Lol.........There you go number 51!!!

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Hang in there,

If you are a leader establish your own band with a "Chain of Command".

Go out and find some guys to jam with, even if they don't play your normal style.

Better yet, form your own band, and DON'T do everything that bothered you about the band you left.

In 2002, I fired myself from a band...the other guitarist and I were not getting along: he refused to let anyone have any say about anything (from the name of the group to the songs we played to where we gigged to how often we practiced to...). He increasingly picked material that was not well-suited to two guitars or a guitar and a harp (I play harmonica as well), so I was left trying to find someplace to fit in on the songs. We also both sang, but he didn't want me to sing but maybe three songs a night, because of his incredible awesomeness (note sarcasm). I fought to sing about a quarter on the forty songs we rehearsed. He also didn't want to play any original songs, just covers, so that precluded 70% of my repertoire. We rehearsed almost every weekend for eleven months before we played a gig--and that gig paid us less than $35 per guy.

The only reason I stayed as long as I did was because while we weren't (personally) good together, we were (musically) great together. We played off of each other very well; I (stylistically) was a good musical counterpoint to his style. I kept trying to make it work, but with his constant passive-aggressive putdowns he had almost destroyed all my confidence as a musician.

We had a chance to record in a real studio (a killer palace in Dallas, Luminous Studios), so I waited until I got copies of the songs I was allowed to play on (a total of four out of six songs recorded; he had removed my guitar parts on one of those four after the fact, so there were only three that my presence was heard)...then I quit.

By that time, I was so fritzed and angry about how things went down, I very nearly quit playing entirely.

Then, a few weeks later a spectacular guitarist called me and said, "Next Friday, we (his band) have a rehearsal. Bring your guitar, your harps and at least ten songs you want to sing...we also have a few we are going to request you sing. We have a gig Saturday and you're the frontman."

I was a bit flabbergasted...I asked why he needed me (he could play circles around me and they already had a good singer). He said, "This gig needs for us to break out of our honky-tonk/country mold; we need a guy who can sing & play blues and rock. It pays $100 a guy--are you in or not?"

The rehearsal was great--no egos, just friendly ribbing and jousting. I ended up singing over half the set list (twenty songs I sang, fifteen their other singer sang and we all joined in on a few others). They picked up on five of my originals (none of which they had ever heard), and thought that my songs were some old obscure blues songs. They let me play lead on several songs (even though the lead guitarist could kill me with three notes) and encouraged me to keep playing guitar and harp all night long, even on the songs I was diverting from their original course (stylistically).

The next day I called the drummer of the group I had quit (I was the one that brought him to the band) and told him to get ready to be in two bands...we rehearsed twice and played several gigs within weeks of forming the band. After two months, he quit band #1 and told me, "When you left, it fell apart; there wasn't any starting point; the set list had to be cut in half, because we couldn't play most of the songs with only one guitar. The songs that formerly had harp in them sounded empty and stale without it. He can't sing all night, because his voice gives out."

They replaced the drummer and kept going, but from the home videos and recordings (both studio and live) I heard, it just didn't work musically. Their new drummer was mechanical and boring as well (he was hired because he looked cool and had a PA system--something else I brought to the group; the PA, not the looks). They broke up pretty quickly.

My band is still together. Hmm...

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Just tuned my guitar to open D just for that reason....

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

I swear I read your story once before. Did you post this on a previous thread?

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

As for me, I'm going to go back to playing with a couple friends of mine. Some open jams and run through a few of the songs from the band that I actually liked.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

Possibly. I suffer from RTS$OAOS (Repeating The Same Story Over And Over Syndrome). It drives my wife crazy.

The moral still stands true, though. Get out and play--by yourself, at an open mic jam, with another band. Use what you learned and get your mojo back.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

[quote="bill948"]Take your 50 songs and find some other friends... Don't let it get you down, it's just another one of lifes trials... Onward to better times![/quote

BINGO!!!!! You didn't waste your time, you learned 50 new songs!

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

I think I found a good excuse to take a break. My frets are in need of replacing. My guitar is going to the shop today to have a couple frets replaced and have a one over on the neck. If there is too much work to be done, I'll end up replacing the neck instead of fixing it. Since my strat is the only electric guitar I have left, I'm going to be out a guitar for awhile.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

Then read, write, draw, paint, sculpt, carve wood, take a cooking class, do some traveling, volunteer at the food pantry...

...live life. Amd when the guitar comes back....

i play the same songs every day over and over again, i never get bored of it.
if i am getting borded of it, i'll probably learn a few hard cover songs, eric clapton, them crooked vultures etc. usually once i've had a break from my songs for a month or 2, when i come back to playing them, i find them better

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riley