Captain Cold Call

We headed to Toledo, OH on Thursday afternoon. While driving, the car was in a state of "cold call mania." That means, I was googling (or something) establishments all around the areas we were going to be in for the next week trying to fill in our empty days. While playing at Brindaliers on Monday, Erica's Uncle Mike suggested to us that we should look up Put-In-Bay (PIB) and see if they would have us. I had never heard of PIB so I didn't know what was to come in this story. When I googled (somethinged) "PIB Bars" a nice list of 20 or so came up in order of fanciness, starting with lobster restaurants and ending with dives. Cold calling is a tricky process because you have to be able to take rejection as well as criticism from complete strangers. The following responses are fairly typical when asking about trying to book your band at places:

"We don't have live music...(We didn't waste money getting the license)"
"We already have a band booked...(Snooze ya lose)"
"I'm going to need to see a video of you guys...(What's a steel drum?)"
"We only do live auditions for entertainment...(My buddy plays guitar)"
"We have a DJ...(My buddy owns a laptop and speakers)"
"You will have to talk to our manager who isn't in until tomorrow...(Quit wasting my time jerk)"
"Let me take your information down...(this will shut him up)"
"We book our music a month in advanced...(you unorganized piece of s***)"
"We book our music a year in advanced...(F*** you)"

Aaron and I created our tour originally by emailing our info to venues, but that was back when we had months to get responses. Since we were in need a quick responses we had to call every place that could possibly want us. I started down the list of PIB bars and heard rejection after rejection. As hopeful as hearing "Let me take down your information for the manager" is, I have had zero managers call back asking more questions.

23 phone calls later, whether to PIB, Cincinnati or Lexington, not one venue worked out. We weren't incredibly beat up about it because our tour is built around these skeleton gigs that are very much worth doing, but we were trying to fill in the dead time in between. We arrived at the Ziegler residence and hung out in anticipation for the evenings activities. Minutes after loading everything in to the house, my phone rang...

An unknown number?

Could it be?

Could someone be calling me back?!

"Hello?"
"Hi Tyler, this is **** from Frosty's on PIB and we want to hear some more about you."

*cue fireworks*

A short conversation later, we are set up to play one of the largest bars on an island meant for partying. Thank you cold call gods for shining down on me.