Since I've gotten more serious about my bass playing, I've wanted to find a group of people wanting to play fun covers, but not take it so serious it becomes a 2nd job. I've answered a few ads on craigslist, most of which never even make it past a few emails. The few that did were either too serious, too far away or wanted to play exact replicas of the record. I'd pretty much given up looking at craigslist except sporadically when I was completely bored. Looked on there last week and there's an ad for a recreational band, my age group, in the neighboring town.
I answered and the guy called me 2 days later and said he'd gotten a response from another guitarist and a drummer and everyone was ready to go. He sent out a list of 8 songs and we got together this past Sunday. Amazingly, everyone showed up and they were on time. We got set up and ended up jamming out a song that wasn't even on the list to start with (Keep Your Hands to Yourself). It wasn't perfect by any means, but pretty good for 4 guys that just met. We ran through the 8 songs and all of them sounded pretty good. No one over played, the 2 guitarists played well with each other, even switching off leads on some songs. The guitarist that put it together sang pretty well too. He'd like to find a vocalist, but I thought he sounded good. He had a list of other song ideas and we ended up jamming out a few of them. We're all ready to go for next week.
Good news. :D
It sounds like a promising start. The fact that nobody over-played looks like a good sign, so I hope that it works out well.
Cheers,
Chris
Sounds good! Have fun. 8)
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
That sounds like a blast. I hope it works out well for you. 8) 8)
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
Everyone is coming back tomorrow, so I guess they all had fun too.
Well, we lost our non-singing guitarist over the holidays. We had added 8 new songs to our existing 8 after a couple of practices. He came back to the last practice before the holidays and hadn't worked on any of them. He was also having issues with the tempo on a couple of the songs he started. He sent an email to us a couple of days later and said he didn't have the motivation to stick with us. I think he was wanting to play more modern, harder rock. Me, the drummer and singer/guitarist are sticking with it and had a practice Sunday. We sounded tighter, but there was definitely some holes during the lead parts. I adjusted what I was playing to try to fill some of it, but we need a 2nd guitar in there.
We've been looking for either a lead guitarist or a singer/guitarist, but not having much luck. Lots of contact, but no one follows up. If anyone knows anyone in Nashville that's looking for a laid back, but still motivated, gig, let me know.
Here's our current song list.
867-5309 (Jenny)
The Break Up Song ("They don't write 'em like that anymore...")
The One I Love (R.E.M.)
Jumpin' Jack Flash
What I Like About You/ROCK in the USA
Glory Days
Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Born to Be Wild
Pretty Woman
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Bad Moon Rising
Cocaine
Some Beach
Little Sister
The Letter (Boxtops)
Lonely Ol' Night
Margaritaville
This week, we are adding in All For You (Sister Hazel), Basket Case & When I Come Around (Green Day), Hey Jealousy (Gin Blossoms), The Waiting (Tom Petty) and Kryptonite (3 Doors Down).
All the best, Jeff!
Cool set list. A special shout out for The Letter. That's an all time great...
:)
Don
Yea The Letter first single I ever had. Your list has several on there that we are playing too. So it has to be good. :D
Good luck finding a singer guitarist I know how that goes.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Well, just found out this morning that it looks like we have a guitarist coming in Sunday. The drummer mentioned a guy he knew that might be interested. Apparently, he played bass in a band the drummer played with before and also plays guitar. We'll see how it goes. I think if we can ever get past the startup phase, it will be a little easier to keep things together.
It's a fun set list for sure. The good thing is just about all of them are pretty easy and don't have a lot of different parts to worry about. I've noticed my playing has gotten much better and I'm able to learn songs quicker.
A bit of miscommunication on both sides resulted in our potential new guitarist to not find out about practice until 30 minutes before it was to start. He said he would finish up what he was doing and head that way. An hour went by and no word, tried to call and no answer. He never did make it out. Perhaps he was abducted by aliens or maybe he's just your typical flaky musician. There was some blame on our side, so we'll give him another shot next week. We used the time to run through our newer songs and make sure we had the arrangements down. Practiced a few of the older ones that we used to have trouble with certain parts (endings, transitions, etc.) and they were all tight.
We jammed around with a couple of news ones that are going on the list: Jet Airliner, Hard to Handle, American Girl and Show Me The Way.
Just curious when you guys are practicing a song how many times do you go over it before you move on good or bad. With the guys now we don't have much of a problem with that but probably 5 is the max we have ever done.
With our other bass player twice would be enough before he started complaining part of the reason he's no longer with us.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
We used to go over them 3 or 4 times and still have parts that weren't right. Since the first guitarist left, we haven't really had that problem too much. If there's a rough part, like the ending or a transition, we'll just start a little before that and just play that section, so we don't play the whole song. I'm much more of a homework kind of person. If I don't know the song, I want to sit at home and work it up, then get together and play it. If there's a part I'm screwing up several times, I just need to take it home and work, then practice it next time. I think playing the full song 2, maybe 3 times would be max for us.
I'm pretty much the same way rather work it out at home and we do the same too sometimes though it seems the song falls apart at a different place everytime that's when enough is enough and usually means we all didn't do our homework, but we have a good bunch of guys now so things have been moving pretty fast.
Hope the new guy works out for you.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Well, the new guy that didn't show up the first week? He called the day of practice and said he couldn't make it, then didn't show up the next week. 3 strikes and you're out. We had a girl the drummer knew come out and sing and she just didn't have the power to sing with a full band. Our guitarist/singer contacted another guitarist/singer on craigslist and he agreed to come out last week. He had to show up a little late, but let us know. He sets up and started playing along, sounding good. He finally stepped up to sing one (Mustang Sally) and definitely had some singing chops. Powerful, bluesy sounding voice. He said he had a good time and we asked him to come back and he agreed. We've been wanting to move our practice time up a little earlier and asked if he was good with that and he said sure. So we booked the room for 2 hours earlier (to 2:00). Saturday, our drummer sent an email just reminding everyone of the time and the new guy responds with something about always having stuff going on Sunday afternoons and to let him know if we have any rehearsals in the evening after 6:00. So I'm trying to figure if this is just miscommunication last week or if this is the "nice way to say I don't want to play with you guys" excuse. We can't start that late because our drummer lives about an hour away and that's not fair to him to get home at 11:00 on a work night. Damn flaky musicians!
Oh don't get me started
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
