I have a very clear memory of a July evening in 1993. I had moved to a neighborhood near Little Five Points on the east side of Atlanta, and I had been writing songs for a couple of years. Right down the hill from the apartment I was living in was a row of shops, and one of those shops was an eatery named Sylvia’s Atomic Cafe.
I cannot remember the exact circumstances now, but it was around 10pm, and I walked into the Cafe with a pint-sized guitar that had been loaned to me by my college friend Anson Mount. I guess it was an open mic night, but whatever it was, I got up and I played some songs for fifteen or twenty minutes.
You’ll notice I said “I have a clear memory,” and then I said I can’t remember many of the details. That’s because the part that I remember clearly is what I expected to happen next, and that I remember clear as day.
I was convinced—so convinced I didn’t even consider an alternative, it was so self-evident to me—I was convinced that as soon as I got done playing that fifteen or twenty-minute set, I would be an immediate part of the Atlanta music scene. I would finish, and someone in the cafe would be there to say, “That was great! Come play at my club!”
Now bear in mind, there was probably only one or two folks in the cafe that night, besides Sylvia and my girlfriend at the time. And no, there was not anyone who jumped up at the end when I stopped playing to usher me into the inner circle of Atlanta music royalty.
I got done with the songs, and looked around sheepishly, and was given an on-the-house coffee drink.
That was it.
It would be another year of hanging around the Atlanta music scene before I played another show. In that time, I befriended a few musicians and began playing around the scene at open mics—which meant I got to play one or two songs at a pop.
One night, I was back at Sylvia’s (her shop had moved a mile west by this point, and was now called Art of This Century). My friend Gerard McHugh was playing a show, and he invited me up to play a couple of songs. They were well received by the crowd, and after the show I was hanging out, and kind of said aloud I was trying to figure out how to play a show of my own.
Sylvia looked over and said, “All you gotta do is ask me.” So I asked, and managed to book my first full show.
I ended up playing around Atlanta, and around the southeast, for the next fifteen years. I never got famous (though I’m friends with several folks who did get famous), but I had steady gigs through most of that time. It was never easy, and there was never a point where constant pressure wasn’t needed to keep my ‘career,’ such as it was, moving forward.
But I didn’t know any of that when I first showed up, guitar in hand, to play that late night impromptu set at the Atomic Cafe.
That feeling I had, that first night back in 1993, is pretty common I think. When get started doing something, we always seem to think that it will go pretty smoothly. That night, I assumed the path from the Atomic Cafe to stardom was a straight line, and a fairly short one at that.
If I had known, at the outset, how hard things would be, would I still have gotten started on that path?
I know it’s an impossible question to answer, but I can’t help but think that I am glad I didn’t know. I am glad that I had no idea about the number of times I would call up the booking agent at Eddie’s Attic (the premier acoustic venue in the region at that time), only to be turned away. It happened again, and again, and again.
I am glad I didn’t know the mind games that could be played by local music critics or the social-climbing and empire-building that some musicians would undertake to try and make it to the big time.
I’m glad I didn’t know all those things. I learned them, though.
Starting out with a high estimation of yourself gives you momentum. Not knowing how bad I really was (and I was pretty bad) gave me the chutzpah to actually get up in front of a crowd. At the start, you need to be crazy, and you need to mis-estimate yourself.
At some key moment, my skills (such as they were) began to match the outsized estimation I had of my talents. I learned how to work a crowd, and how to play a solid 45-minute set. Eventually, those grew to 3-hour sets, and occasionally I earned enough money in a night to break even on guitar maintenance and sets of strings.
If you have read this far, you need to know that I never got famous. But almost three decades after getting started, I still play music, and I still have fans that enjoy what I do.
Ira Glass (the co-founder of This American Life) once said that—when you are starting out—your skills are awful, but your taste is killer. You start out with a vision and a drive, and for a while, that’s all you have.
So if you are setting out on a creative project, you will need to have that insane over-estimation of your talents. That is vital, but it’s not enough. You’ll also have to find a way to keep stamina going.
Me, I developed a thick skin. I got really good at handling rejection. I learned how to self-promote, and I discovered that the most important thing—by far—was the community of friends that made the journey with me. Many of them were fellow musicians, and many more were fans. Those relationships were a source of energy that was the greatest discovery of the entire endeavor.
For those of you getting started on something, find your people as early as you can. Connect with them, be effusive in your gratitude to them, and do your best to give at least as much as you get from that community, if not more.
That’s how I got lucky as a beginner. It wasn’t a big break, but it was the folks I met at the open mics, and the folks like Sylvia who (as I quickly discovered) weren’t in it for the money, but for the sheer love of the scene.
Begin with that love. Begin with finding your people. Begin with the foolhardy passion that tells you that you are the best, even when you will inevitably look back and see that you were not that great (at least starting out, anyway).
Begin. Begin.
Begin.
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Well said, David. Thanks for that honest look at the challenges of being creative and/or a performer. Who ever knows how hard it will be? Best we probably didn't, as you say.