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Topics specific to the localities in America.

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#198213 by Teaburst59
Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:51 pm
Ok I'm new to this forum and thought I would ask a question to everyone in all areas of this country.

I'm a native NYC guy and years ago when I was a kid in the late 70's early 80's there was plenty of music here.
Times have changed here and the culture of my home has been and is being erased. With this change for various reason, music here has become dead in the realm of Rock and Roll.
Your better off if you have a beard, ware flannel and play a banjo then where tight paints and use a Les Paul.

I'm having a really hard time finding band mates to play with to start a band or just even to jam with.

So How is it in other parts of the country?
And if there is anyone here in NYC that knows any people that want to play where are they?

#198219 by Brian01
Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:29 pm
Good old rip your face off late 60's, 70's, and early 80's hard/classic/glam rock is a dying breed, my friend.

I'm doing my best to keep it alive, as that is my era. I'm from the Zeppelin/Hendrix/Trower school, so I feel ya.

Look at today's popular music video's: all pop. Some of it is good, but it's not ripping my face off. There's also Kuntry.....:)

Billboard, Rolling Stone, MTV, you name it, it's all about pop, and country. At least the Country stuff requires musicianship. Pop as it is now, we have the record industry itself to blame, for the demise of GOOD Rock.....it costs a LOT less to produce your average pop, or rap/hippityhop album....... it's all copy/paste using samples. Play one bar, copy/paste.....good drum line? Copy/paste. Less dubbing, less 'do overs', less everything. Except the price of a CD didn't become 'less' :)

The few international Rock acts left that still put out albums requiring complicated recording techniques are iconic. They're safe bets. Rolling Stones? Aerosmith? They can record the sound of a turd getting squeezed out and hitting water, and it will sell.

A new rock band in the vein we're discussing? None. I don't see them except on Youtube. Some local band laying down the pain in some club under some bridge down some road in some suburban town in some midwest state.... somewhere......

I USED to wait for the bands/acts on Jay Leno, or Letterman, to keep abreast of latest trends........stopped doing that.....I can't believe some of these new acts are being signed.. but then again, many are getting signed to mini labels like Joe's Records

Meh.......

#198224 by Jahva
Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:06 pm
The industry as a whole is much different compared to back in those days. Gone but not forgotten. LOL!
As for Charlotte NC it's much like every other non-music town... meh.

Try Reverbnation... select a city and genre of music and you will find well produced talented people all over the country. I haven't searched NY but I'm sure there are plenty of HR-Rock acts still making some noise in the city. Yup even old school hard rockers. :lol:
THe genre ran out imo. Nothing new about it... kind of ssdd. Grunge pushed it aside followed by alternative. GnR was the last sucessfull member at least that I can recall.
Good luck to you!

#198234 by J-HALEY
Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:22 pm
Lots of bands here in Houston playing all kinds of music. Original and covers. I am seeing less of it lately on CL. I have noticed that bands looking for replacement members seem to come and go about every 3 or 4 months CL and other sites have lots of listings seeking members. Then it dries up for a while. Right now there is not much out there after the new year starts it usually picks up again. One thing I have learned in this business you have to be patient!

#198354 by Teaburst59
Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:37 pm
Thanks guys, Ya I understand what yous are all saying......:(
It's is a shame.
Hey maybe one day it will come back... NAAA

Kenny's Castaways is closed and Cafe Wha is a tourist trap.
The Village is a joke.

Man and I was not even around for all the real cool sh*t.

The one thing that's really hard is that you just can't play anywhere.
And Money that ant happening...

Connecticut you get paid...!!! Well I can't get up there don't have a drivers licence to get around LOLOL


I guess this is what getting old is like OH sh*t...LOLOLOL


I keep waiting and hoping and of coarse Playing !!!

#198356 by MikeTalbot
Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:42 pm
" guess this is what getting old is like OH sh*t"


Actually getting old is much much worse than that. :(

Good luck

Talbot

#198410 by fisherman bob
Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:15 am
There's no money to be made performing real music, I mean more than minimum wage money. Fewer places taking live bands, more bands trying to get into fewer places, more people willing to play for peanuts, in some cities people PAYING clubs to play. With a few exceptions I can't stand what's passing for "country" these days. I never have liked the term "blues rock." I've been in blues bands for 30 years. To me there's a clear separation between blues and rock. Just my opinion, but a true blues player has the blues. It can't be manufactured. Either you sound bluesy or not. I think it's your life experience manifesting itself through your instrument or voice. I've had a lot of turbulence in my life. That's why I play the blues.
Kansas City is supposed to be a great blues town. I'm not sure if it's any better or worse here than anywhere else. A few really great blues acts here don't perform here very often any more. No money here. People think the grass is greener somewhere else. At least in a few states now you can smoke the grass without fear of going to prison. But I'm not sure you can get a good paying gig there. Might as well stay put...

