We were lucky to catch up with Jon Landers recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think it started with going through a divorce from a 29 year marriage that put me into a very dark place. In the three years following my divorce, my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer, my dad attempted suicide because of my mom’s condition and my brother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. I happen to walk into a Circuit City, saw a keyboard and hit the demo key which played the theme music from the James Bond films. I never took piano lessons and I could not read music, but that did not deter me from purchasing the keyboard, labeled the keys and used the built in loops to create my own music and started to write lyrics to go with it. If I had not gotten the keyboard, I know for a fact I would not be here today to talk about it.

Jon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Before starting The Big Apple Indie Music Series aka TBAIMS, I was a manufacturer’s rep selling and servicing The Home Depots and big box home centers covering the area from Maine to Virginia averaging 54000 miles a year. When I went through that divorce, I decided to leave that industry and found myself buying an existing graphic design business which, at the time was called Creative Desktop. I purchased this business on 9/7/01 not knowing what was coming on 9/11. After about 12 years trying to build this business, I realized that music was still my passion. So I first started a business networking event in Danbury, CT that I called Networking with Music where I would book a local band to perform at the networking event and have a meet and greet the artist. I then realized I really should focus on the artists more so in 2013 I started The Big Apple Indie Music Series aka TBAIMs. What I looked for in booking the artists was their stage presence, how well they engaged their audience, ability to sing on key without the use of apps like auto-tune and originality of material. I also tried to pick artists that did not use profanity, defamed women or promoted violence in their lyrics. As a result, we were one of the top music showcases in the short 3 years I ran it in New York City prior to relocating to Florida in 2015.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

As I was really new to the music industry, it took me a few showcases to make it what it was by the time I left New York. I originally had booked one artist for my first showcase that was originally scheduled for December of 2012, however a few days before the showcase, the artist became ill and could not perform. I simply cancelled the showcase and decided to rebook again in 2013, but with two artists instead of one; in case one could not make it. I quickly learned to add up to six artists for an evening each doing 20 minutes or 4 songs each and I tried to mix the genres to offer a buffet of music for one evening. I also learned quickly to open with any acoustic artists and then I put them in order where the music became more upbeat as the night progressed. When I would have an acoustic artist in the middle of the showcase, people would tend to start to leave. I had learned that keeping the upbeat as the night went kept people for the duration of the showcase.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Yes. It is my goal to not only build a family of carefully vetted independent artists, but to also build a family of music venues across North America that would provide their space once a month for these artists to perform their original material helping them grow their fan base organically.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tbaims.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/tbaims/
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheBigAppleIndieMusicSeries
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tbaims
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tbaims
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSKpgiEftIsGtNziXkJB5hg
• Other: https://soundcloud.com/jon-14-4

Image Credits
Photos by Michelle Kawka