Author Topic: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread  (Read 300721 times)

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Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #385 on: April 20, 2014, 08:49:57 PM »
I'm pretty excited. We might actually form two bands together; both of them play guitar and drums. Stephen writes metal and JT writes rock, so the idea is that:

Metal Band
Me - Bass, Vocals
Stephen - Guitar
JT - Either drums or guitar if we can find another drummer

Rock Band
Me - Bass
Stephen - Drums
JT - Vocals, Guitar

Ha ha, our new drummer is named JT, too!

We played for a couple hours yesterday, he literally hadn't played in four years, and he already smoked our other drummer.  He was late to the audition because he had to stop by the storage unit to pick up his drums, where they'd been for the last 3 1/2 years.  His old band broke up, he kept his drums around for a while, then finally stashed them.  He and his wife swapped cars and keys for the day because he needed the truck to move the drums, but he forgot that his copy of the strorage unit key was on his keys.

Anyway, he showed up late, explained why -- during which time it came up that he hadn't played in four years, but he'd "listened to the songs a few times this week" -- and I'm thinking "Shit, what have we gotten ourselves into?"  But he set up pretty quickly, didn't warm up much at all, and said he was ready to go.  He was amazing.  We have a new drummer.

So at this point, the only original members are John and Karen.  I came in later, and actually am next in "seniority", although I'll admit that that doesn't actually mean much in a band.  At this point, it's pulling your weight, practicing, showing up to rehearsals on time and prepared, basically doing your job.  I just think it's amusing.  This whole process has been amusing.

Emails went out last night; John was specifically asking for a Yay or Nay vote on whether we replace Terry with JT.  I voted Yay.  I would not have sought to replace someone pre-emptively like this, but since John had set it all up and asked, and I don't have to do the actual firing, well yeah, JT does seem a better fit, and is a better drummer anyway.  Round and round she goes...

Offline JayOctavarium

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #386 on: April 27, 2014, 01:34:57 PM »
We played for a couple hours yesterday, he literally hadn't played in four years, and he already smoked our other drummer.  He was late to the audition because he had to stop by the storage unit to pick up his drums, where they'd been for the last 3 1/2 years.  His old band broke up, he kept his drums around for a while, then finally stashed them.  He and his wife swapped cars and keys for the day because he needed the truck to move the drums, but he forgot that his copy of the strorage unit key was on his keys.

Anyway, he showed up late, explained why -- during which time it came up that he hadn't played in four years, but he'd "listened to the songs a few times this week" -- and I'm thinking "Shit, what have we gotten ourselves into?"  But he set up pretty quickly, didn't warm up much at all, and said he was ready to go.  He was amazing.  We have a new drummer.

So at this point, the only original members are John and Karen.  I came in later, and actually am next in "seniority", although I'll admit that that doesn't actually mean much in a band.  At this point, it's pulling your weight, practicing, showing up to rehearsals on time and prepared, basically doing your job.  I just think it's amusing.  This whole process has been amusing.

Emails went out last night; John was specifically asking for a Yay or Nay vote on whether we replace Terry with JT.  I voted Yay.  I would not have sought to replace someone pre-emptively like this, but since John had set it all up and asked, and I don't have to do the actual firing, well yeah, JT does seem a better fit, and is a better drummer anyway.  Round and round she goes...

You realize your position in the band makes you LaBrie, right? So like... when is your anniversary?

This story is what keeps me coming back to this subforum :)
I just don't understand what they were trying to achieve with any part of the song, either individually or as a whole. You know what? It's the Platypus of Dream Theater songs. That bill doesn't go with that tail, or that strange little furry body, or those webbed feet, and oh god why does it have venomous spurs!? And then you find out it lays eggs too. The difference is that the Platypus is somehow functional despite being a crazy mishmash or leftover animal pieces

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Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #387 on: May 14, 2014, 12:05:41 PM »
The Continuing Saga of Orbert's Band...

So JT is our new drummer, and he's working out really well.  At the first practice with him as an official member, he brought his Roland V-Drums, and this made a huge difference.  For those who aren't familiar, these are electronic drums, good ones.  Unless you have walls, any band rehearsal basically has to be at least as loud as the drummer, but most of the time you don't want to practice at full volume in the basement.  V-Drums, like all electronic drums, have a volume control.  Problem solved.  We can now actually hear each other, say things to each other, verbally cue each other, while we're playing.  This is huge.