#198421 by t-Roy and The Smoking Section
Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:43 am
fisherman bob wrote:There's no money to be made performing real music,...





Not many people agree on what that actually is though, bob.



The world is a much more fractured and integrated place than it used to be. There are an infinite amount of "music worlds" on the planet with knowledge increasing like it has.

So it's just a glut of music, making it a buyer's market. An act has to be spectacularly unique and/or shocking (Gaga?) to be noticed en-masse in the mass-media realm anymore.

Or you can ignore what media says is "cool", make your own reality, and serve the needs of a local community. I assume there is still a need for people to sing the blues in Kansas City, but that crowd has also been fractured so again it's a matter of competing for the entertainment dollars of party-goers. You're either doing what they want and getting paid for it, or doing what you want and hopefully having fun and covering gas money until that becomes what an audience wants from you.


That was what I was pointing out when I talked about the Polish guy who DJ'd and played guitar for kareoke bar on nights his band wasn't playing (which is most nights!).

He does exactly what the audience wants on those nights and gets paid much better than when he plays with his band, and it allows him to sing & play guitar almost every night of the week in front of an audience...which is what a musician loves to do, right?

He is a full-time musician making great money but that got him a lot of sanctimonious criticism from the semi-pro bunch around here because it's beneath them to serve an audience. Don't know who originally said, "Give 'em what they want" but that shouldn't be a marketing secret to people who wish to be employed as musicians.

I'm not directing statement at you, ok? Just saying that it has always been a trade off in the arts to please current tastes versus creating something new/different.

It's just like investing everything into a business and lifting it into reality. It takes time, work, and commitment. A band is like a partnership and everyone wants to get "paid" something whether it's attention, pleasure, or cash.

#198428 by gbheil
Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:04 pm
The technology we embraced, the same technology that made the "DJ" and "Karijokie" a possibility spelled the death knell for the well paid troubadour.

Those glory days bands that all us older guys knew and loved ( or at least their management ) sucked all the life out of the arena era with greed.

When it got to where a working man had to save up in order to take his girl to a concert and buy her a T-shirt . . . that's when it went to sh*t.

I remeber when we used to say, hell lets go to a concert . . . and we'd just go.

#198430 by Mike Nobody
Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:18 pm
sanshouheil wrote:The technology we embraced, the same technology that made the "DJ" and "Karijokie" a possibility spelled the death knell for the well paid troubadour.

Those glory days bands that all us older guys knew and loved ( or at least their management ) sucked all the life out of the arena era with greed.

When it got to where a working man had to save up in order to take his girl to a concert and buy her a T-shirt . . . that's when it went to sh*t.

I remeber when we used to say, hell lets go to a concert . . . and we'd just go.


Punk rock bands routinely refuse to charge high prices.

Fugazi has had a policy, since the 80's, to never charge more than $5 bucks admission. They also NEVER sold any merchandise AT ALL. No shirts, no buttons, no glow-in-the-dark-dildos. Nothing.

It used to be pretty common for punk fans to make their own T-Shirts & buttons.

#198433 by gbheil
Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:24 pm
Mike Nobody wrote:
sanshouheil wrote:The technology we embraced, the same technology that made the "DJ" and "Karijokie" a possibility spelled the death knell for the well paid troubadour.

Those glory days bands that all us older guys knew and loved ( or at least their management ) sucked all the life out of the arena era with greed.

When it got to where a working man had to save up in order to take his girl to a concert and buy her a T-shirt . . . that's when it went to sh*t.

I remeber when we used to say, hell lets go to a concert . . . and we'd just go.


Punk rock bands routinely refuse to charge high prices.

Fugazi has had a policy, since the 80's, to never charge more than $5 bucks admission. They also NEVER sold any merchandise AT ALL. No shirts, no buttons, no glow-in-the-dark-dildos. Nothing.

It used to be pretty common for punk fans to make their own T-Shirts & buttons.


I was unaware of that. Got to give them props there.

#198461 by t-Roy and The Smoking Section
Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:47 pm
Mike Nobody wrote:Punk rock bands routinely refuse to charge high prices.

Fugazi has had a policy, since the 80's, to never charge more than $5 bucks admission. They also NEVER sold any merchandise AT ALL. No shirts, no buttons, no glow-in-the-dark-dildos. Nothing.

It used to be pretty common for punk fans to make their own T-Shirts & buttons.




