SnowGhost Music

Five years ago I lived in a tiny beach town in Costa Rica. The town had dirt roads, a few restaurants and hotels, a fare share of gringo ex-pats, and a surf school where I was an instructor. There were plenty of waves in towns too, but not a whole lot of music. Actually, I was one third of the entire music scene. With two other singer/songwriters who happened to also be surf instructors, we played every Tuesday night at one of the local resaurant/bars. Eventually we started playing Friday nights at a place a little down the street that stayed open a little later. We even got paid a little, in addition to the free food and drinks. We had it good. and for some reason I can´t quite remember, we left.

Five years later, you can hardly avoid ending up somewhere without live music. The town itself has received a bit of a makeover. There are double, maybe even triple the number of buildings and people. The roads are still dirt, which helps in covering the town in dry dust with all of tourist traffic the town now receives. Not too long ago, someone figured out that where there's tourists at night, there are sure to be gigs.

So now there are actually people making a living playing music in semi-remote Costa Rica, without even having to leave town. There's pretty much one local band that plays 4 times a week with some or most of the members, depending on the vibe of the venue. They basically run the town like a musical mafia. Nobody is losing any pinkie fingers or getting their guitars slashed, but if you want to play in town, you'd better talk to the band. Which is easy enough because they're nice guys, and they have a nice little music monopoly going on.

It's a pretty great idea when you think about it. If you can discover a place (not necessarily in Central America) where there is no scene or at least a weak presence, you can take it upon yourself and/or your band to do something about it. Try to find venues and crowds, and if you build one, others are sure to follow. A friend of mine in Miami has done something worth modeling and adding to the scheme: instead of simply having the same band playing the same songs, have a backing band that sets everything up and gets paid, and then invite some talented friends for a set or two each. Unless they are complete loners, each artist will bring some of their own crowd so that if you have 3 or 4 special guests, you've got 3 times more people coming to see you. Bars love this. Towns love this. And if you can really milk and momopolize things, you're bank account might even be feeling the love too.