Sunday, February 06, 2005

Watching the listeners

Yesterday, I dropped one of the latest prototype CDs at a coffee shop in the area. I've played at this place in the past with another band I'm currently playing with. After I chatted with one of the owners about when they'll be starting to program bands again I ordered some coffee & a nosh and he told me he'd play the CD while I was there. I think the shop had around 20 people in it. I grabbed a copy of the Arts section of the New York Times, read up on Cirque du Soleil's new show in Las Vegas and sipped my coffee. While our CD was playing I noticed a few things...

- even on the shop's miniscule sound system we sounded quite good, Brad's vocals could be heard, lyrics understood plainly, even with a somewhat boistrous crowd and the front door of the shop propped open, letting fresh, warm outside air into the shop
- it was nice to sit around perfect strangers (although I find myself wondering why people use the expression 'perfect strangers', what makes them perfect? how exactly do we know for certain they're even all that strange? more strange than me?) and listen to our music
- it's one thing to play our CD for friends & family and have them give sincerely good review of our music, it's one thing to play live and get the same including the same from patrons in the bar/club, but it's an entirely different thing to be sitting in a coffee shop listening to our music and notice a patron with his wife as they enjoy the beautiful weather, sip their coffee and gradually start dancing in their seats, a wide smile gaining real estate on their face and their toes tapping like some sort of hoe-down hillbilly (hopefully the owner noticed)

So, I think we're on the right track. =)

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