Every musician I ever knew had a stack of rejection letters. A pile of them. Dear Artist comma we regret to inform you. Thank you for your submission but. We are unable to at this time. At this time. Like there was going to be another time. Like the rejection was temporary and someday somebody at Columbia Records was going to wake up and say you know what we should have signed that guy who sings about marijuana on the sidewalk.

I never got a rejection letter. Not one. You know why. Because I never sent a demo to a record label. I never put a cassette in an envelope and wrote Dear Sir on a piece of paper and walked it to the post office and waited six weeks for somebody in a suit to tell me I was not good enough. I skipped that part. I went straight to the audience.

The sidewalk does not send rejection letters. The sidewalk says yes every single day. You show up and you play and the sidewalk says yes. The crowd says yes or the crowd says no by walking past but at least the crowd is honest about it. A record executive takes six weeks to say no. A person on the street takes six seconds. I will take the six seconds every time.

Lennon never got a rejection letter either. But that is because he was a Beatle. I never got one because I was a street musician. Two completely different reasons for the same result. The most famous musician in the world and the least famous musician in the world both skipped the rejection letter. He skipped it because everybody wanted him. I skipped it because I never asked.

That is the secret. You cannot be rejected if you do not apply. You cannot be told no if you do not ask permission. The street does not require permission. The street does not have an A and R department. The street does not have a submissions policy. The street has a curb and a sidewalk and if you can stand on it you can play on it and if you can play on it you are already signed. Signed to the oldest label in the world. The label is called Outside.

Every rejection letter ever written said the same thing. It said we do not think you are profitable. That is all it said. It did not say you are not good. It did not say your music does not matter. It said we cannot sell enough of you to justify the postage it cost us to mail this letter. That is what the music business is. A postage calculation. And the answer to a postage calculation is to eliminate the postage. Play on the street. There is no postage on the street. There is no middleman. There is you and the hat and the song and the crowd. Everything else is a rejection letter waiting to happen.

See also: The Demo — the demo was never the tape, it was the crowd. The Pope Smokes Dope — the album every radio station banned. The First Chord — before the rejection letter, there was a trash can and a guitar. A Third of a Penny — what the music business thinks you are worth. The Venue — the label is called Outside. The Handshake — what happens when somebody says yes instead.

David Peel Rant #93

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