Band Drama

Hey Chris

I haven't been around for awhile, so sorry so late getting to this. First, Congratulations! I know your goal was to get out and perform for crowds and you've accomplished that. I remember you expressing many times that you thought that would never happen. But you stuck it out, and through perserverance your dream came true. :D

So step one is accomplished, now you've got to move up to a full gig and getting paid. Just keep going and you'll be there soon. Once you have maybe 40 songs you are ready. And that Open Mic is the place to start. If the owner likes you, tell him (or her) you want a paying gig on Friday or Saturday night. You'll get it. When you get that, get on a rotation every other month or so. And all these clubs pay attention to each other, once you've played a few gigs your name will get around and it will be easy to pick up gigs at other clubs. This is how you do it, you are doing it the way all bands do it.

I would keep playing this open mic by yourself. You can sing. Mike will have to be a little busier on bass to fill the spaces, you will play a little less guitar so you can sing well. With a little practice you will get it down. Have the other guys sing too, backup vocals are huge and make every band sound better. And those guys can take the lead singing on the songs with more difficult guitar. Less players means more money. :D

Once again, Congrats! You are getting there.

Let me know next time you play this club and I'll try to come out.

Wes

Hey Wes I've been wondering where you've been haven't seen you around much. Yea I finally made the plunge, if you can call it that. I played at the open Mic with Mike and our drummer we did a few songs but the problem was no one was singing them and the last one kind of fell apart when whoeve was singing couldn't remember the words and everything just kind of stopped. But I was incredible...J/K.

I didn't feel any real nerves at all but there are a couple reasons for that. One, there wasn't many people there and the songs we played I've played for awhile so I didn't really make a glaring mistakes. So that was fun, but I'm not a solo performer and don't want to so I really wanted to bang a few songs with the "band" but our lead guitar player won't play in bars.(That's a whole other story that I had to bore you with the details about)

Anyway the problem with this open mic for me is that I know a bunch of songs but very few people ever seem to know the same songs or playthem the same so it's tough to pull off covers with strangers, what ends up happening is the end up playing some blues progressions which I hate but I have decided to jump in and learn some blues licks to play with them.

The second time I went I got there not expecting to play because I wasn't planning on staying long and ended up singing a few songs. I didn't really feel nervous then either which is strange because I'm very self concious of everything so I'm not sure what the deal is.

We are now working with a replacement guitarist (plus we still have the original) with the plan being that the new guy will learn allt he other guitar players parts so we can play out. We'd like to start doing 3-4 songs a week at the open mic.

We've been working a few more new songs and are slowly getting to around 25 or so now. we could be learning them faster but for some reason it seems to take forever to get one in the line up but we've added three new ones in the last two weeks. Play that Funky Music - Wild Cherry, I got a line on you - Spirit and I just want to make love to you - Foghat. If we can keep adding a a song or two evey couple weeks we might be ready soon.

The drummer is going to have a party at his house sometime during the summer so that might be our first "gig" if you can call that a gig.

I posted to you about a possible party with my neighbor this summer too, but I'm not so sure about that now.

Keep in touch and maybe we can hook up again so night and play.