USE GOOD PHONE SCREENING
I was advised years ago by a professional music manager to get a pager at the very least, and to use it. If you are female, especially, don't give out your home phone number to people if you can help it, or at least make sure you use your answering machine to screen calls. If someone is really serious, they WILL leave a phone number-if they don't, you can probably bet they are wary of doing so, and probably because they don't want to let you know who they are. It is sad, but sometimes just doing a great performance at a local open mic can get you vicious prank calls at all hours of the night by someone in the audience that might not have even been a fellow performer, just perhaps some catty female who thought you were too pretty to be performing in such a small venue. Yes, it can get that petty, and often does, especially at the lowest levels where people are just getting started. Sure, it is nice to get calls about potential bandmates and someone who is interested in your music, but often it is just some bored person looking for something to do, and will call you just to debate music and keep you from real calls from real people you need to talk to. If you enjoy that, fine, but chances are you are better served by only answering callers who have a phone you can call them at, even if they are screening you, too. If you hear them call back, you can then pick up the phone if you are at home, and that is the whole point of screening calls.
USE GOOD QUESTIONS
Before inviting people over to your home and letting them see your music, ask a lot of questions, first. Enquire about what genres they play, instruments, lyric styles and so forth, and you will probably pretty quick eliminate the fakes. Personal questions like how much you spent on your instruments, what is in your home studio and how much money you make, should cause a few red flags to come up for you. Sure, this may be totally innocent, but see if they will let you come to their place first with only a demo and a few lead sheets to see just what their setup is. You may find quickly that they aren't interested in you or your music at all, simply if you are worth ripping off or not, of equipment, money or both. Many musicians opt to rent a practice space for tryouts-any baddies tend not to want a lot of witnesses to their identity, so sometimes just asking how they feel about renting practice space can help weed out the non-serious types, as can just meeting them at a local open mic to see each other play.