During that same rehearsal, we put some polish on "Set 1".  11 songs, since we dropped one due to not having someone who can sing it ("High On You" by Survivor).  It's not really Set 1 in that these aren't the eleven songs we'll always play first set or anything, but we'd originally put together a list of 12, and as we approached it, it was something like a goal, a milestone.  Once we have a complete set, we actually have something, and it kinda stuck.  We played through them all, and they're pretty tight.  Most are performance quality.  Actually all of them are, depending on how drunk the audience is.  In other words, the ones not quite perfect, we can fake well enough.

So last night we worked up three more songs, the supposed start of Set 2, and it occurs to me now that it's becoming sillier and sillier to use that terminology, but whatever.  It's easier than calling them Songs 12 through 15.  Obviously once it comes time to play a gig, we'll decide on actual set lists.

I am now officially keyboards, woodwinds, and background vocals.  Whoa.  Keys of course, sax on a couple of songs, and we talked about the occassional flute (some Jethro Tull, also maybe "Land Down Under" by Men at Work).  Last night, one of the songs on the list was "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." by John Mellencamp, and it has a short recorder solo in it.  Since I'm the woodwind guy, I worked up the solo and brought one of my recorders.  Hey, we start by covering the song as close to verbatim as possible; we introduce possible deviations later.  So John set up a mike for me and I took the solo.  Later, while working on "Show Me the Way" by Peter Frampton, I was helping the others by singing the different parts, and finally they said I should just sing the lower part.  Suddenly John is talking about other songs where it would help if I sang, too.  So add background vocals to the list.

Good rehearsal.  We settled on Monday nights, but it was Tuesday this week because Mike was out of town Monday.  I'm not thrilled about rehearsing on a weeknight since I live half an hour away and have to haul, set up, break down, and haul again all my gear every time, plus leave it in the car all day at work (John's house is on my way home from work), but it's the day that worked best for all.  We must all sacrifice for our art.

Offline tiagodon

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #388 on: May 14, 2014, 01:12:15 PM »
Orbert,

How is market vibe there in your town? I mean, your band is playing covers, right? The places you got there to play a gig, like pubs and bars, are more receptive to covers? No plans for songs of your own?

Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #389 on: May 14, 2014, 03:09:41 PM »
If you play in a cover band in bars, you play covers.  If you're really good you might get away with playing a cover or two per night, but it has to sound just like everything else you're playing.  The audience has to think that it's just something they've never heard before.  If you ever say "This next one is an original..." then they're already halfway to the bathrooms, so you don't say that.  If you're really ballsy (and really good) you might say "Thank you, that was an original" at the end.  But really, what's the point?  They don't care that you play your own music.  They probably don't want you to play your own music.  They're there to drink, dance, hit up chicks, and listen to songs they know being played reasonably well.

I would have no idea how a band would gig playing originals.  Jazz, sure.  There are clubs and coffee houses all over the northern burbs.  But not the bars, not rock and roll.

Offline tiagodon

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #390 on: May 14, 2014, 04:18:21 PM »
Yes, I think that is the main picture everywhere.
In my case, as I get older, as a musician, I feel I have no more patience for covers. I play the guitar and the drums, and I can't stand replicating other people's material anymore. It gets boring with time! And the price is: you won't have where to play a gig. That's why I started an instrumental band. No voice. And no covers. As long as it is just instrumental, nobody cares if it is original or not. As you said, people are there to drink and chat. All you have to do is giving them a nice musical background so they can free themselves and run away from whatever they are running away from.

Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #391 on: May 14, 2014, 05:07:56 PM »
That sounds pretty cool.  The genre still matters, though, at least around here.  As I said, there are places for jazz combos and soloists to play, although again it obviously helps if you're really good.  Instrumental rock, I don't even know.

Offline Lucien

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #392 on: May 24, 2014, 09:26:05 PM »
So here's a general post for the things I've composed that I consider actual compositions, from most recent to oldest:

https://soundcloud.com/alittledangerous/end-of-the-tunnel
https://soundcloud.com/alittledangerous/zephyros-suite-for-orchestra
https://musescore.com/user/100120/scores/181182

In total I've actually made like 6 or 7 things that I actually consider complete, but I also consider them too immature to be acknowledged.
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Offline Sketchy

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #393 on: May 31, 2014, 11:38:18 AM »
I have decided to start getting music lessons again (I had some in keyboard when I was at school) as I have decided that I wish to be a better musician than I am currently, and also because the newest thing I bought has a very unusual finger-picking technique (you flick the strings with fake nails rather than plucking.