That's a good example of musicians serving the needs of a community, btw.

Punk gave voice to an unsatisfied youth in the UK, and when it came to CBGBs, it was serving the same need in NYC with the addition of presenting new fashion.





.

#198468 by Mike Nobody
Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:28 pm
yod wrote:
Mike Nobody wrote:Punk rock bands routinely refuse to charge high prices.

Fugazi has had a policy, since the 80's, to never charge more than $5 bucks admission. They also NEVER sold any merchandise AT ALL. No shirts, no buttons, no glow-in-the-dark-dildos. Nothing.

It used to be pretty common for punk fans to make their own T-Shirts & buttons.




That's a good example of musicians serving the needs of a community, btw.

Punk gave voice to an unsatisfied youth in the UK, and when it came to CBGBs, it was serving the same need in NYC with the addition of presenting new fashion.


I know it's a common misconception that punk originated in the UK.
They grabbed more headlines early on.
But, the Ramones preceded the Sex Pistols by a few years.
At their first show in England, many saw their first punk rock show and formed their own bands which became quite famous.

Malcolm McClaren also borrowed the 'fashion' from guys like Richard Hell, and sold it in his shop.

Also, if you wanna be nitpicky...
BOTH British and New York punks were huge fans of The Stooges & The MC5.
You could say punk rock originated in Detroit then, as well as Funk, Techno, and Motown.
You're welcome.

#198483 by VinnyViolin
Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:51 pm
Mike Nobody wrote:
yod wrote:
Mike Nobody wrote:Punk rock bands routinely refuse to charge high prices.

Fugazi has had a policy, since the 80's, to never charge more than $5 bucks admission. They also NEVER sold any merchandise AT ALL. No shirts, no buttons, no glow-in-the-dark-dildos. Nothing.

It used to be pretty common for punk fans to make their own T-Shirts & buttons.




That's a good example of musicians serving the needs of a community, btw.

Punk gave voice to an unsatisfied youth in the UK, and when it came to CBGBs, it was serving the same need in NYC with the addition of presenting new fashion.


I know it's a common misconception that punk originated in the UK.
They grabbed more headlines early on.
But, the Ramones preceded the Sex Pistols by a few years.
At their first show in England, many saw their first punk rock show and formed their own bands which became quite famous.

Malcolm McClaren also borrowed the 'fashion' from guys like Richard Hell, and sold it in his shop.

Also, if you wanna be nitpicky...
BOTH British and New York punks were huge fans of The Stooges & The MC5.
You could say punk rock originated in Detroit then, as well as Funk, Techno, and Motown.
You're welcome.


Funk originated in Detroit? No, definitely not! Try New Orleans.

Wikipedia wrote:History (of Funk)

The distinctive characteristics of African-American musical expression are rooted in sub-Saharan African music traditions, and find their earliest expression in spirituals, work chants/songs, praise shouts, gospel, blues, and "body rhythms" (hambone, patting juba, and ring shout clapping and stomping patterns). Funk music is an amalgam of soul music, soul jazz, R&B, and Afro-Cuban rhythms absorbed and reconstituted in New Orleans.
New Orleans

Gerhard Kubik notes that with the exception of New Orleans, early blues lacked complex polyrhythms, and there was a "very specific absence of asymmetric time-line patterns (key patterns) in virtually all early twentieth century African American music . . . only in some New Orleans genres does a hint of simple time line patterns occasionally appear in the form of transient so-called 'stomp' patterns or stop-time chorus. These do not function in the same way as African time lines."[9]

In the late 1940s this changed somewhat when the two-celled time line structure was brought into New Orleans blues. New Orleans musicians were especially receptive to Afro-Cuban influences precisely at the time when R&B was first forming.[10] Dave Bartholomew and Professor Longhair (Henry Roeland Byrd) incorporated Afro-Cuban instruments, as well as the clave pattern and related two-celled figures in songs such as "Carnival Day," (Bartholomew 1949) and "Mardi Gras In New Orleans" (Longhair 1949). Robert Palmer reports that, in the 1940s, Professor Longhair listened to and played with musicians from the islands and "fell under the spell of Perez Prado's mambo records."[7] Professor Longhair's particular style was known locally as rumba-boogie.[11] One of Longhair's great contributions was his particular approach of adopting two-celled, clave-based patterns into New Orleans rhythm and blues (R&B). Longhair's rhythmic approach became a basic template of funk. According to Dr. John (Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr.), the Professor "put funk into music . . . Longhair's thing had a direct bearing I'd say on a large portion of the funk music that evolved in New Orleans."[12] In his "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," the pianist employs the 2-3 clave onbeat/offbeat motif in a rumba-boogie "guajeo" (below).[13] The 2-3 clave time-line is written above the piano excerpt for reference.
Piano excerpt from the rumba boogie "Mardi Gras in New Orleans" (1949) by Professor Longhair. 2-3 clave is written above for rhythmic reference.

