fuck being in a band

I should point out that the reason ANY of us found out is because he stopped returning emails, so our guitar player went to his Myspace page to message him and found a new band with recorded songs and a gig list there.

looooool

Ha, bass players are the worst! My last bass player went AWOL while we were on tour. With our van and all our shit.

We have synth bass now.

hahaha okay my complaint seems v.v. petty now

I think buying a Mac and launching my electronica side-project has moved up to #1 on the summer musical priority list.

I'm a bassist and I'm currently in 4 bands (one of which has been going on for 6 months, and I only told my 'main' band about them 3 weeks ago, and that was because I wanted to borrow a cymbal stand for a recording session we were about to do). It always starts off as 'I'm just going to help out for a gig', but then I'm still there a year later. I want to knock one on the head, but it's proving difficult to do, like I imagine dumping someone is (I've never done this myself, and I'm 29 for fucks sake). My defence is, none of my bands are especially active, although I do get the occasional month where there'll be as many as 2 (two) gigs, and I'll be having 10 rehearsals in a fortnight (this is busy by my standards), and I'm usually pretty upfront about my business, except the case above.

St3ve, that's pretty insane. Did you never hear back from them?

Being in another band is totally fine! It's the never returning our calls and not responding to emails when we're supposed to record in a few weeks that pisses me off; if you want to quit, just quit!

St3ve, that's pretty insane. Did you never hear back from them?

After trying to call him all day, we got a text that said "The van is on the corner of X and Y, the keys are in the Italian restaurant, go get it before the place closes." We picked up the van and never saw the dude again. Last I heard he'd moved to Thailand. He wasn't good at the bass anyway.

Getting a band together with even one other person who is on the same page as you and who is even remotely reliable is like, uhh, really hard.

I just feel like the main guy in this band is sort of clinging to my participation as a reason to keep going- they've (well, him and a violinist and cellist - these are really good musicians an'all) been going for years, but he's struggled with uncommitted people (like bassists, drummers and pianists) and he's a bit depressed about it. And we started doing some recording recently as well. And he's a pretty good friend of mine and he think he'd be a bit hurt if I stopped, unless I said I was leaving the country or something. So I'm trying to find a good time to do it, and I'd rather do it in person, 'cos no-one likes being dumped by email right..

Show of hands, who has been dumped by e-mail?

one of my friends got band-dumped by e-mail, it was a bad scene. totally out of nowhere, the rest of the band quit, some more stuff happened, etc.

i'm kind of amazed that i've never straight double-booked myself. i'm in four bands right now, have three gigs and two rehearsals this week, it's getting kinda crazy (luckily two of those bands don't rehearse).

i'm really over being in a band. or at least the traditional kind that has lots of "shows" and "practices."

band politics vent thread

^ I have not been in a band since this. About a year later, I saw Porcupine tree at newcastle carling academy (they totally blew) the drummer was there, and he stared right through me like I didn't even exist. I lol'd.

Sometimes I think about joining a band again, the practices make you a better player, I find, and I'm pretty crap at the moment. I don't know if I need the grief though.

i'm really over being in a band. or at least the traditional kind that has lots of "shows" and "practices."

-- bell_labs, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:04 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i vacillate pretty wildly between wanting to promote the shit out of my band and play bigger shows and get more popular, and wanting to just drop off the face of the earth and only play shows every three months at like house parties or random bars and just put stuff online instead of actual albums. i'm in the latter mode right now

i usually feel like the former, but it's not really an option because of other people's schedules/commitment/living far away etc..

If I could play house parties exclusively, I would.

i'm actually pretty frustrated because we put out a new cd a couple of months ago and i'm really proud of it, and i think it's basically the best thing i've ever done musically. so i worked really hard to promote it and send out press kits way ahead of our cd release show and found a bunch of blogs that might be interested, and it helped a little, we got a couple of nice write-ups. but now it's two months later and there's no momentum and we still have tons of cds, which sucks but what mainly bugs me is i feel like there are lots of people in town who would really like the album but i have no idea how to get them to listen to it

part of me just wants to give up on doing any kind of promotion at all and not worrying about it, but then i listen to the album again and i really like it and i think what are the odds i'll ever do anything this good ever again, i should really work hard on this

fuck being in a band

seriously

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

send out more review copies and play more shows? and when you play shows, push the cds hard?

i mean, i don't know what the answer is, but it is a good album and you should work hard at this.

thanks bro ... yeah, we basically just concentrated on chicago press because we don't really play anywhere else but maybe i should aim at some national press that reviews "smaller" releases

for sure. it also might help to quit your jobs and go on tour.

