Mordgeld wrote:You know, writing off all the other bands because they aren't doing exactly what you want might be doing your visibility a disservice. ... But then, maybe San Jose is way different than Sacto. There are hundreds of working musicians where I practice. Maybe you should move a little farther north.
So, it's funny. I actually have a house in Stockton and a Condo in San Jose. I choose to look for musicians in San Jose because - so far - what I've found in the Central Valley is either all blues radio or, well, really awful. I'm sure there must be good musicians in the area, but I haven't been able to find them (and once again Craigslist, etc. have been pretty unhelpful). I've generally had much better luck in the Bay Area. I've thought about looking into Sacramento, but I'm even less connected there than in San Jose.
As for writing off bands: I'm in a band that's not really what I'm looking for. Two of them, in fact. I don't think I could stand a third. The thing is, one of these bands could so *easily* be exactly what I'm looking for if the band leader would just relax his rigid ideas about what music we should be playing. I like most of what we do now and I think it (mostly) works for our audiences, but I think we'd be doing a lot better if we fixed three things:
- Branch out on our repertoire. Just broaden our horizons a little.
- Get a better drummer.
- Drop a few songs that aren't working all that well.
The problem in San Jose is kind of weird. For the longest time everybody was looking for a bass player. You could find guitar players everywhere, but not bass players. But there are an awful lot of bass players in the area now. I'm not sure what happened, but I think some of it is that some of those guitar players discovered they could have more fun and work more if they played bass, except now that's not true. Another factor is that there just aren't that many venues left in the Bay Area. They're all switching to DJs or not having music at all.
My age is also an issue. At 57, a lot of the bands I would want to be in have a settled in lineup that they're not likely to change.
You don't work music, you play it.
Discipline is not the enemy of fun.