Forming a band, but need a place to start!

Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Check the bulletin board at your local music shops. Most have a board with ads for bands that want a guitarist, etc.
2. Since you are at a university, put an ad in the school newspaper. Most school papers are pretty cheap to advertise in.
3. A lot of big schools like yours will have other periodicals/newspapers that list the local bars and bands that play there. Sometimes you will find band ads in there too.
4. There are probably a lot of bands that play in or near the school. Go to the shows, introduce yourself to the band and as many musicians as you can find while there. Let them know what you are looking for and have flyers ready to hand out, with your number on them.

If you do that, you will know many musicians in a short period of time. You will be surprised how quickly you will be asked to join one or form the core of a new one.

Good luck

Craig's list:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/cities.html

Band Mix:
http://bandmix.com/index.php

Those are the only two I know. Hope they help & good luck. 8)

Dan

Open Mics are an excellent place to find musicians who want to be in a band. The reason they are there is because they can't stand it anymore and must play in front of people. :D

Here is a pretty good site, you usually find quite a few hits in your area.

http://openmikes.org/

I'm going to suggest going to shows. Stick around afterwards and talk with band members, their friends, people in the audience and so on. A large number of people are musical and you never know where you'll find your band mates.

On a side note, forming your own band might give you greater control (at least initially) as to what songs you play. I recently responded to an ad for a guitarist for a band that plays classic rock. Cool! I was thinking Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan, Stones, The Dead, Zep, etc.... After a few looong phone discussions (we were hitting it off pretty good), and when we were about to schedule our first jam (my audition) I asked him to tell me 3 or 4 songs to learn. The dude says Pat Benetar's "Hit me with Your Best Shot" and a couple of crap big hair bands from the 80's. No disrespect to people that love the big hair 80's sounds or Pat Benetar intended, but it's definitely NOT what I'd call "Classic Rock". I gave him some lame excuse why no dates for the rest of my life would work and said goodbye. My point? It's alot of work putting a setlist together, and you shouldn't have to compromise your taste just to be in a band. IMHO, the biggest challenge for any band is getting a good drummer and having good rehearsal space! If you can recruit a drummer, and if you have a good place to practice, getting additional players will be MUCH easier. I'd place an ad for DRUMMER WANTED, and find one that shares your musical taste.

Good luck!

PK

Make sure that you want to start a band for the right reasons; and one you do, commit to it. Ask yourself why you want to be in a band, and ask any prospective members you may have. Make sure your aspirations coincide, or you'll have a recipe for moderate to severe disaster.

Some might say one should compromise their tastes in order to be in a band. Learning new styles of music will only help a musician grow and improve. It's actually helpful to have a few different tastes in a band, it creates more variety in the songs you will write. With the group I play with, while I love the blues the most, they like other music like funk, punk rock, and some pop stuff, the result is that I've written songs in many styles, and I can play fairly decently in these styles.

well, I've already recieved one reply from craigslist, so things are looking up.