What you really need to do is go on the myspace.

^helps. also I'm guessing, tour some. I imagine getting your band noticed is often a grassroots time consuming sort of thing (most o the time, right).

ok nyquil is kicking in hard, time for bed

N, if there were any remotely ethical way I could write about your record, I'd be saying very good things about it.

thanks

i'm actually pretty frustrated because we put out a new cd a couple of months ago and i'm really proud of it, and i think it's basically the best thing i've ever done musically. so i worked really hard to promote it and send out press kits way ahead of our cd release show and found a bunch of blogs that might be interested, and it helped a little, we got a couple of nice write-ups. but now it's two months later and there's no momentum and we still have tons of cds, which sucks but what mainly bugs me is i feel like there are lots of people in town who would really like the album but i have no idea how to get them to listen to it

-- n/a, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 16:29 (3 days ago) Link

part of me just wants to give up on doing any kind of promotion at all and not worrying about it, but then i listen to the album again and i really like it and i think what are the odds i'll ever do anything this good ever again, i should really work hard on this

-- n/a, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 16:31 (3 days ago) Link

fuck being in a band

-- n/a, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 16:34 (3 days ago) Link

seriously

-- n/a, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 16:37 (3 days ago) Link

^ this

cheer up murray nick a

lolz, i don't know why i'm being so emo about all this. honestly i probably just need to work harder

i think i bummed out my friend last night. she was telling me about how she was really excited about her new album coming out and i went on a diatribe that basically repeated all the above b.s. i suck

We all suck; I have also done this to ppl.

SHE WILL BE HAPPIER IF SHE GOES INTO IT'S RELEASE WITH LOWERED EXPECTATIONS...U DON'T SUCK

me in a rock n roll band hyuh

lolz, i don't know why i'm being so emo about all this. honestly i probably just need to work harder

no, you're being too hard on yourself. being in a band and playing shows and writing songs is one thing--and promoting a record you make is another thing all together. it's hard, it's a pain in the ass, and it not half as much fun as playing music together with people

i have never been in a band, partly because sa, tx is the worst place to be in a band unless you are a bitchin tejano accordionist or want to play 5th rate hardcore. i think i would rather have the experience of being dicked over than to never have been in a band.

Your new record is good, nick. Here's the thing:

1) Promoting a record is a long hard slog and a lot of small drops in a big bucket. The nice write-ups can help, but only if you hustle and use them to get other write-ups, better shows, radio play or whatever. Like seriously take the clips and send them to places you're trying to sell yourselves to. And even then, prepare to keep being disappointed by the response and to keep striving to get to the next thing and the next thing after that.

2) Even doing the long hard slog doesn't guarantee anything. Sometimes it's not the right moment, sometimes shit just doesn't fall into place, etc.

san antonio, tx cannot possibly be worse than mankato, mn (which is probably only slightly better than most of the neighboring crap towns).

what's the worst town to try to start a band in? I mean apart from shit small towns where you don't actually expect a significant number of people to care about music.

Based on past experience, I would venture Houston Texas is as difficult as San Antonio, only replace tejano with craptacular nickelback rip-offs. Sigh. I'd love to be in a band with a tejano accordionist/trumpeteer.

Yeah a town overrun by tejano shit can't be THAT bad

I mean, sucks if that's not what you play, but y'know...

thought San Antonio was supposed to be some sort of indie rock haven??

I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about being in a band; y'know, it's totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.

Your band does lay a lot of eggs.

Sorry, I keed!

I fart a lot onstage though.

It's really the best place to fart because the only people who will catch a whiff are your bandmates and when they pull a stinkface the audience will just think "damn they are FEELIN it tonight!".

thought San Antonio was supposed to be some sort of indie rock haven??

-- dog latin, Monday, June 16, 2008 8:53 AM (Monday, June 16, 2008 8:53 AM) Bookmark Link

pretty sure that's Austin