I saw a recent post from @eric.kiser (I think in response to someone asking about ideas for finding other aspiring musicians to play with) And he listed a few of the past band related threads from our members. (myself included, I think starting back about 3 years ago)
Thought I would give an update:
Now that things are opening back up, I just started a 90s alternative band project this month. (same game plan as before: placed a Craigslist ad and found a few older folks willing to participate) Really surprised with the response this time around- had probably 5-6 vocalists, 3 or 4 guitarists and a couple of drummers interested. I think people (at least where I live) are ready to start getting back out again and doing stuff!
The drummer and guitarist have plenty of past experience- but the singer has never played with a band before. (and I am pretty basic on the bass but still having fun) We are trying out about 5 new songs at each rehearsal and hopefully will have maybe 10 or 15 decent tunes by the Fall and attempt to start playing out a bit.
Here is a sample from the first get together earlier this month. I just got a Fender Mustang and was able to use it for the first time at this rehearsal. (phone speaker is not the best reference audioā¦ you probably need to listen with headphones in order to actually hear any noise I am making!) Although maybe its a good thing if I am hiding in the mix, haha!
It was kind of a weird thing. I actually wanted to keep both projects going. We met back up with the other band in May (first time since early 2020) Got a new female singer that was awesome- really strong voice. We were doing I guess what you might call Texas Blues Rock. (Black Keys, Record Company, ZZ Top, etc)
The old guitar player in that band wanted to do both projects with me. We had the May practice with the original band, and then we held the practice in June with the 90s project. The day after, he contacted me and announced he was dropping out of the 90s band, because to continue both was going to be too much work learning new material.
I had reached the same conclusion about myself: I am just not strong enough of a player to pick up even basic versions of songs that quick, especially with my work schedule. I like to show up prepared and realized it would be too stressful to try and keep that pace up. Not to mention being the BL for both bands, scheduling etc.
I think the 90s alternative is much closer to my heart- so it was an easy choice to dtop out of the other. But I still hated to do it since it looked like that project had a lot of promise as well.
Hopefully I will eventually progress to eventually getting up on stage at some point. Iām sure i will be scared to death but I know it will be totally worth it!
Update on my new alt/indie 90s band. We had our 2nd rehearsal last week and added a 2nd guitarist. Introduced a few new songs- things are starting to come together. I located a nice local venue that offers open mic 20 min slots once a week, so hopefully we will venture out in a couple of months.
I have an odd question: how did you word your ad? My garage band (which might as well be called Four Dads in Cargo Shorts) recently lost our rhythm guitar/singer. Turns out none of the rest of us can sing worth a damn. Iām placing an ad on the Nextdoor site for our neighborhood ā weāre trying to keep it neighborhood specific ā but am struggling to phrase how casual it really is. I donāt want anyone thinking weāre going to be playing festivals anytime soon. Maybe a neighborhood cookout. At the same time, we can play up to about bar band standard, and some of us do play in bar bands.
BTW, hi, Iām Chad. I finished B2B a couple of months ago & am going through it for the 2nd time & thought Iād check out the forums.
Unrelated question - is the decline of Cargo Shorts in the US a recent thing? When I was still living there they were still super common, and they are still super common here, but I keep hearing US folks make fun of them now
I donāt know of anyone who makes fun of those shorts, and I still see people wearing them.
The only clothing I laugh at are the people walking around in jeans that look like theyāve gone through the shredder, especially when they buy them that way and even pay extra.
