From Tampa Florida - Connecting Through Music

By 1999, I had spent almost two decades as a manufacturer’s representative in the lawn & garden and hardware industry. It taught me many aspects of marketing and design in terms of packaging and promotion. It was then that I was going through a divorce from a 29-year marriage, which was the start of an early on-depression. In the following three years, my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer, my dad attempted suicide over the thought of losing my mom, and my brother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had walked into a Circuit City, saw a keyboard and hit the demo key which started playing the theme to the James Bond movies, I probably wouldn’t be here today doing what I’m now most passionate about in and that is music. It didn’t happen over night. I first bought the Yamaha Keyboard, took it home and labeled the keys since I never took piano lessons, nor could I read music.

It had those built in music loops for various styles of music and I could just start a loop and improvise a melody by playing around with the keys. It wasn’t long before I started to write my own lyrics to go with the different melodies I was improvising. I purchased a recording device with cassette tapes and started to record my pieces. I also signed up with the CT Songwriters Association and started to attend their monthly meetings, where you could bring a sample of your music to have it critiqued by its members. This was where I met my very good friends and producer from Funkee Boy Music and his wife. We hit it off right from the start and I had him take my rough material and produce tracks I never imagined it could sound like. This was my new passion.

But, I was still dealing with a certain amount of depression and in September of 2001 ended up purchasing an existing graphic design business to see what I could do and learn from it. To be perfectly honest, I spent the next several years just milking the existing business not being proactive in growing it, as I was still not in a motivating mind set. It took some time to get out of my rut and it was then I realized music was my true passion, not just for myself, but I loved to listen to new music from independent music artists as opposed to just listening to main stream radio. So, I started to envision hosting networking events combined with music to connect with people and connect music artists with the industry professionals they needed to in order to grow their music careers. At the same time I started to join many Meetup groups that were forming through that new website and joining and attending Chamber of Commerce networking events throughout the NY, NJ and CT areas that I could drive to, averaging about 3-4 events a week to grow my contact base. I even read up on how to network effectively, as I felt I was lacking in this area. 

Through my constant networking, I started to meet people in the music, entertainment, TV and film industry that liked the idea of my concept of hosting music showcases for them to attend. And from meeting the right people, I was put in touch with the Gibson Guitar Studios on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan, which was under the radar as a place for headliners to rehearse before performing in the area. They loved my concept and The Big Apple Indie Music Series was born in January of 2013. I hosted a music showcase there for the next 7 months until I was told I would have to find another venue, as they were closing for renovations.

I moved on to a few smaller venues and finally ended up at Toshi’s Living Room on 26th Street and Broadway, a great location and a beautiful venue. For the next 2 years I was able to bring in a total of 133 different music artists from across the country that was hearing about my showcases by word of mouth and on one of the largest websites for music artists, ReverbNation, with over 4 million music artists from across the globe. I even got to meet one of the Founders, who was local and started to attend my showcases. We became good friends and I started to post a submission page on their site, where in the first month receive over 2400 submissions. It grew to just over 4800 plus in a few short months. 

I have recently relocated to Tampa, FL to be close to our new granddaughter and that made me regroup and start from scratch to plan a new series of music showcases here.

I have spent the last several months networking in the Tampa Bay Area and in the process have joined three chambers of commerce and a few other networking groups and have added over 500 additional people to my contact list for this area alone. I’m still a few months out from starting my showcases, but I’m already making some great connections in the process. 

In addition, I am now collaborating with some of the top artist development agencies in LA, NY, Nashville and FL so that I can refer emerging artists to the opportunity to work on their craft so that they can get to the next level in their music career. I’m also collaborating with a few other music festivals in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Canada, so that I can find additional gigs for the artists in my current family. This is a work in progress, but I’m having a ball while making this journey.

Jon Landers is the Founder and CEO of TBaims Connecting Through Music.  Please see www.tbaims.com