General Music Chat

Auditioning for a start-up Neil Young tribute band tonight. I was just going to turn it down (as it's probably more than 50% electric guitar ) but wife said I should check it out anyway. The singer has some cred, at least, and the practice space is less than 5 minutes form where I live.
Auditioned a guitarist last week, but I should have asked more questions first (wasted an evening). I am NOT trying to form a duo again. And start-ups? Too much work to "get there".

Keep rocking, mike.....













...in the free world!

Everybody knows....










...this is nowhere.

saw Neil Young sitting in with The Band on PBS the other night, it was the famous The Waltz film.. never did understand that music, it was not quite country, not quite folk, not quite rock-n-roll, not jazz , not fusion..sorta genre-less..

"Folk" music is an old english term for music that comes from "folk" (people below nobility class).....the uneducated and self-taught bards who used cheaply made instruments.

So really, anything that isn't well-funded or comes from someone playing by ear could be defined as "folk", though some of it is well-funded and played by educated musicians.

Neil Young is in a sub-genre of rock. I'd call (most of) it acoustic singer/songwriter folk.



It's better to burn out than to fade away...hey hey my my

Neil Young, acoustic folk singer songwriter yadda yadda yadda... I tell ya, you ever hear The Horse live?

Neil Young, acoustic folk singer songwriter yadda yadda yadda... I tell ya, you ever hear The Horse live?

Yeah, the proposed set(s) list has a lot of deep cut Crazy Horse stuff on it, was listening and learning a bunch of tunes yesterday. Good thing about NY songs - they are not hard to play!
Besides not really wanting to go back to the usual 'electric band' thing, I wonder how many gigs there really are around here for this type of thing. There is one local (quite good) NY tribute band called 'Rust Never Sleeps', they do 6-10 gigs a year.

Neil Young, acoustic folk singer songwriter yadda yadda yadda... I tell ya, you ever hear The Horse live?

Listen to the 'Reactor' album?

My Army Jeep is still alive
Got lock-in hubs and four-wheel drive
Ain't got no radio, ain't got no mag wheels
Ain't got no digital clock, ain't got no car!

The paint job is lookin' blue
The whitewalls are missing too
Guess I wait 'til I get my car back
This will do

Gotta love Neil!!

I love Reactor because it seems to be the turning point from his Buffalo Springfield lead guitar style to his 80s/ 90s style.

I love Reactor because it seems to be the turning point from his Buffalo Springfield lead guitar style to his 80s/ 90s style.

Come clean, Schmeddy!! You love Reactor because it's the heaviest album he ever made!!

Zuma was really Neil's 'coming out' album as a lead player, 'Cortez the Killer' being his rock anthem.

Heaviest is subjective. Ragged Glory was my longtime favorite. Plenty heavy and the vocals weren't so squeaky and falsetto as Reactor. Then Broken Arrow became my favorite album. Heard those?

No Schmeddy, can't say I have.
I was listening to Neil back in the day so Zuma was kind of my peak w/ him in '75.
Reactor was just a freak circumstance w/ me. I never listened to the 'Rust Era' stuff.

Broken Arrow is from '96, Ragged Glory - '90.

https://youtu.be/j1-qvGcqTqs?list=PLsfWqgTJO2AxBtTGT-JOoPWakqD6yK8gy

https://youtu.be/AslYhPhmuts

We played for about 2-1/2 hours last night. Drummer didn't really know any Neil songs, so kept it pretty even-tempoed.
Some of the tunes we did:
Cortez the Killer
Ramada Inn
Out on the Weekend
Rocking the Free World
Country Home
Love and Only Love
Buffalo Springfield Again
Falling From Above
Be The Rain
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
Human Highway

Only 3 songs used acoustic guitars, the rest were all-electric. Singer was good, as was the lead guitarist. But they don't have any clue on what/where on gigs in the area. And that's my dread - 6 months of rehearsals only to find that there's a chance at 1 gig a month for $300 (split 5 ways). The lack of good-paying venues around here means every band is competing for the same weekend gigs - I know bands that are booking into June of next year already at these places because they can only get a gig at them once every 4+ months. It also means that many bands are going the 'trio' route- guitar/bass/drums so at least they're making $100 each.
As I said before, I'm really not looking to go the full-electric route any more. I was hoping that they might want to be at least half-acoustic, but the initial proposed set list (3 sets) had just 5 acoustic songs, so I knew the chances were slim.
It was fun jamming on the songs, first time I've done more than a couple of songs that way in a long time, but I sent a 'thanks, but no thanks' email this morning.

was there a good crowd Mike?