I quit!

[FuzzyAce]

Covers are fun. Originals are fun. Covers can be brutal and draining. Originals can be brutal and draining.

For me, it's more about who I am with and what we are doing (and how we are doing it!), then what is
getting played. I say that as a dude who grew up looking down on "cover bands." Yeah, I was that guy.

If it's fun, then it's fun! And at 55 I now know it is we ourselves who make things fun. Fun is an inside job!

There is a difference in appreciating and enjoying listening to a great cover band vs. being a part of one. When you're just hanging with other musicians and having jam sessions, then yeah you might play some covers to get the juices flowing and fortunately I know a bunch, but even in those times I've always preferred improv based on a riff or song someone there had come up with. Just my personal preference.

 

[DrewJD82]

I just wanted to play guitar live, that was the sole intention of joining a cover band. I’m not overly choosy about the genre as long as I’m playing guitar in a live setting. I want to hear all these guitars I’ve been buying and all the tones I’ve been dialing in cranked up and in a band! My pragmatic side figured the quickest way from my living room to the stage was joining an already established band and I thought I struck gold with these guys. And the places that do have cover bands down here generally have an active audience that’s having a blast, but they’re also generally playing much more popular songs and not “Georgy Porgy” by Toto….or something by The Mummies.

Fortunately, I’ve been playing like a motherfucker for the last few days. Each day I’ve looked at a guitar and I’ll get that guilty feeling like I’m supposed to be learning songs and then realize I don’t have to and get overjoyed. I can’t believe how much that was keeping me away from playing.

There is a difference in appreciating and enjoying listening to a great cover band vs. being a part of one. When you're just hanging with other musicians and having jam sessions, then yeah you might play some covers to get the juices flowing and fortunately I know a bunch, but even in those times I've always preferred improv based on a riff or song someone there had come up with. Just my personal preference.

Improv jamming is my favorite thing to do in the context of playing in a band. Our jazz band instructor was really big on improvising and we’d often start classes with a jam, my 2 best friends were in that class with me and we just started warming up that way in our band at home. It’s how I’ve started almost every band practice since then and was how the drummer and I from my first original band wrote all our music, just improv‘ing and keeping the good bits. It’s my favorite way to write music with other people.

 

[Iron1]

Wish ya lived here. We're still looking for a guitar player. Have had 3 so far say they're in then ghost... 4th time's a charm? Maybe...

 

[Bob Zaod]

Some of you may have read my whining about not having any motivation to pick up my guitar lately and I figured out why!

I had joined a cover band 2-3 months ago and long story short, the date I would join them onstage kept getting pushed back. They’ve got a long setlist and wanted me to be fully rehearsed before getting onstage, but kept getting these offers for private gigs where they were being asked to learn special sets for. I totally get it from their end, they’ve got a system down and they’re extremely efficient in rehearsals, probably the most professional cover band I’ve ever seen, really. Since they were never going to play these songs again after these gigs, it made no sense for me to learn them along with the 40+ list of songs I was already learning, so it basically became “We want to get you in practicing our normal set, but we couldn’t pass these gigs up”

Again, I get it. Some of those gigs are definitely going to turn into many future gigs as two of them are for venue owners. But my onstage date kept getting pushed back, I wouldn’t be getting onstage until late September, as per the last conversation. So I quit last night, no hard feelings on either side, guitarist totally gets it, just bad timing for both of us.

I hadn’t really thought of it much until I was talking to him, but every time I’d pick up my guitar I’d feel guilty if I weren’t practicing their songs or learning more of them. A lot of them need to be figured out in the practice room because some of them don’t even have guitar parts in them. If I started playing chugga metal riffs I’d chastise myself for not practicing the cover tunes and this is entirely why I haven’t felt like picking up my guitars lately. The second I was off the phone I was rippin’ up metal riffs and it’s all I could think about today at work.

It was literally like getting out of a relationship and realizing how much freedom you have all of a sudden! Unless a really perfect, REALLY perfect, cover situation comes up, I don’t think I’ll bother again for a while. But man have I been getting the urge to put an original metal band together again. We actually have a scene for it down here, no one is doing it to “make it”, it’s mostly dudes my age (40) that just like playing metal in a live setting. So we shall see, but I predict my musical output is about to pick back up again!

