Bluewine

"Clockwork Orange", hope everyone gets the reference. That movie must be 50 years old at least. Blue

I'm keeping my fingers crossed you find the right band for you. Blue

We were established players with great material. However, they spent too much time on photos, videos and merchandise and nothing on gigs The BL was happy playing basement Rock Star. I'm sure I'm not the only with this type of experience. Thank God my band of the past 8 years is run by a husband and wife team, real " go getters".When it comes to bookings and business they're "tops". Blue

I get it, however, if someone's main interest is gigging your chances are a lot better joining an established band with gigs on the books than joining a "start up". Now finding that established band and winning an audition is another discussion. None of the start ups I joined ever gigged. Blue

Great advice! Blue

I wouldn't give up on bands, however I tell anyone who's looking to gig to stay away from start ups. Most "start ups" never see their first gig. As far as motivation goes pick out songs you like but find the bass parts challenging and learn them. Keep practising so when the right gigging band comes along your ready. Blue

I've seen Pail recently. At that level and with as much technology as that band uses it's would be hard to tell what Paul is actually using. Now if we're talking 1965 Shea Stadium my money says Paul was straight Bass to Amp , no effects no compression. Blue

For some skype might be great. We all learn differently. I have learned a lot from YouTube bass guitar tutorials and some folks find no value in YouTube's offerings. Blue

I'm still listening to a lot of The Alice Cooper Band. Not sure why. I do like watching Nita Strauss. Blue https://youtu.be/R645uRbPl-A

I'm doing 65 gigs, however I'm retired or what I think you guys call a pensioner.. I actually would like to do more health permitting. Unfortunately all other band members have full time jobs. Blue

Supporting national and international acts is not as big of a deal for me as it used to be. We've supported Peter Frampton and Lover Boy recently and It didn't do much for me. I prefer to play a club where a hundred people show up to see you specifically than to 2,000 people waiting to see Frampton. Blue

Hi Roger, You need a break in the right direction. It's so hard to find a good band with good people when we're limited to non professional opportunities, meaning people that don't play for a living. Life circumstances like family, friends and full time jobs come before playing. Don't give up. If there's any local gigging bands you like go to their gigs. Introduce yourself and see if anything is happening. You never know, they might be looking for a bass player. Blue

Nothing really strange. However we had one of those outside gigs " Wine On The Bridge" where the organizers knew nothing about band accomodations. I swear, they didn't even know we need electrical power. They provided a square piece of plywood so we didn't have to play on the grass. Blue

We don't communicate with each other much. The only messages we get are to confirm gig availability. And we only see each other at gigs. Blue

I wish we could go IEMs, however I think the investment would be to expensive for us. Blue

Thanks Pete, I've been gigging the G&L ASAT (1991) bass for a while. I finally understand the value and use of the active pre-amp. However changing the 9 volt battery is a pain in the derrière. Blue

I played about 65 gigs in 2019. That number is a combination of full band gigs and our acoustic service. Blue

New Years Eve 2019 Blue

All valid points. Blue

I've seen a few summers , so I've experienced the other side. Working with un-fun questionable people. That's always a losing proposition. Blue

Yes, as recently as NYE. Looking at the crowd , how great the stage looked with our lighting and gear knowing I'm a part of this. I know I sound like a broken record. I think very few of us hate being in a band or gigging. I think some of us hate the decisions we've made. Playing in bands with questionable people with no sense of direction, discipline or ethics. Face it guys, there are some folks out there that don't even know how to be in a band. I'm grateful I'm not the guy looking,wishing he had a gig. I love the attention. I love being approached by people that want to talk to me only because I'm in the band. However it's not easy keeping my spirit up after 50 years of gigging. Health issues and fighting to stay a live in a scene that's dieing. It helps that we cherry pick our gigs now. We know crap gigs when we see them and will not book them. And most of all, I play with good people. We're ego and drama free. Gigging is still a blast for me. While chronologically I'm 66, I still have the same spirit I had when I started gigging in public at age 12. Blue

How can you lose on New Years Eve? We played The Barley Pop Pub & Restaurant. This was new for us, we had played Ariba's in Butler for the past 10 years. Unfortunately new owners came in last year they didn't understand live music and brought in pool tables. They closed within 2 months. Back to The Barley Pop. Nice looking room even nicer once our lighting was set up. We started at 4:00. The place was packed with Maple Road fans. The band sounded good, this is our 3rd public gig with our new guitarist. We played until 7:00, I was home by 9:00. Tear down took a while as we used our full blown. sound and lights. Blue

It happens to all of us. It's why I always stress good people before anything else. My band is not the best local band around. We don't have the best singer guitarist drummer or anything like that. However we do have good fair people in the band , no monkey business. Blue

If it was good enough for John Lennon it's good enough for me. Blue

We're the other signs that these guys were not on the " up and up" ? Blue