Excited about music again!!! ^_^

[Nadz1lla]

Eyup all,

My band has been seriously ridiculously slow for about a year and a half. We had this lead guitar player come in, and were teaching him the songs, getting him up to speed, and we were all practising as a band as much as we could (and when half of us have money problems or no job, that was hard!)

The "new" lead guitarist quit in favour of committing more time to his other two bands, so we are back at square one again. After a month or two of seeking a new lead guitarist, I've pretty much given up hope of this band ever seeing the light of day again, which is a shame because when we did gig a couple of years ago (we had a break too) we were very well received on the local circuit and were having other bands ask for us specifically to gig with. Got a bit of a following, which for a band being gigging a matter of months was pretty good!

So I've been generally "down" about ever getting my music out there. The last two weeks I have decided not to use the "haven't got time for additional projects" excuse and just throw myself at everything that comes my way, and then I had an inkling that I should dig up an old project I had been toying with about six years ago.

I put up an advert on joinmyband, and within two weeks I have obtained a really good drummer, two bass players and a lead guitarist! Bagged and tagged, baby! The music we are going to be doing is also really exciting and fun, and the band is going to be not just a musical band, but a proper gigging experience. There will be shenanigans aplenty and a lot of musical freedom for everyone, and I've not felt this excited about making music in years, I'd forgotten how good it could feel!

Then I also got a facebook message out of the blue from one of my folky mates who said he wanted to start up a folk duo and immediately thought of me, so he and I are getting together to jam some stuff out and get that going. Jethro Tull covers have been promised, so I am extremely happy about that too.

Add to these things another of my uber-talented mates has agreed to help me put together a song for an audio portfolio I want to start developing so I can get some kind of name for myself out in interwebs land (youtube etc), and so another project has been born. I now have a whole list of muso mates who want to collaborate with me on several cover versions so that I can upload them to youtube and get into my musical groove again.

And you know what else? I started watching The Voice with my Mrs a few weeks back and thought to myself "bugger it, I'm not getting any younger", so I may well also try and get myself on to that.

It's nice to come out on the other side of a musically desolate wasteland with so many prospects on the horizon. For so long I've been way too controlling over what I do musically, now I am finally letting go and letting things just happen, kinda turning into a bit of a musical "Yes" man, and I'm loving it!  :D

Just wanted to share that, really, as I think most musos go through this kind of thing at some point. Never give up hope, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel!

 :D

[MrBump]

Good to hear!  It's a funny old journey, innit?

[AndyR]

That's really good news, thanks for sharing it.

Hope it all goes well - but even if some of it doesn't, it sounds like you're better placed for handling it. It's all about keeping the feeling of "excitement" going. When it's not there, it can really get you down.

Good luck :D

[FELINEGUITARS]

What a lovely post .
Nice to be reminded that excitement and re-invigoration can find you when you least expect it to.

Hope it goes well

[Nadz1lla]

Thanks, guys! Yeah it's had a really positive effect on life in general too. I think this "main band" stuff has had a lot to do with how negative and down I had been feeling over the last few years. Finally having the courage to just throw caution to the wind and let life take me wherever it's going to go really has kind of released me, and I think I'm a lot happier for it.  :D

It definitely is a funny old journey, MrBump!  :)

[38thBeatle]

Great to hear things are picking up. Being in a band can be the best of things but also the worst. I am going through a patch where I want to drive a steamroller over the head of my drummer.The frustration of having to negotiate band material with the most imbecilic person I have encountered in a long while ( Messrs Dunning & Kruger would have a ball ) but your story tells me that perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.   

[Johnny Mac]

Great post and i empathise with you. It does feel good when you just let things lead you rather than try and control it.
Good luck with all your projects. I hope you do get some success with your original band too. The more musical networking your doing may just lead you into some success with it.

Since my Ian Dury project hit the buffers I've had 3 offers. One of them was just last night. I'm going to give all of them a fair crack of the whip. :-)

Steve, sounds like your drummer is still driving you nuts! The drummer in our Ian Drury band used to shout out "F*ck my helmet" every 30 seconds or so! I could have done with that steam roller myself a few times!

[Nadz1lla]

Cheers guys!

Well I had my first jam with my mate Rob on Saturday, we cracked "Up To Me" by Jethro Tull (a fairly simple ditty, that one) and are going to have a stab at "Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson and "Wish You Were Here" by Floyd. For something that was intended to be a folk duo we sure are doing a lot of prog, hah! We are going to tackle "Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkle and some Fairport Convention stuff though, just to even the playing field a bit. There's also a song called "Black Velvet Band" that he used to do in a Pirate / Folk band that we both really like so we will probably do that too, some nice vocal harmonies in there.

My other project, I had our first meeting with that band on Sunday evening, and it went really well. Two bass players! One of them has an upright, so we'll be having two octaves of Bass tomfoolery going on, and a drummer who is really into Dillinger Escape Plan and Meshuggah etc. We have yet to find a guitar player, so I will fill in whilst we are initially jamming and then revert to purely vocals and kaoss pad when we get a noodler. This project is going to be insane... think tag teams of The Specials and Engelbert Humperdinck having a bout of fisticuffs with Slayer and GWAR whilst Grace Jones commentates on the fight, and all of this is on a rickety Pirate ship on its way to Cthulhu's tea party, and all their party suits are designed by Leigh Bowery.
...
Yeah, you might get the kind of idea.    :lol:
But this one in particular is REALLY exciting, because completely severing the chains of "genre" makes everything possible. Whatever we feel we want to throw into the mix, we'll just do it, and find a way of cementing it all together somehow. The main emphasis on this band, though, is fun. We're hoping the live shows will be something really memorable and make people want to come out and see what shenanigans will happen next.  :D