I'll need a snack report for Thu, 6/17/2010

Well, we made it through Wednesday and I didn't even throw in a Mel Brooks reference. I must be getting slow.

I have no clue what, or when, lunch will be. As I write this it's about 10:00 AM local time, so I have plenty of time.

Many (most?) of us are non-working musicians. We play because we love to do it. Relaxation, a return to glory days, getting a smile from a little one, or just driving the cats crazy; it doesn't matter. We just love it.

So here's the question: If you want to venture out beyond the bedroom or basement and play with others, how do you hook up? NAMM used to have a "Weekend Warriors" program for local music stores to participate in, but it's long gone and didn't seem to get much traction when they were doing it (I looked). I guess there's always Craigslist, but I'm sure how good a fit that would produce for an old fart like me.

So whattaya think? Got a great hookup line? "C'mon over to my place and we'll make beautiful music together. Must supply own guitar."

Random pr0n



Ken...

"I'm a mog; half man half dog. I'm my own best friend...", thanks Mel.

Great instruments. I like the wood grains. No more coffee shop open mic's or back when CBGB's host the All Pro Jams on Wednesday's... I guess a good place would be meeting people local from this forum or see what's posted at the local music shop.

So here's the question: If you want to venture out beyond the bedroom or basement and play with others, how do you hook up?

More recently, I've played open jam nights. Just me and a drummer. My friend Bob and I have been talking about piecing together a 15 minute set of my stuff, but haven't yet. It's not the easiest to learn.

I haven't played out since the last band I was in (about 1.25 years ago now) I was working with the guy who had a shoddy inconsistant and poor playing bassist. After that I channeled my time into slowly building a recording studio, I do miss jamming/playing out though.

Mel Brooks reference: "What knockers!"

I've been playing in a hobby band for about a year and a half now and I met up with the guys through Craigslist. Before that I played with 2 guys (a bass player and another guitarist) for a year or so and I met them also through Craigslist. I found in general the Craigslist ads do a pretty good job describing what kind of musicians someone is looking to hook up with, so it is not so much a crapshoot. But after that comes the meshing of personalities and skill levels, that you just won't know until you get together with the people a few times.

With this hobby band we play covers of everything from Beatles to 'current' stuff like Green Day and Garbage. We get together most Sundays and play for 2 and a half to 3 hours. We recently put together the list of songs we play and there are almost 60 songs on the list. We played for an audience a few times. Last summer we played at a neighborhood fair where there were probably a few hundred people, during the couple of hours that we played we probably had an audience of 40 to 50 people most of the time. It is fun and that why I'm still at it.

Kit

So here's the question: If you want to venture out beyond the bedroom or basement and play with others, how do you hook up?

The State Folk Association runs weekend festivals a few tikmes during the year. One of the most popular parts of their festival are the "blind dates". Festival attendees register and are randomly drawn into groups of 4. They are given 24 hours to learn a couple of songs that they then perform on the Sunday evening. In most cases 1 of the 4 will be one of the festival artists. They are great fun to do, and they usually have around 20 "groups" perform.
cheers, Robbie

So here's the question: If you want to venture out beyond the bedroom or basement and play with others, how do you hook up?

The State Folk Association runs weekend festivals a few tikmes during the year. One of the most popular parts of their festival are the "blind dates". Festival attendees register and are randomly drawn into groups of 4. They are given 24 hours to learn a couple of songs that they then perform on the Sunday evening. In most cases 1 of the 4 will be one of the festival artists. They are great fun to do, and they usually have around 20 "groups" perform.
cheers, Robbie

That sounds awesome.