A friend of the band owns a beverage company called ‘Snow Beverages’. Up until recently they made one drink, it was a mint flavored soda. It was quite popular here in NYC at trendy clubs as a mixer. For me, I like my mint in toothpaste or gum. However, recently, Snow released a new line of sodas. They are all natural, oxident rich and quite tasty.
To help promote the launch of the new line of sodas here in Manhattan, our friend and his company staged several free give away promotions. At these promotions they invited local bands to entertain the crowds as they drank their free sodas, so that is how Starcode wound up playing an acoustic gig on a sidewalk at The Fashion Institute on a Friday afternoon.
It was a little rainy, so when we arrived we thought the whole thing might be off but good fortune was with us and the rain let up just enough for us to do the performance. We initially set up right in front of the Institute’s museum but were quickly shut down after playing just two songs. Not because we didn’t have a permit, which we didn’t, but because FIT is basically under contract to only have Coca Cola products on it’s campus, no other beverages allowed. It was strange when the campus security came over they could give a rats butt that we were playing, they just wanted the Snow Beverage people to cease giving out soda.
So across the street we went to finish out the hour long promotion in front of a deli. There was plenty of foot traffic, we had kids in strollers rocking out, even had an invite to perform at a 3 year old’s upcoming birthday party. There were people in passing cars clapping after songs and even the obligatory drunk guy giving us performance location advice.
Overall it was a lot of fun, and most certainly will go down in Starcode history as one of our strangest gigs ever. Be sure to check out the photos!