But yes, I've got yet another chinese instrument, this time it is a pipa.
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Offline tiagodon

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #394 on: June 04, 2014, 12:58:02 PM »
The crappy thing about bands is dealing with people. It´s worse than a marriage because you have to deal with more than one! People being late, people wanting to be in a band but not wanting to play, people being reckless, people being ill all the time… You know that perfect fucked up guy? The guy that has no money and every shitty thing in the world happens to him? And what about the ones that think they can play and just waste your precious time? And the ones that look perfect but soon you find out the creature has no car?! This musical world… goddamn it… the most fucked up people are there!

Sorry for this unleashing moment…

Offline robwebster

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #395 on: June 07, 2014, 07:10:46 AM »
I sort of know what you mean - but it's a give and take. I do prefer to do things alone, as much as possible, because, as you say, you're not relying on other people. What I lose, though, is support and flexibility. If you're writing music as a band, you have instant feedback on your melodies and riffs, when something's not working you'll hear about it, and more crucially, other people will be producing ideas when you hit the wall. On your own, you can very easily lose faith in your song, and lose momentum when none of your ideas seem to fit and nobody else is generating them. You get more inertia with a band, yes, but you can also build more momentum.

The other useful thing with a band, is a range of talents. I'm good at bass and keyboard, and I can put together a passable drum track, but my singing's shaky and I can't play guitar for toffee - so I end up writing songs with very few riffs. Alone, you're defined by your limitations, whereas a band is usually better defined by its members' various strengths.

Not that limitations are always a bad thing. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #396 on: June 07, 2014, 08:48:50 AM »
You can tell I don't visit this subforum very often (despite being a musician) since I didn't even know this thread existed.

Should it be stickied, like the other chat threads?
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Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #397 on: June 07, 2014, 02:53:44 PM »
Not a bad idea.  I follow it anyway, but it might help generate more traffic.

Offline tiagodon

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #398 on: June 07, 2014, 05:48:24 PM »
I sort of know what you mean - but it's a give and take. I do prefer to do things alone, as much as possible, because, as you say, you're not relying on other people. What I lose, though, is support and flexibility. If you're writing music as a band, you have instant feedback on your melodies and riffs, when something's not working you'll hear about it, and more crucially, other people will be producing ideas when you hit the wall. On your own, you can very easily lose faith in your song, and lose momentum when none of your ideas seem to fit and nobody else is generating them. You get more inertia with a band, yes, but you can also build more momentum.

The other useful thing with a band, is a range of talents. I'm good at bass and keyboard, and I can put together a passable drum track, but my singing's shaky and I can't play guitar for toffee - so I end up writing songs with very few riffs. Alone, you're defined by your limitations, whereas a band is usually better defined by its members' various strengths.

Not that limitations are always a bad thing. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Yes, definitely a give and take. I function better on my own. But, unfortunately, I have to deal with the band members. They slow me down, they get on my nerves... But, as you said, I need them.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #399 on: June 12, 2014, 02:08:47 PM »
Not a bad idea.  I follow it anyway, but it might help generate more traffic.
Good enough for me.  :tup
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Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #400 on: June 12, 2014, 03:07:53 PM »
The crappy thing about bands is dealing with people. It´s worse than a marriage because you have to deal with more than one! People being late, people wanting to be in a band but not wanting to play, people being reckless, people being ill all the time… You know that perfect fucked up guy? The guy that has no money and every shitty thing in the world happens to him? And what about the ones that think they can play and just waste your precious time? And the ones that look perfect but soon you find out the creature has no car?! This musical world… goddamn it… the most fucked up people are there!

The "band = marriage" analogy is as old as bands and marriage, but there's a reason for that.  There are a lot of similarities.

To me, the biggest "plus" to being in a band, as opposed to just playing music by yourself, is the rush that comes from collaboration.  Making music with other people can be really awesome.  The connection, the feeling that what you're doing is contributing to something bigger, and it's happening in real time.  That's what makes it all worth it.  Putting up with other people's issues so you can jam is liking putting up with your girlfriend's (or wife's) issues because of the sex.  Hopefully it's worth it.

