General Music Chat

I posted this on Facebook some years ago. I also posted it on Craigslist. The backstory to this is I had just quit a band which was, um, going nowhere fast. Just before that one I had quit a band with one of the most anal-retentive guitarists in the history of music in it. Before that I had been in a band with a keyboard player who was, well, I think you get the picture...

Everything I describe in this post is derived from something that actually happened to me. I have to say that some of the responses I got made it clear that the instruments of each of the characters I describe are interchangeable - including the bass player.

I might have been in a bad mood when I posted this (any resemblance to actual people living or deceased is, well, not actual coincidence, but not really intentional either):

Bass Player looking for abusive band

I’m a bass player looking for a band. Under no circumstances should this band have any actual ambitions of playing bars, festivals, parties or weddings. The perfect band will be content to sit around the rehearsal studio playing lame prog-rock originals (or even better: thrash metal originals) that nobody actually wants to hear. Bonus points if we smoke pot and get drunk every rehearsal and sometimes forget to actually play our instruments.

If we do happen to play a gig, we should never accept money for it. Money just corrupts the art.

This band must include at least one guitarist who is convinced that all bass players are frustrated guitarists and will regularly insult both my intelligence and my playing. A really great example of this will make regular attempts to teach me how to play boogaloo patterns, major scales and minor arpeggios while questioning my dedication to my instrument. Also, regular snide comments on the professional quality equipment that I use would be just super.

A whiny keyboard player would help a lot as well. I’d prefer someone who is convinced that he is the only real musician in the band in any case, so it doesn’t actually matter if he plays over my part badly. I won’t mind, I’m just here to be insulted and abused in any case.

If the “singer” could round things out be being completely off key and out of time so he or she can tell me all about how wrong what I’m playing is that would be swell. Under no circumstances should he or she be a better singer than I am. That would just suck.

For the songlist we must avoid any songs that an audience might actually like to hear. Certainly nothing with a dance groove or regular radio airplay should be considered. Obscure, twenty minute tunes by obscure prog or metal bands would work. Or poorly written originals might be okay. Certainly less popular songs by artists from the sixties and seventies could be made to fit. If we are doing covers, the majority of the forty or so songs we play should be by two artists at most, preferably someone only the guitar player has heard of before.

All bass parts must be either quarter note roots (or sixteenth note roots for metal) and change no more often than every eight measures. Ideally, the bass line should be indistinguishable from the bass drum. Syncopation should be expressly forbidden.

Rehearsals should be randomly scheduled, poorly run and as unproductive as possible (see above about pot and drinking). Going through the same four songs for an entire hour and a half would be just awesome, especially if we do those same four songs the next rehearsal and the one after that. The other songs don’t actually matter, we’ll work them out at the (non-existent) gigs.

Does this sound like you, please, contact me immediately. My life is nowhere near miserable enough.

So are you still looking for that band?

It shouldn't be hard to find a band like that.

Talbot

That was a great ad. You should have a syndicated column.

So are you still looking for that band?

Well, no. But I found a couple of other bands with "creative" issues since then. Joined and then left after the problems got to be obvious.

That was a great ad. You should have a syndicated column.

I can't be sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but it case you're serious: this was a one-time thing born out of a moment of righteous anger. I had been on a roll joining one terrible band after another for a couple of years and it's barely possible that I was sick of them.

Even the best bands don't always work out in the long run. But the dysfunctional behavior I had been encountering on a pretty consistent basis was getting old.

An amusing postscript is that I just recently rejoined one of the bands which inspired that rant. The band leader fired everyone not long after I left. Whole new lineup, notably minus the "singer". Apparently he got into the habit of getting really drunk at every gig. I wasn't there for that, so I don't really know, but it sounds like it made a bad situation way worse. The new lineup is definitely better.

I mean, at the very least, they have a really awesome guy on bass.

Ha ha , very well written and funny but
Eerily true. Glad you have found a band, I am still looking . It's a tough business .

Ha ha , very well written and funny but
Eerily true. Glad you have found a band, I am still looking . It's a tough business .

Being in a band is like being married to every other member of the band. Unsurprisingly, sometimes people don't get along well. None of us would do it if the music weren't important to us.

Good luck. Keep at it. Remember that kissing frogs can lead to warts, so be ready to feed them to the snakes if they don't turn into princes. (How's that for really straining a metaphor to the point of breaking?)