Make friends on facebook. Find bands that you like and message them saying how much you like their music and would like to play with you. Get their phone numbers, text them, got to bars for a few drinks and buy tickets to their shows. You get to hang out with them and get to discover new bands that you can make friends with as well. Don't be afraid to ask for phone numbers or facebook pages. I am really adamant about getting facebook pages from people, if i meet someone new and I like them, I pull out my phone and tell them to give me their facebook page so I can add them, if they don't have FB, then I get their number.
Be prepared to help other bands for nothing in return too, they will remember and may throw you a bone.
Since you are in Frisco, you could hit up Club Retro, its a Christian Church that started in Sacramento and eventually started a music program to give "teens" a place for creativity to keep them off the streets and drinking and doing drugs, all that whiteknight bullshit. But they let any band play at least once and they opened up a venue in downtown SF about a year ago. It won't be the most serious gig as the staff tend to not take themselves seriously or professionally, well everyone running it is usually unpaid interns for the church, usually know nothing about music but want to serve god so they can be brain dead at times. It is a good source to get your first few shows, play in front of 15-20 people and get the jitters and kinks out of the way. It will start your show resume for your band and you could find bands worth playing with at other venues.
Also, find other venues in the area and find out how to contact the promoters, if your music is good and you make them believe that you can draw a decent number you can get some shows fairly easily, especially if you have another band that can vouch for you on ethics, sound, showmanship and crowd draw.
If you are willing to travel up to Sacramento for shows, there is a well known venue around here call "Ace of Spades" which is becoming the next CBGB. They are slightly biased to generic hardrock, which I don't blame them, it sells and a lot of people are into it, including myself. If you can get your resume up, its a good venue to look at as a regular place to play.
and dont have the connections yet or experience where the heck would you try and gig first so you can mess up a bit and just get over those first few performance jitters. We are also in the san francisco bay area and still have trouble finding places that play straight forward rock or metal. So please shoot me any ideas
