Playing tunes not worth playing.

[hammeroff]

You know, making money for being able to play songs people want to hear.

I quit a band about a month ago due to my not wanting to play "Brown Eyed Girl" (even Van Morrison hates playing this worn out song.)

I just did a gig on "open mic night" with a drum machine and a looper pedal.

Best night of my life.

I heard maybe 2-3 people clap after each jam. That was fine though, I was in the zone.

After the show, I met 4 guys that are into what I'm into.

So, here it is, the reason of the post.

If you're stuck in a dead end band, just leave, and put your balls on the band saw and do what you want.

Life's way to short to spend it holding back. And by holding back I mean playing the solo to "All Right Now" 2 times a week, and pretending to like it when the band says, man you were hot tonight.

[sumgai]

Matt,

Sounds like you've snatched the pebble from my hand! ;D



sumgai

[gfxbss]

indeed you are right, the best shows i have ever played were the free ones in a basement with 10 kids. those 10 kids loved and and it was a blast. we were playing what we wanted to, and they could feel that and it comes across strong.

Tyler

[ux4484]

Back in my band days, I was quite sick of playing Free Bird and Riding the Storm Out. To this day, I can't hit the button fast enough if I hear either of those songs.

Two best shows I ever had: My first band playing in a BOTB at a catholic H.S., they did it in heats, so the better you did, the more songs you had to play. We'd run out of songs so for the final round (we'd only been together two months and only had four songs down), we played Rush's 2112 Overture, which we did not all have memorized, but it was a hoot, we improvised played several sections over (and way too long), had a ball, then our Rhythm guitarist's amp burst into flames. The crowd thought it was part of the show and we won.
My best show was in the wedding band at a company Xmas party where a good portion of the crowd turned out to be folks we knew, they let us play what ever we wanted and requested our original stuff over a few times, best crowd ever.
I've plucked a few for the neighbors and at family gatherings, but I like it better when you can get everyone involved...which means playing a song everyone knows and joins in....sometimes it's one you might not love, but it's worth it if everyone enjoys it.

One year I sat in an atrium playing Xmas songs for a few $$$, I felt like the piano player in Nordstrom (no one's really paying any attention, you're just expensive MUZAK), it was very sterile. I did the same thing for a big family gathering and again for a school party (my kids school) where everyone joined in and participated, that was a hoot. I like to be in the action, but not the center of attention. I'd likely have a panic attack attempting what you did Hammeroff.

[andy]

You know what??? I'm going the other way with this one at the moment! I've just played in original bands for years now, some fairly successful and some less so, and the current one is still improving in profile, so I should be happy about it, but I just yearn for playing a set of tunes that everyone knows, that everyone has turned up to hear, and that everyone has purposely got drunk enough to dance to, in a nice place, like a hotel or wedding room, without having to 'sell' the band by trying to be cool and leap around like a fool onstage. And it would be good to know what I'm getting paid for each gig again, too.

I think I'm getting tired of feeling I have to impress people in a full scale way at every gig, rather than just with some good music. (Not that that isn't the primary directive anyway, but I hope you get what I mean).

With all that in mind though, the last function band I was in was a shameful exercise in onstage MIMING! The guy kept up the facade that it was a real band right up to auditions- I learnt a whole bunch of Queen songs, expecting to join a complete tribute band, played one at audition along to a tape, and was told how much I was to be paid... then just one last thing...

The money was rather good, so I took it, but got 'sacked' for moonlighting with U2!! The band leader needed complete commitment, apparently! The U2 tribute gave it up that very same gig, so I decided to leave the function thing for a while, but it has its good points, and I sort of miss them!

[mlrpa]

I was playing in a cover band for years when one night, playing the infamous "Stairway...", I mentally threw up. I realized how much I absolutely despised that song, and most of the tunes we were playing, and just walked off stage. Needless to say, I was bandless for a while. (Amazing how that one incident labled me as being "difficult to work with".) Anyway....

The most fun I had playing was this little art gallery, with a grand total ofr 10 people there. And my friend and I doing this weird jazz/rock/fusion thing, and having a ball while doing it, and having 5 people glued to what we were doing. More fun than playing "Aqualung" for the umpteenth hundredith time!