I Am Never Playing Live for Somebody Else's Band Ever Again!

It lead me to not writing anything on a guitar, which ironically led to another problem. I've been demoing all my songs with just a drum machine, bass line and a vocal...leaving all the guitar parts blank for the guitarist to do whatever fits. What ends up happening? "I can't find anything that works. I don't know what you want me to do here?"

You cannot win.

I suppose if you get to the breaking point, there is always electronic music, which seems to be perfect for control freaks. I've tried working with samplers, MIDI, etc. and have grown to freakin' hate them and it has kind of killed of even listening to electronic music.

Of course, playing with shitty people trying and failing in rock bands kind of killed off my listening to rock music for awhile. I didn't listen to much r'n'r at all for about three years as it turned my stomach.

Is this what you mean?

After the show, the bartender, who also did the booking, chewed us out and told us that "in this business you've got to roll with the punches! You've got to expect the unexpected!" before he banned us from the club. Which really didn't matter much as it turned out to be our last gig.

As our show got underway,the heat and glare of the lights plus perhaps some understandable anxiety he may have had about being on stage after a long hiatus caused him to sweat profusely, quickly rendering large areas of his shirt a damp black, which clung to his flesh in eye-catching fashion. Also visible were various tendons and muscles of his neck exerting themselves admirably to aid in production of the appropriate vocal sonorities.

Upon completion of our portion of the entertainment, all the audience members -a.k.a our friends and family, could talk about was this guy's precious bodily fluids that were, as one friend put it, "squirting from every orifice."

I'm getting close to having a whole set of matierial demoed up and am working with a drummer to get some recordings done. Starting this spring, I hope to use the recording to find some like minded people to be able to play some shows. From here out, I am going to just work up tunes and try to find people to play with what I have going. Democracy in a band is dead with me. If I find people that are cool, then great, if not...oh well I will play everything myself and find drummers to fill in on recordings. I have to play diplomat recording other friends music, when I work on my own I want to be a big baby and have everything my way. It really is for the best.

On the other side of things though, I hate playing with directionless bands where everyone is going to play what ever he effing well pleases. This approach almost never goes anywhere unless you have superb musicians.

Tell me about! I was in a band where I played bass, quite often when we were jamming through ideas, I’d suggest something for the 2 guitarists to play and they’d go “I’m happy with what I’m playing”. Then the next practice they’d use my idea while denying I ever said anything. Totally frustraiting.