gigs?

Playing music is the fun part, and whereas that’s where most of my time and energy are spent, that’s not the part that gets you gigs.  I find the process of obtaining a gig somewhere very odd.  I either 1) go onto reverbnation.com and send 100 press kits a week (which is a slight exaggeration) to various venues around the northeast, 1:100 of which will write me back; or 2) I find a venue myself and email them a link to my website and myspace, and tell them that I’m awesome, a nice guy, and a hell of a performer.  The ratio for hearing back from them is slightly higher.  

The odd thing is, I imagine myself sitting in my living room, checking my email, and some kid send me an email that says he wants to play for me.  He sounds very nice, has a flashy web page, and wants me to pay for coming to my house and entertaining me.  It sounds absurd.

I realize that the people I email are payed to read my emails, and are trying to book their venue, but it still seems odd to me that my music, which I am often bored of, and never satisfied with, should be a commodity.  It’s odd that I should have the very real satisfaction of being enjoyed by others.  Maybe that’s why I don’t get more gigs.  Maybe it’s a self confidence thing.  But, let’s remember that Keats scorned his Grecian urn, and Kafka wanted his works burned from his death bed.  So maybe there’s hope for me yet.