Offline Lucien

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #401 on: June 12, 2014, 09:12:11 PM »
In other words, music is sex.
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Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #402 on: June 12, 2014, 11:12:29 PM »
Basically, yeah.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #403 on: June 17, 2014, 09:13:30 AM »
You can tell I don't visit this subforum very often (despite being a musician) since I didn't even know this thread existed.

Should it be stickied, like the other chat threads?

That was the idea when I created this thread almost two years ago. Thanks for giving it a sticky. I was surprised to see it up there today :)
Hey dude slow the fuck down so we can finish together at the same time.  :biggrin:
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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #404 on: June 17, 2014, 09:15:39 AM »
 :tup
Hef is right on all things. Except for when I disagree with him. In which case he's probably still right.

Offline Lucien

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #405 on: June 17, 2014, 09:19:20 AM »
So, I'm attempting to write a symphony using themes I've used in all of my other "pieces" Currently I've finished like 3 minutes of it and I've sort of written how I want it to play out.
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Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #406 on: June 18, 2014, 12:20:40 PM »
Update on Orbert's Band

We have a name.  After much discussion, whittling it down six finalists, and voting, the band is Oh Zone.  (I didn't vote for that one, but whatever.)

Also, we have two gigs lined up for next month.  Both are gratis, but that's okay.  We need the experience and exposure more than we need the cash, and this has never been about money anyway.  Mostly it's the chance to play live.  One is a charity gig featuring four local bands (of which we are one), and the other is the neighborhood block party in the neighborhood of the house we practice in.  His wife is on the planning committee, and we got on the list.  Actually, this was set up months ago and would have been our first gig, but the charity thing came up and happened to be two weeks earlier, so what the hell.

For each of these gigs, we'll need about 90 minutes of music.  Two sets.  As of this week's practice, we'll have two sets of music, then three weeks to practice our brains out.  Actually, it won't be that bad.  We've all played in so many bands before, we know how it works, and we've gotten to the point where every one of us is damned good.  We work up our own parts, then spend rehearsal time putting things together, maybe working out vocal harmonies and/or who plays which guitar part, and each song is nailed down in about half an hour, maybe 45 minutes.  As it should be.  These upcoming gigs will help solidify things, then we start working up a third set, at which point we'll be ready to do real gigs.  We don't have any yet, of course, but we'll be ready.

Weird Side Story/Update on Rick

Remember Rick, the original guitarist who turned out to be a head case, was a dick to our original singer and made him quit, and eventually got fired because he was a head case and a dick?  Okay maybe you don't.  Anyway, I got an email from him, started off with some "Hi, remember me?" stuff and went on to talk about the new band he's in, and they need a keyboard player, and he wondered if I was interested.  Right now, I'm in at least two bands plus have some other musical commitments, so no.  I gave him a quick update on Oh Zone and how we lost Rob because his cancer came back, and Terry got canned somewhat preemptively but it was pretty clear that he wasn't happy.

Rick's response was to totally blast John for how he runs the band, and that he thought maybe I'd had enough of it by now, which is why he asked me to join his new band.  I thought that that wasn't a completely unreasonable reply, but then he went on to talk about how John had conspired to get rid of him (Rick) and probably told us all that he'd fired him, but the truth is that he quit.  Also, Rob probably lied about his cancer coming back and just wanted out, and probably quit too, same with Terry, and John again just made it sound like he'd fired him.  Whoa.  Some of this might actually have been true -- I mean, all we have is John's side of the story when relating how the calls went to Rick and Terry -- but we were all in on the decisions, and Rob had actually contacted me on the side, apologized for leave us hanging like that, and I even told him we could jam some time when he's feeling up to it.  Basically, Rick is out of his fucking mind.  Delusional.

So at the next practice, I started telling John about this weird email I got from Rick.  John says "Oh yeah?  I got one, too.  Did he ask to come to your house?"

What?  Um, no.  "Did he say he had a present for you or something like that?"  No...

John told me about it, but it was so bizarre that he just ended up forwarding me the email from Rick.  Rick had been doing a lot of thinking, and wanted to clear the air between him and John.  He wanted to come over, maybe have a drink, and just talk.  He also had a business proposal for him.  He also needed John's wife's advice on a business matter (John's wife Kay is a real estate agent).  It would take maybe 90 minutes; two hours, tops.  In exchange for their time and consideration, he'd already picked up a nice gift that he wanted to give to them.

