See, Notes, YOU have done it right, and are continuing to do it right. You actually WORK at your craft. How many of the other type do we all know? The kind who sit at home and never work at their music and complain that they have no work? This isn't like the Nigerian lottery where you are the lucky one selected to receive Prince Mogugu's millions! The venues can't call if they don't know who you are.

The Motown band I was in for a few years did a LOT of marketing. We mailed out packets with audio CDs, live DVDs, bios on every member, photos, a bulk song list AND several example set lists that were tailered to specific types of events.... that went out to every local venue we could find, and then we'd drive to the bigger cities within a 5 hour radius (yes Harv, even that state up north!) where we'd buy newspapers and steal phone books and visit the newspaper to talk to the entertainment writers to see what was what in their city. I would say 99% of them were gracious and offered as much help and information as possible.

Now shift to the guy who spends 6 hours every day sitting on his Marshall amp playing as fast as he can on his Les Paul waiting for someone to discover him. Of course that is an exaggeration, but we know people like that, don't we?

Westside Steve, who has chimed in on this thread, has been very successful here in our area for many years, but he has the talent and the showmanship to do so. That is still the key. You need to give them something they enjoy attending but you really need to give them something good to listen to. He is in that first group of people who do it right. A former bandmate of mine is in the other group who sits and waits for people to call him with gigs that pay $100,000 a night for 3 sets of cover music.

I am going to do a solo act and charge $1 million. I doubt if I'll get many jobs, but if I ever get ONE......

And one quick comment on what "live" means... I want to LIVE, not exist or survive. I want creature comforts like most of us do. However, I also know excesses when I see it. I have a nice TV and sound system, a car that gets me to my job every day, a comfortable house with a decent sized yard and woods behind me.... I don't need 11 cars and 4 houses. I was taught to know that you can't hitch a U-Haul to the hearse, and I have nobody to leave anything to so I don't care to amass riches or anything. The local animal shelter gets the proceeds of my estate sale anyway... They gave me the three best friends I ever had. I pay them back when I die.