t book me because they aren’t “enthusiastic” about my music.  It’s a personal taste thing.

Fair enough.  Not everyone can like my music.  That’s reasonable.  It still sucks though.  It’s like working up the courage to ask a girl on a date only to have her look up at you with her pretty little eyes and say “no.”  It hurts the self esteem.  There is a disconnect between my desire and reality and there’s nothing I can do about it.

What happens now?

I move on.  I say, “Oh well.  Just one small opportunity lost.”  No big deal.  There’s plenty more fish in the sea (or in this case, venues in the world).

It’s day one of my week-long hunt for gigs.  I haven’t have a lot of time, so I decided to just look online rather than going out to places.  I searched myspace for semi-well-known Vancouver artists such as “Said the Whale”, “Hey Ocean”, “Mother Mother”, and “Dan Mangan” .  I sent them a message asking to be an opening act for them sometime.  Dan Mangan replied saying that my music sounds good and it could be a possibility in the future (I don’t think he’s playing in Vancouver any time soon).  I haven’t heard from the others yet.

I eventually realized that it would help to be asking to open for artists who are actually playing in Vancouver sometime soon.  So I looked up all the upcoming shows in town and started sending out messages.  This was taking a really long time and many of the artists were actually DJs, cover bands, metal, or electronica (none of which would fit well with indie-folk).  So I limited my search to folk music and continued messaging artists.  I made sure to listen to them a bit and compliment them on their music.

I was surprised to see four replys (not including Dan Mangan’s) within an hour… all possitive!  One of the bands said they could add another date to their tour if I can book the venue for us.  The other three said that I could open for them.  So there you have it -  four prospective gigs, all from just a couple hours’ work.  Not too shabby.  If I can keep this up, I’ll be touring in no time.

Well I gotta get ready for my show tonight.  It’s at 8pm at SFU’s Highland pub.  Hope to see you there.