Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Is there a working band whose members all met on Bandmix? If so, how far up the food chain did they go?
I'm a geezer who got into the business in 1975. In those days, club musicians in my neck of the woods were working 5-6 nights a week. And I'm talking about four and five-piece bands here. Some even had coveted "House" jobs, no equipment moving for years.
Of course, with the advent of the Mothers Against Live Music, DUI roadblocks, Karaoke, and other factors, the glory days ended in most places around 1990.
In the last ten years of my career, I was thrilled to play two nights a week. With the exception of certain gambling casinos here and there, are there any bands playing five nights a week anymore?
Can a full-size band make a living anymore? If so, then where? Is Bandmix helping?

Is that a painting or a window in your pic?
Anyways, there's tons of threads were each one talked bout their experience here.
The ones I found weren't on here unfortunately, however, I've been contacted/and contacted quite a few here.

That's the screen window of my back porch. Those birds are sandhill cranes. The water is a canal leading to the "wild and scenic" Myakka River. These cranes are wild birds who like people. They come around to my bird feeder almost every day.

Must be nice. It's like 20 degrees here today.

I haven't worked more than 2 nights a week since around '96, with a rare exception here or there.

Nobody else around these parts is either, far as I can tell.

The live stuff quit living around here way before then, though. I had to travel a 150 mile radius to get to play 4 & 5 nights a week.

Brute,
The old Otis Reading cover on my profile is a live midi disk recording of my band from last summer. Both the drummer and the guitar player were bandmix scores. Unfortunately, the drummer moved south and we disbanded because we all have to much other work to do at this time.

BandMix comes with no guarantees, but it does work.

When I can devote more time to rockin' it's my intent to utilize this site again to contact potential players. (I see a few people in my area currently on bandmix who I would be interested in jamming with if I had the time.)

As far as makin' bread gigin' like in the old days, hate to say it but, "time are tough all over, so , better not quit your day job".

Good luck with your search.
Howlin'

HowlinJ wrote:As far as makin' bread gigin' like in the old days, hate to say it but, "time are tough all over, so , better not quit your day job".

Unless you own the Bar you're giggin at. hmmmm.

sarahstear wrote:Unless you own the Bar you're giggin at. hmmmm.

Then you save -as the owner- cause you don't pay the band... but then you don't get paid for your gig - as the band.
It doesn't work

Playing 5+ nights a week means you are probably not working a day job, i.e. making a living at music performance. While not impossible, you will find fewer musicians are able to do that these days. Many mid level and acoustic acts can do it because of more venues (coffee houses, cafe's, smaller places), but the "bar band" is no longer a career option, if it ever really was.

Plenty of full bands are still making a living off performances, usually though it's the tribute bands and "A club" rock/dance bands who have the flexibility to do multi-state tours for weeks and months on end. Not a realistic option for most of us with families and day jobs.

I play 3-5 times a moth these days.

This place is mainly for shits and giggles for me and sharing info.

Oh yeah I like to mess with Crip and Philby, Philby is the biggest Zep fan on the planet. HA HA

I met Paleopete, when he trekked north a few weeks ago. That was cool.

I played with some guys last year that i met on here. Nice guys we just never did a real gig.

I dont know of anyone who put together a whole band on here and if they did we never heard fom them again.

This is a good place for mature conversation and occasionally even very immature conversation.

Welcome and have fun, as far as getting gigs or auditions here you need to stay patient.

jw123 wrote:This is a good place for mature conversation...

Like Crip's love for boobs.

jw123 wrote:...and occasionally even very immature conversation.

Like the religion/politics threads.

Ray and I met and started to play pre-Bandmix.
Eric and Steve were added through Bandmix.
We are not a "working band" exactly. But our project and original music compositions contine to grow in scope and quantity to this day.
Being a praise band I dont think we will ever meet any "working band" criteria. Yet we are accomplishing what we have set out to do thus far.
I feel the next year will be a test of our ability to stay active in composition and to grow more active in playing out in public.

actually... I think the first time I ran across Valerie (see my sig if you don't know) was on this site, via a post about putting together a backup band last summer. So technically, that could be a success story, although I think one of the other guys came from CL and then brought a friend of his into the project.

She's not up to 5 gigs a week, but averages 2-3, and is climbing.

The backup band only does about 30% of the shows currently, the rest is her doing the solo thing, simply because many of the venues are too small for a whole band.

None of us, including her, have quit our day jobs...


YET

For all it's worth Kramer. I am pulling for you all.

At times we've had three out of four Bandmix members (although I knew one before I was a Bandmix member).