Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Well gents, I'm excited to announce that my efforts have really paid off-

This week I formally accepted an invitation to join Valerie Nicole's back up band ( http://www.valerienicole.net ), and have begun practicing with them. The level of musicianship in this band is just jaw-dropping. I even wonder to myself if I'm out of my league, but they seem to like what I'm doing, so yay me!

Valerie is an amazing singer and songwriter that I think has a very promising career ahead of her.

What got me there- un-ending local networking and attending open mic nights. I can't stress enough to aspiring and new musicians to get out there and MAKE things happen. I've played with probably 15-20 different bands and independent musicians over the last three months and just being aggressive, friendly, helpful, and having fun making music has been the most rewarding experience in my musical history.

I'm still playing with my current band as well, so things are certainly busy.

oh well, just had to release some of this positive energy via the forums.. lol

carry on!

She sounds pro and modern. CONGRATS!! work it!!! Best of luck.

And now I'm listening to "Naive". Man that song is way to straight for me to be enjoying it this much. I'm excited for you!

neanderpaul wrote:And now I'm listening to "Naive". Man that song is way to straight for me to be enjoying it this much. I'm excited for you!

My fav is 'His Love', I just like the up/down of the song. THere's another one called Demons that will be on the CD that's just awesome and really dark that's probably my favorite song of hers.

Glad you like

Congrats! I ws just looking at her gig dates on her myspace... She's gigging every other freakin' day.... There's my dream... making a living full time playing.... Are you gonna play all those dates??

Crip2Nite wrote:Congrats! I ws just looking at her gig dates on her myspace... She's gigging every other freakin' day.... There's my dream... making a living full time playing.... Are you gonna play all those dates??

Thanks Crip, not at first, she's got a nice acoustic/keyboard solo routine, but with the new CD, she's looking to the full band to 'tour' the cd at the bigger venues. We're doing her release party as the first full-band gig on Jan 9th, and then I guess we go from there.

Best of luck tooya.... That'd be awesome to play full time... A very serious dream of mine as I hate with a passion what I do for a living now but it pays the bills

well I certainly ain't quittin the day job either lol, but as a guy near 40, it's nice to know that I can (and have) exceeded my own expectations, as well as get to don a hearty "Yuck Fou!" to all the negative assholes (former bandmates, locals) who told me I had no chance of being more than a corner-bar-band-playing-freebird guitarist because of my age.

Go Kramerguy go!!!

Yeah - you go boy!

Hmm always thought of you as the prog guitarist. Anyways, grats

Andragon wrote:Hmm always thought of you as the prog guitarist. Anyways, grats

Always thought of myself as a prog too, but I discovered pretty quickly that to get gigs with any band, you gotta play popular music, so I never really found what I was looking for (was never really even sure what I was looking for), so I changed the strategy to projects that were interesting, and many have been out of my comfort zone. I've learned by huge leaps and bounds just by having to step up.

What really calls to me with this project is that I get to come up with all the lead guitar lines (prog! heh) on original music. Sure, I don't have the final say in what stays or goes, but at the same time, I'm getting far more creative input than doing covers.

Congratulations Kramerguy, it's a good thing to step out of our comfort zones we learn a lot faster that way, sounds like a great opportunity.
Have fun!!!!!!!!