Seriously, what?  Steve (new guitarist, Rick's replacement) read that and said "John, under no circumstances do you let this guy anywhere near your house!"  Joking but dead serious.  Of course, Rick knows where the house is, but whatever.  John had already answered the email, saying they could talk on the phone, but he was really too busy to devote a few hours to chatting, wasn't really looking for any new business opportunities, and Kay wasn't either.  This was a few weeks ago.  Rick hasn't contacted myself or John since.

I am very glad that I'm not in a band with this nutcase.

Offline tiagodon

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #407 on: June 18, 2014, 04:42:28 PM »
This Rick is a character of a slasher movie. Keep the distance, my friend!

Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #408 on: June 18, 2014, 10:36:40 PM »
This Rick is a character of a slasher movie. Keep the distance, my friend!

:lol Maybe not a slasher film, but it definitely sounds like Orbert signed up for a reality TV show rather than a band.
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Offline Lucien

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #409 on: June 18, 2014, 10:57:41 PM »
Yikes. That is creepy as hell.
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #410 on: June 19, 2014, 11:28:36 AM »
Yeah, my email was weird enough -- actually the reply to my reply, where Rob supposedly lied about having cancer just to have an excuse to quit the band -- but John's email took it up a notch.  Especially the part where he has a "gift" for John and Kay and wants to give it to them personally.  Steve and I theorized that Rick would have a bag with him, then at some point reach into it and say "And now, I have something for you" and pull out a gun... and blow himself away.

We probably shouldn't have joked about it, since John seemed a bit freaked out about it, but he laughed it off and seemed more annoyed and puzzled than anything else.  I guess Rick met Kay once for maybe 30 seconds as he was arriving for a rehearsal, and John just said it was weird that Rick wanted to discuss business with her and had a gift for her.  It just wasn't appropriate (that's the word he used) and showed out far out of touch Rick was.

I was trying to think of a closing quip about about how entertaining it is being in a band, especially a band made up of people who met online, and it occurred to me that they do warn you about people you meet online.  And sometimes they (whoever they are) are right.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #411 on: July 10, 2014, 12:06:06 PM »
Alrighty, then!  Tonight's the final rehearsal before our first-ever gig, which is this Saturday at 6:00 PM.  We're the first of four bands, with the second band starting at 7:30 and things continue at 90-minute intervals, so we each get 75 minutes to play.  The house is providing the P.A. and sound man, we bring our stage gear.  They mike it up, run a quick, cursory sound check (basically make sure all the mikes are working, and they'll fix up the levels once things get started) and off we go.  Actually, since we're first, we're hoping this means that we'll have a chance to do just a bit more than a cursory check, but we don't know how it's gonna work.  But what the hell, it's for charity and we're not getting paid anyway.  We can't exactly complain about the gig.

Then, Sunday morning, my church band is doing all the music for the service.  Hymns, offertory, prelude and postlude, everything.  We usually do one gig during the summer and kinda take over everything, and give the organist the day off.  It would not have been my choice to do these two gigs barely 12 hours apart, but that's the biz.  The date was carved into sacred rock before the charity gig came up.  These past two weeks have been full of rehearsals and music and rehearsals and rehearsals.

Rock and Roll!  ♫♫

Offline JayOctavarium

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #412 on: July 10, 2014, 12:23:55 PM »
Being first and running the first sound is always good. My buddy's (now defunct) band played this big battle of a bands thing at a chili cookoff a few years ago... they were up first and wound up performing an extra song for the sound check. They would have won but some generic stupid screamo band took it.


The song they played for soundcheck was like their strongest they had too.  Oh Well.
I just don't understand what they were trying to achieve with any part of the song, either individually or as a whole. You know what? It's the Platypus of Dream Theater songs. That bill doesn't go with that tail, or that strange little furry body, or those webbed feet, and oh god why does it have venomous spurs!? And then you find out it lays eggs too. The difference is that the Platypus is somehow functional despite being a crazy mishmash or leftover animal pieces

-BlobVanDam on "Scarred"

Offline Orbert

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #413 on: July 10, 2014, 12:52:03 PM »
Yeah, that was really a big factor in us deciding whether or not to take the gig.  We were pushing it to have everything together by the end of July, but figured we could do that, plus it's just a neighborhood party.  Then this charity thing came up and it's two weeks earlier.  They said we'd be first, and we hoped that that meant that we'd at least have a little more time to check sound and stuff, so we took it.

