Most artists believe that one has to go through NACA, The National Association for Campus Activities, to get college dates. For more information on using NACA, see the StarPolish section on Booking College Shows. While NACA can be beneficial, it is also costly and easy to get lost in the massive amounts of material that gets passed around the NACA system. I’ve played countless college dates, and instead of going through NACA, I found that my material stood out among the piles collected via NACA. College and non-traditional venues made sense for me. My background is not the traditional “I’ve been performing at clubs since I was a teenager” sort of thing. I’ve been told that for a musician, my thinking is a bit on the academic side and my business sense unusual.

Just today I was waiting for the PATH train from New Jersey with two heavy bags and my guitar leaned up against a telephone booth. I live in New York City and earlier had performed at a college in New Jersey. To many musicians, an acoustic college gig is a lame and crappy way to spend a hot, sticky Sunday afternoon. Especially when I have another supposedly lame gig that same evening at a Starbucks coffeeshop, playing and singing my material for two hours over and over again. But truth be told, in my singer/songwriter world, those gigs have done far more for my career than playing some of the obnoxious traditional NYC venues.

Whenever I’m waiting for a train or a bus (which lately is quite often), more than frequently someone approaches me and asks me what I do, where I’m playing, etc. So, as expected, a man approached me and asked me what I do. I told him I’m a singer/songwriter. With one headphone off his ear while lowering the volume on his Sony Discman, he asks, “funk, jazz?” No, I say “folk pop, women contemporary singer/songwriter.” I show him my CD, one already opened, of course, and he asks if he could listen to it. I hand it to him and he smiles while talking and tells me that he owns a jazz club and is looking for an opener for this huge jazz festival similar to my style of music…



My CD, “Through The Clouds,” was released informally in August of 1999, though the material on it date back as early as ‘96. At the time, my fear of performing live and going out on my own kept me from performing as rigorously as I do now. I thought then-- very naively-- that playing out acoustically was lame, especially since my guitar playing was far from perfect. I felt I wasn’t versatile enough to carry a whole show, and that unless I was some virtuoso, I couldn’t play out solo without sounding like just another folky chick with a guitar. My backing band was comprised of top-notch musicians, who in their heart of hearts were not all that excited to be a part of my project. As great as these musicians were, I was very caught up in how I would be perceived by industry people, and I would anxiously prepare for my once-every-two-months show at an NYC club like the Bitter End, CB’s, or Luna Lounge and treat is as some huge event. Truth be told, what I really should have been doing was playing at every open mic and every acoustic venue I could find, just to get myself in front of people.

End result, my band grew frustrated and annoyed. The band environment was full of tension and very non-conducive to the vibe of what my music was about. So my band broke up, and I was faced with a brand new, long awaited released CD, but my confidence was at an all time low, and nothing scared me more than the thought of getting out there and doing the solo thing to promote the CD and myself. To add insult to injury, I simultaneously got fired from my job. As I tried to put my music career together, getting fired from jobs became a hobby. Managing and booking yourself consumes daylight hours, and no matter how much I tried to stay focused at a job, my music and everything related to it inevitably came first, or shall we say, came through. Nevertheless, until then I had to work menial day jobs to support my career and myself. I wondered how all these singer/songwriters were able to tour all over the country. Did they all have trust funds?

But a week before I was fired, my cousin, a professor at Monmouth University, gave my CD to the student activities board. They called me up and asked me to perform, offering me what then seemed like an inordinate amount of money. Back then, any small profit from gigs was an ungodly amount of money. I played the gig, and was amazed that I was getting paid for it. A week later I had booked a Starbucks Coffee show and the managers there loved me so much that they gave my number to the district manager, who called me to come play in other stores for guaranteed pay. So in-between relentless calls to NYC clubs and getting the runaround, people were calling me to play for money. I then sent my CD to two local colleges, which also called me and booked me for close to $1,000! The wheels started rolling and I went home, called all the people I knew in different places, found out the names of their local colleges, called these colleges, and sent my CDs to the appropriate booking people. This was in December and during the following academic semester I played over 20 different colleges. Some even had me back twice in a semester. I called everywhere, made the contacts, followed up like mad, and in the end I played over half the colleges and coffeehouses that I submitted my material to.



I have no band and no manager (and at the time I had no booking agent), and I truly believe that having a good product and a sense of friendly professionalism over the phone is what got me the gigs. Many colleges and alternative venues are sick of dealing with agents and managers, because they are often too pushy and ask for higher prices. When I contacted the schools that I performed at, I sincerely wanted to play there. I let them know what I was about as an artist, what type of crowd I appealed to, and what my overall message was. I also thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the people I was talking to, and I think that people were more apt to give me a shot because of the time I spent with them over the phone getting to know them and allowing them to get to know me. There is a fine line between being pushy and persistent, and I tried very carefully not to cross it. The students who liked my CD were also excited to speak with me directly and establish a relationship before I played at their school. I’ve had various types of college gigs, some great, some not so great. But I’ve also had various types of club dates, some great, some not so great. The main difference is, at the very least, I was guaranteed some good money at the college shows.

One of the best experiences I had was playing Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. The school made a real effort to promote the show by putting fliers everywhere and playing my CD on the college radio station. Students actually heard new my material before I even got there, which set the stage for an awesome show and a warm welcome. They made it into a huge coffeehouse event and took me to dinner before the performance and I got to know some of the students and really get a feel for who they were. They were so open to new music, so quiet during my two-hour performance, and so friendly asking me questions about my lyrics, about who I was, and how some of them wanted to do what I was doing. They even came to a University of Rochester show two days later, which also set the stage for another awesome gig because I now had a built-in fanbase. And besides selling CDs and making great contacts and a nice following, some students frequently send me email telling me that my music has helped them understand themselves. This is just one school of many that were so enthusiastic.

Because I am a woman singer/songwriter, many young women really relate to what I’m saying, and I actually feel that I’m making a difference and a statement-- something that I set out to do early in my career. Don’t get me wrong, I have really bad days getting work and getting rejected, but when I get all these wonderful messages and emails, I feel so important and so part of a culture and generation that I want to influence. There are countless times that young women tell me that they want to do what I’m doing and ask me how. I make it a part of my job to sit with them and talk to them about who they are and how to establish the beginnings of a career in singing/songwriting. I’ve already heard from some of them letting me know that they are actually doing it, and that my encouragement and just doing what I was doing gave them inspiration. For me, this is the sincere end all and be all.

I’ve played countless colleges, Borders bookstores, and chain coffeehouses, and most of the time it’s not like a “real gig” with a good sound system and a definite listening audience. But in all honesty, these are the places where I’ve met the most genuinely interesting people who have a real feel and hope for my music. If not there, it’s literally on the way to and from there-- like the guy I met on the PATH train who contacted me for a nicely paid opener at his music festival.