Thanks Woody (Allen) for highlighting this fact of life.  I was just reminded of it… was listening to my AltPopRock Pandora station and the Violent Femmes came on so I jumped over to Wikipedia for a refresh on their history and came across this compelling snippet of folk(rock) lore:

They were discovered by James Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would be playing later that night. Chrissie Hynde invited them to play a brief acoustic set after the opening act.

The universe works in mysterious ways.  Actually, I’m sure the VFs were savvy–picking a great time to busk (first time I’m using this word–ever!). But it does just show you that if you do what you love, and you’re persistent as hell about it…  you’re 80% there.