I get it for sure. I have been the guy working up 45 songs (30 of which I have never played) and trying to have it done in a couple weeks time. I have also been the guy to tell a band it's not gonna happen. I agreed to join a Southern Rock Tribute once and (this isn't a slam on them) it got to a point where I was literally mixing the songs together when going through them. They all sounded the same to me at a certain point kinda like 90's death metal. I told them to look for someone else after a month of me trying to get ready. They are still together and doing very well taking in 1-2k a gig. Oh well.

 

[la szum]

There is a difference in appreciating and enjoying listening to a great cover band vs. being a part of one. When you're just hanging with other musicians and having jam sessions, then yeah you might play some covers to get the juices flowing and fortunately I know a bunch, but even in those times I've always preferred improv based on a riff or song someone there had come up with. Just my personal preference.

Improv is a blast.....

I get to weekly with some of my best mates and we always include that in our evening of fun. We also beat
to death a few covers---and I take off my axe and go for a smoke outside. And then I do it back to them
with a cover they are not interested in. We are an equal opportunity hang.

There is no perfect scenario I have yet to come across. Compromise is a given. Sometimes more. Sometimes
less. Sometimes way too damn much, in my experience.

I also realize --- in my golden years --- that we, as humans, get in our own way (heads!) a lot of the
time, and are our own obstacles to a good time. It's why there are more rants posted on this Forum
than celebrations of music or threads of gratitude. Humans like to bitch---a lot. And that is something
I am going to fight like a motherfucker, because I know that with age we can find more shit that
is wrong and to bitch about, unless we intentionally choose to look the other way.

But yeah, if I had my druthers I would do poorly written and performed original material.

I can suck magnificently at anything, though.

 

[la szum]

I just wanted to play guitar live, that was the sole intention of joining a cover band. I’m not overly choosy about the genre as long as I’m playing guitar in a live setting. I want to hear all these guitars I’ve been buying and all the tones I’ve been dialing in cranked up and in a band!

That's pretty much 100% of the reason I tolerates what I tolerates. Nothing like being able to play at volume
with some other cats.

 

[Iron1]

So I quit last night...

Quitter...

There I said what we were all thinking. No? Just me? Surely I'm not the only one who loves @DrewJD82 enough to bust his balls when he puts his heart out there. His pretty-in-pink-Warlock heart? The pink guitar he bought from me back during the Civil War and has yet to finish cause he's too busy learning how to play Trucking' by the Grateful Dead or the latest Yanni hit single? Hot Crossed Buns? You know THAT guitar...

 

[la szum]

Quitting is often just a way of saying "Yes," to something else.

 

[megametal7]

Some of you may have read my whining about not having any motivation to pick up my guitar lately and I figured out why!

I had joined a cover band 2-3 months ago and long story short, the date I would join them onstage kept getting pushed back. They’ve got a long setlist and wanted me to be fully rehearsed before getting onstage, but kept getting these offers for private gigs where they were being asked to learn special sets for. I totally get it from their end, they’ve got a system down and they’re extremely efficient in rehearsals, probably the most professional cover band I’ve ever seen, really. Since they were never going to play these songs again after these gigs, it made no sense for me to learn them along with the 40+ list of songs I was already learning, so it basically became “We want to get you in practicing our normal set, but we couldn’t pass these gigs up”

Again, I get it. Some of those gigs are definitely going to turn into many future gigs as two of them are for venue owners. But my onstage date kept getting pushed back, I wouldn’t be getting onstage until late September, as per the last conversation. So I quit last night, no hard feelings on either side, guitarist totally gets it, just bad timing for both of us.

I hadn’t really thought of it much until I was talking to him, but every time I’d pick up my guitar I’d feel guilty if I weren’t practicing their songs or learning more of them. A lot of them need to be figured out in the practice room because some of them don’t even have guitar parts in them. If I started playing chugga metal riffs I’d chastise myself for not practicing the cover tunes and this is entirely why I haven’t felt like picking up my guitars lately. The second I was off the phone I was rippin’ up metal riffs and it’s all I could think about today at work.

It was literally like getting out of a relationship and realizing how much freedom you have all of a sudden! Unless a really perfect, REALLY perfect, cover situation comes up, I don’t think I’ll bother again for a while. But man have I been getting the urge to put an original metal band together again. We actually have a scene for it down here, no one is doing it to “make it”, it’s mostly dudes my age (40) that just like playing metal in a live setting. So we shall see, but I predict my musical output is about to pick back up again!

im glad you are not a number and now you are a free man.


personally me i would never play in cover band but if someone digs it thats cool....

put original band together and give me devastating riffage.. till my brain has short circuit and blows the fuse... puffff......