Bands

[TristezaOrange]

Muahahahaha, when I was in high school [about 15] some friends wanted me to be a singer for their band. So they made me sing over Gary Moore albums - I was crap but they still wouldn't give up. The last drop was when the DRUMMER asked me to drink eggs every morning so that I could 'sing better'. They were soon playing instrumentals.

Now I AM Tristeza Orange, and much more successful than they will ever be [ie. they gave up ]

[o'malley]

I was in a punk band in high school for a couple of months. When i discovered that the guitar player couldn't even tune his guitar... I quit.

I played at coffe shops for a while with a bunch of old guys that called themselves Jazz A.

Now I play with a few of my friends regularly, but I'ts not really like a band, like, we wouldn't name ourselves or anything like that.

[Markleford]

The problem with bands are... there are other people in it.

Amen! I still want clones of myself, as I can play every instrument already and wouldn't have "creative differences"... errrm, or so I think.

Post-university I've only been in two bands. One was a "progressive-pop" outfit... that was supposed to be a pop band, but the drummer and I (playing Chapman Stick and fretless bass) were into King Crimson and other prog-rock bands and we always brought that influence in. Played out a few times. Material was very strong (if pop), but broke up due to differences in writing style.

Oddly, that drummer came to work at my company last month! (well, odd because the company is so small: only 9 developers, so the chances are slimmer than at a mega-corporation) Maybe we'll do something together again. In the meantime, he founded the prog band Quarkspace, which has some amount of reputation in those circles.

Only band of any permanence after that was an industrial-death thing. I was pretty much in the role of "production and (live) electronic drums". Had a New Years gig lined up that we never lasted to. Wrote a bunch of half-tunes that I rather liked (in fact, my Maybe Razor from the first KvR MOST METEL Contest was my reworking of one), but never had the cohesiveness as a unit or discipline to pull it together (we were all f**ked up in our unique ways ).

- m

[dystonia_ek]

Loads of bands from '84 to '99, some less serious than others... prefer to work solo though - I get more done that way. A ton of stories... hard to know where to start. I'll just say that I learned never, never do a fire-breathing act in a venue with low ceilings, ever.

[Raphaelle]

1: Yup. A hardcore punk band that was on and off for a while.

2: Err, sort of. We were good at playing -other people's songs-, but we were screwed when it came to writing. We had two people out of the four with writing talent, me and the drummer, but the drummer could only write drum stuff and I always wrote myself into a corner when I was unable to actually play the stuff I had just written down.
(that's what MIDI is for!)

3: On the road? Umm, we went around within about an hour's drive, but didn't play any farther out than that becuase we were lazy arsed.

4: Stories? I always got the shit beaten out of me because I was into the whole Goth scene, and the punks thought I was some kind of pansy, which is unfortunately true. Which seems to have given some them some sort of reason to kick the shit out of me after half the gigs.

I need a hug now...

Umm, the only actual mildly funny story I have is once the bassist showed up really drunk and kept on playing everything at codeine speed and slowly speeding up, screwing everybody's timing. Then he passed out in the middle of the set and something in his bass broke when it fell. I know, it's a bit of a standard story, but it's the only one I've got that I can remember...

I now need a hug even more...

[Sepheritoh]

I need a hug now...

....

I now need a hug even more...

[deastman]

I was in a Depeche Mode ripoff type band in the 80's, and an industrial band in the early 90's. Personality clashes always got in the way of being productive and actually going somewhere. Thats probably why I pefer to work alone now... and why I'm so productive and famous too!

[hao nao]

never in a band, but I put up a couple of show flyers for bands that didn't exist

[soulata]

yup

on sax:

jazz quartet - own music/regular gigs/ok money
soul covers band - few gigs/ok money
hired gun - good money, not always fun

and

on keys and sax:

kinda famous rock band here, but

no money (record/video/record/video...)
sometimes fun (has to be with all the free drinks)
groupies (mostly ugly)
never home before 8am

k

[quincy]

Never been in a band, although my mate at college wanted us to start a boy band for a laugh

I'd love to be in a band though, i see myself as samplist/sound f**ker-upper hiding in the back.

I also plan to DJ when i have the time and get good enough.

Everyone needs pipe-dreams

[Sepheritoh]

Playing live had such good memories and everybody has their interesting stories. What I hated most about gigs was being my own roadie. I had this 2X300W stereo powered mixer / PA system with the 2 300W Vidal bins. Still have it. They weigh a ton each. It is just standing around in my studio for the show now. At 2 o'clock when we had to pack up everybody was tired and the band was getting drunk. It was everyone for himself then and I had to lug these huge bins to my truck. Sometimes long distances up and down stairs. Strange that they survived all of that. No guitar necks through the cones or anything. But then, they have this super strong steel mesh for protection. The guitar would not have survived,

[soulata]

yey, the roadie part.

I've bought a smaller keyboard just because of the weight (I still have to help the bass player with his 4x12).

We have a roadie though (he's usually hiding from work).

k

[Markleford]

Never been in a band, although my mate at college wanted us to start a boy band for a laugh

My brother was in a boy band mockumentary movie for a laugh!

- m

[dekky]

in two bands at the moment.

one 5 piece .. which is nervewrecking... democracy can be so nervewrecking sometimes.

and one duo with guests when performing live. only two people - and suddenly this democarcy thing works fine

[tetraplan]

Have you ever been , or are you in one?

Yes, and yes.
I played percussion in one. I was supposed to play drums but the lack of a drumkit was a slight problem. Luckily, I hat one snaredrum and stuff like buckets and suitcases to play.
This one was later to become Louis Taube (1) and went from a weird bastard garage-rock through disjointed noise to plunderphonics (didn't play drums in the last incarnation but stuff like record-players and ghetto-blasters).

Also played drums in another band from 1987-1991. I did have a drumkit then and really wanted to play like Charles Hayward (only Charles Hayward is actually good). We called our music New Wave but sounded more like Skinny Puppy at times (only Skinny Puppy were actually good). We did some pretty nice tracks but constantly moving from one rehearsal-studio to another and changes in line-up made it impossible to actually work on these tracks. In the end, we just sort of stopped playing.

Now I play synth in a very nice (if a little odd) impro band.

Were you ever any good?

Define "good".
Well, Eb, the band I'm in right now, can actually be called "good". It's an aquired taste, though.

Did you ever go 'on the road'?

In our dreams, sure.
Things got in the way, though.
Eb played live three times, but never in any way that can be called "on the road".

Any top stories to tell?

Wel,...
...no.

Groupies, nutters, 'musical differences', do tell!

Not really. Sorry, no rock 'n' roll-lifestyle here.

Groet, Erik

(1) may post tracks later.