General Music Chat

I kinda took a little break over the last couple of months from playing. I think I burnt myself out last year doing band gigs, duo gigs, and solo gigs. I know Im not a true working musician but when I added it up I did around 40 gigs last year plus some recording and writing.

This past weekend I got one of my electrics out and just started playing again. Its amazing how fresh it can feel to step away for a bit and come back to music. Ive got to get the ole chops back up cause we have booked a coiuple of things starting in April, I think the band and I have decided not to overdo it and just maybe line up a gig every 6 weeks or so, plus there is some discussion about writing some original stuff and recording some more covers.

So things are going good on my end at the moment. Just thought I would share and hope everyone is rocking out.

Yeah, it's a really good to mix it up from time to time.
What I mean is, musically, do one thing for a while, then something else, then something else.
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I decided on no gigging for a bit, not even open mikes, where I have a lot of friends.
I started playing by myself, for myself . . . reminded me of why I'm doing it all . . . I needed the release . . .
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And I've been gradually throwing new material at the band; got an eye to gigging in the spring & summer.
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Last night I listened to a dozen videos of us performing, from last year. There were some things I'd been glossing over, without realizing it . . . really stood out to me.
I see where the band needs changes.
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I think it's important to get away from that which we're extremely used-to.
Then when we go back to it - we see different things than before.

Good to hear JW Thanks for sharing man.

Things are good here too. Audian is playing regularly (I'll be able to adjust my profile soon on the amount of gigs played, lol). We played two shows in the past month, have two more scheduled for early March and may play another one in late March.

My cover band is sans bassist, but working on material as a 3-piece and trying to get a gig at a local place.

Gotta love music man!

After hanging it up for 25+ years, when I started again it was like a breath of fresh air. It was just fun, like it used to be before I started prostituting my music 7 days a week.

Gigging for a living was fun, but it got so old I eventually dreaded even picking up a guitar. It caused me to loose my first love, just sitting down with my guitar to see what comes out of it. It's nice to get the magic back.

Hope you enjoy the change.

JW that is really cool that you guys have that sort of understanding.
You keep rockin and thanx for all the pix.

I can only dream of a 40 gig year.
Here it is nearly March, and we still have not gotten our big publicity push saddled up. We have started on the 7 song demo, yet uncompleted. And picked up a couple of fun gigs. Have made the initial contact to get a pro photo shoot done. Rays produced a new logo for the band.
But I can't help but feel some anxiety or perhaps it's a sense of urgency. I feel like I'm boxing with one hand.
I know Steve-o feels it too because we often discuss it amongst ourselves.
It is funny to me how I reside in such a different place as some of you more experienced musicians.
Though I admit, I still feel a kinship with you too.

Good for you for taking a break! Many of us don't know when to take a break (especially musicians), and get burned out like you mentioned. I'm glad you got the refresher you needed. As far as getting your chops, they'll come back and then some.

I've put the ol' bass down a little bit after starting school back in Sept 09. In fact, I sold one of my basses to the studio that I use to record at because they needed a good bass with great tone they could depend on since I was taking my leave. I haven't gotten my bass back out yet, but I look forward to doing so soon!

I can relate to everything you are saying. Sometims you just need to recharge your batteries. Sometimes when you're in it thick you can't really see what's going on. This is a great topic, I'm glad you brought it up. My band is headed toward a busier period at the end of March, we've got some new venues we'll be playing at. Looking forward to it, but also NOT looking forward to getting stale. It's easy to get stale. I want to gig and make more $ AND establish ourselves as a go-to band for new venues. We've got the personel to make a big splash but it won't happen IMO without infusing new material and new ideas CONTINUOUSLY into the mix. There has to be a balance between doing too much and doing too little...

The funny thing is that i had been the driving force on getting my band gigs the last 2-3 years. I think last winter we overplayed, I mean when you have jobs, kids, and just all the other things in life that come along playing 5-6 gigs a month just doesnt make sense. We dont make enough money from gigs to make it that big of a difference econmically to anyone in the band. We do get paid, weve set our rate at $600 a night and folks are coming to the plate all the sudden, so thats $150 a man. But for me a gig is about 15-20 hours total. Between lining them up promoting, and then the physical setup of our pa and lights. Plus our band is very very physical live. I have only seen a couple of other band sin our area that come close to what we do physically. And most of them were half our age and only play a long set whereas we do a 4 hr show. Our last show left me so physically exhausted that I had to come back a couple of days later and tear everythign down. So I had burned out, plain and simple. I had been doing a solo, duo thing that was fun, and the setup was a breeze a couple of speakers and a couple of mics, in and out in less than 10 minutes. But after doing a few of these it just got boring. I was meant to rock out, people talk about not compromising their music well for me its more about the presentation at this point. When someone comes to see me play I want them to remember.

Anyway, after we had fulfilled all our commitments, Ijust laid back for a while. Now the other guys are coming to me ready to get out and do some playing again. Im very lucky to be involved with a group of musicians that I have a lot of history with and who push me as a player. When I decided to get back playing 3-4 years ago I cant remember how many auditions I went to that just werent what I was looking for. In this case. Things fell in place to get my old Aint Yo Mama band back together.The drummer is my best friend and we go back to playing in bands in junior high with each other. The singer was around then and is our age but we never actually played with him until the mid 80s, our bassist came into the picture in the mid 90s, so you can see our band has a 20+ yr history.

I guess haveing a history and musical background with each other like we do is not a very common thing these days. Especially when I hear all the storys on here about trying to get members. I cant remember us ever really arguing about what to play. The fact is the level of each of us as players we can play anything we want to play. If someone brings in something to play, we play it a couple of times. If it works and suits our style we keep playing if not we dump it. Its weird cause when we do play something that doesnt work we all jsut kind of look at each other and say OK lets forget that one. And yea we play all the stuff that noone wants to play other than Freebird, which we have done once or twice as a lark, just to shut hecklers up. So our band has a sense of humor about it that most seem to miss. I meet guys in some bands and they are so wrapped up in doing this song or that song that they forget that your job if your being paid is to entertain an audience. If you cant entertain them with what you are doing then its not working. I see so many fresh cover band sin my area doing music that I love to listen to as a musician, but audiences just look at them like what the f**k is that.

Anyway I do feel fortunate to be in the position Im in with a peer group of musicians that are family. I can only wish that others on here would get into that kind of situation.

Keep Rockin