Gateway Music - Where it all started

High Street, Dartford, Kent

We began with jam sessions at Dingo Jacks Guitar Shop in Dartford, Kent; with lots of beer flowing and a group of musicians just letting the notes flow as much as the drink. We made some great music and it got better the more we drank. It was fun for a while, but obviously we couldn't do that all day, every day (apart from upsetting our neighbouring business') it was starting to become too much of a habit. Fun, though it was!

Gino Cinganelli recorded some local bands, made up CD's for them and put them for sale in the guitar shop. He sold a few and became well known for making available the music of local bands. This has to lead somewhere, but 'Where?' was the critical question. What to do? How to do it? And can we make any money doing what we love doing?

Gino found a site called Reverbnation which allowed artists to promote their music, sell their songs and collaborate with other musicians around the world. It was a good first step and provided an outlet for the ambitions of his first recording artists, Andrea Moore and Desmond Lewis who had been playing around with 'Singsnap' and other music sites. However, it was difficult to push them into the upper end of their local chart, let alone sell any songs online. Gino himself reworked some music with the local bands and put together a collection of music from those musicians who were kind enough to give their time to an online project and Dingo Jacks support bands become another profile in their own right, with Gino himself adding his own interpretation of the Doctor Who theme. It was all good practice for what was to come.

Gino eventually discussed his ideas with an old friend of his called, John Sandow and explained how Reverbnation worked. He asked if John's marketing skills could be put to any use on this site as sitting at number 35 or lower in the local charts was really not much of an incentive for Andrea or Desmond. Several ideas were discussed and the conclusion was that the whole concept of online promotion had to be much wider and more comprehensive than just looking at one web service. Facebook and Myspace were the social internet giants and should be included in any form of online activity. From this discussion, Gateway Music Promotions was created in January 2010.