Then our drummer was out of town on business for a week, then our bassist was out on business for four days, and our singer was in the hospital for a while...  let's just say that we haven't gotten as much rehearsal time in as we'd thought.  But the show must go on.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #414 on: July 10, 2014, 11:54:44 PM »
Y'all are gonna rock, man.

Speaking of first shows, my band is finally playing a show after a few months of just kind of practicing every now and then. I'm pretty stoked to finally play out.
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #415 on: July 11, 2014, 07:46:20 AM »
Y'all are gonna rock, man!

Offline PuffyPat

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #416 on: July 14, 2014, 09:33:57 PM »
Y'all are gonna rock, man!

Well, we did rock. How about you, Orbert?
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #417 on: July 14, 2014, 11:40:59 PM »
It kinda sucked, for reasons mostly out of our control.  It should've been great.  The place is big, a sports bar with outside deck, indoor gaming room, and a private room as well.  Thunderstorms threatened all day, but didn't actually come through until late that night, after everyone had finished playing.  But because of the threat, the owner had gotten a huge tent to cover the entire deck.  Why not just move things indoors?  Because he'd booked the big room indoors.  Jim, the guy who organized everything, has been doing show for seven years and the guy had never done that before.  They've had to move it inside once or twice in the past, and now didn't have that option.  But it was a charity gig and we couldn't really complain.

So okay, the outside deck has two stage areas, elevated areas at each end (the big room inside also has two stages, that's how big this place is) so we could still do the thing where one band sets up while the previous band is still playing at the other end.  There were four bands altogether, so going back and forth would be a big help.  Nope, the owner decided that one end was all we needed, and he'd rather use the stage at the other end for more customers.  Because the stages are elevated and terraced, exactly one table fit there, seating four people.  All this extra bullshit for the bands to deal with, just so four more customers could be seated.

So anyway, it was 85 degrees out, hadn't rained yet so it was really humid, plus with the huge tent covering everything, there was no breeze.  So we were all sweating buckets.  The deck itself is surrounded in brick, so the sound of the drums was deafening, and we had to bring up the stage volume just to hear ourselves.  Singers couldn't hear themselves in the monitors, drummer couldn't hear anything except drums, it was a mess.

But we've heard some of the audio, and out in the audience, it didn't sound too bad.  From on stage, it sounded like shit.  We couldn't hear anything, just kept going, and somehow managed to put on a half-decent show.  So we rocked, but didn't know it.



Steve (lead guitar) couldn't hear himself, so he knelt down to be closer to the monitor, which allowed me to actually be visible for a few moments.  I was buried in the back.  Karen on vocals, JT on drums, Mike (up top) on bass, John on rhythm guitar.  You can't really see it, but the top level had another drum kit already set up on it, owned by the band that was hosting the event, and that got to sit there all night and everyone else had to work around it.  Our drummer JT is on the middle level, and I would've been up there with him (and more visible) but they had a bunch of gear just sitting there and wouldn't move it, so again we had to work around that.  So with me, Steve, Karen, and John all on the floor, squeezed between the stacks, I ended up back in the corner.

Most people saw this most of the night:



I'm directly behind Steve, invisible.  Yay.  Mike said he felt like he was up on a watchtower or something.  What a screwy setup, when it easily could have been really, really cool.

Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #418 on: July 14, 2014, 11:59:28 PM »
So we rocked, but didn't know it.

:lol I like this. It wouldn't be rock n roll if everything went smoothly. And you've got a real gig under your belt now, even if it was just a charity gig.

What was your setlist?
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #419 on: July 15, 2014, 10:05:02 AM »
Mostly 70's classic rock.  "China Grove", "Takin' Care of Business", "Show Me the Way", "Barracuda", "Rocky Mountain Way", "Sweet Home Alabama", that kind of thing.  The idea is to play to our strengths, what makes us unique, and in our case we have a female lead singer and also keyboards/saxophone, so our setlist leans in that direction.  "Long Train Runnin'" and "What I Like About You" both have harmonica solos that sound good on sax, "Play that Funky Music" has a single horn line in it, but it's a good song and is another excuse to get some sax in there.

We do a handful of "newer" songs (80's), "I Love Rock and Roll" (female singer), "What You Need" by INXS (saxophone), "Two Tickets to Paradise" (keys), and a few others.