My band got a rehearsal space in Williamsburg. Or rather, we moved into our drummer's space. Do you remember the mid nineties, when lots of young people who understood more about computers than you did, got rich doing something nebulous for a Dot Com? Our drummer was one of those people. He had quit that job by the time he met up with us and was mainly doing yoga and wandering around the city taking photographs. There were, and are, a lot of ambitious bands floating around Brooklyn. People with serious haircuts. People with managers. People who post ads on Craigslist that make the hairs on your arm bristle from the shrill edge of their ambition. They were somewhere, vibrating above us and below us at our rehearsal space on Roebling. They seemed to know exactly what to do and to be doing it. Wiliamsburg still makes me really nervous that way.The first guy who took me aside and explained how things work edwas Ian. He was the guy you always see at shows, who knows all the bands, who's bro-ing out with the house booker, who puts together bills, makes things happen...He found us somehow and asked us to share a bill with his band and a band from Bloomington, In called 'The Post.'But then he said, Hey, let's really publicize this thing. I stared at him dumbly. He continued, You know, The Village Voice, Time Out New York...let's get an early start on contacting the press.I had never contacted 'press' before...I had no idea how to do that. I figured that we had to be more 'official'...on a label or with a polished album and not a handfull of rough demos. But Ian insisted it would be fine. He sent me names and addresses. He told me what to write and who to send it to and how to follow up. So imagine opening the Village Voice on a fine Thursday afternoon and seeing your band's very first write up by none other than Chuck Eddy!It said something like this:'This music goes nowhere until it stops and features Bjdorklike vocals'I was crushed into a fine powder. A very big city and it's most famous, arty paper had issued its verdict on me and my band. And for a shy girl from Massachusetts, it really, really sucked.Who cares if Time Out gave us a starred listing for the same show and the Post gave it a top pick for a Saturday night? That would be the last show my band, Disfarmer, ever played together.