The syncopated, but straight subdivision feel of Cuban music (as opposed to swung subdivisions) took root in New Orleans R&B during this time. Stewart states: "Eventually, musicians from outside of New Orleans began to learn some of the rhythmic practices [of the Crescent City]. Most important of these were James Brown and the drummers and arrangers he employed. Brown's early repertoire had used mostly shuffle rhythms, and some of his most successful songs were 12/8 ballads (e.g. 'Please, Please, Please' (1956), 'Bewildered' (1961), 'I Don't Mind' (1961)). Brown's change to a funkier brand of soul required 4/4 metre and a different style of drumming."[14] Stewart makes the point: "The singular style of rhythm & blues that emerged from New Orleans in the years after World War II played an important role in the development of funk. In a related development, the underlying rhythms of American popular music underwent a basic, yet generally unacknowledged transition from triplet or shuffle feel to even or straight eighth notes."[15]

After 1965, Brown's bandleader and arranger was Alfred 'Pee Wee' Ellis. Ellis credits Clyde Stubblefield's adoption of New Orleans drumming techniques, as the basis of modern funk: "If, in a studio, you said 'play it funky' that could imply almost anything. But 'give me a New Orleans beat' - you got exactly what you wanted. And Clyde Stubblefield was just the epitome of this funky drumming."[16] Watch: "Clyde Stubblefield/ Funky Drummer." Stewart states that the popular feel was passed along from "New Orleans—through James Brown's music, to the popular music of the 1970s."[15] Concerning the various funk motifs, Stewart states: "This model, it should be noted, is different from a time line (such as clave and tresillo) in that it is not an exact pattern, but more of a loose organizing principle."[17]
1960s: James Brown and the development of funk
James Brown, one of the founding fathers of funk

Little Richard's saxophone-studded, mid-1950s R&B road band was credited by James Brown and others as being the first to put the funk in the rock'n'roll beat.[18] Following his temporary exit from secular music to become an evangelist in 1957, some of Little Richard's band members joined Brown and The Famous Flames, beginning a long string of hits for them in 1958.

By the mid-1960s, James Brown had developed his signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure to etch his distinctive sound, rather than the backbeat that typified African American music.[19] Brown often cued his band with the command "On the one!," changing the percussion emphasis/accent from the one-two-three-four backbeat of traditional soul music to the one-two-three-four downbeat – but with an even-note syncopated guitar rhythm (on quarter notes two and four) featuring a hard-driving, repetitive brassy swing. This one-three beat launched the shift in Brown's signature music style, starting with his 1964 hit single, "Out of Sight" and his 1965 hit, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag".

Brown's style of funk was based on interlocking, contrapuntal parts: funky bass lines, drum patterns, and syncopated guitar riffs.[20] The main guitar ostinatos for "Aint" it Funky" (c. late 1960s) is an example of Brown's refinement of New Orleans funk— an irresistibly danceable riff, stripped down to its rhythmic essence. On "Aint" it Funky" the tonal structure is bare bones.
Guitar part for "Aint" it Funky" by James Brown.

"Bring it Up" has an Afro-Cuban guajeo-like structure. If fact, on a 1976 version, Cuban bongos are used.
Guitar part for "Bring it Up" by James Brown (1967).

Brown's innovations led to him and his band becoming the seminal funk act; they also pushed the funk music style further to the forefront with releases such as "Cold Sweat" (1967), "Mother Popcorn" (1969) and "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" (1970), discarding even the twelve-bar blues featured in his earlier music. Instead, Brown's music was overlaid with "catchy, anthemic vocals" based on "extensive vamps" in which he also used his voice as "a percussive instrument with frequent rhythmic grunts and with rhythm-section patterns ... [resembling] West African polyrhythms" – a tradition evident in African American work songs and chants.[21] Throughout his career, Brown's frenzied vocals, frequently punctuated with screams and grunts, channeled the "ecstatic ambiance of the black church" in a secular context.[21]

In a 1990 interview, Brown offered his reason for switching the rhythm of his music: "I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat.... Simple as that, really."[22] According to Maceo Parker, Brown's former saxophonist, playing on the downbeat was at first hard for him and took some getting used to. Reflecting back to his early days with Brown's band, Parker reported that he had difficulty playing "on the one" during solo performances, since he was used to hearing and playing with the accent on the second beat.

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