How many of you are in a band?

[reallygeeky]

I wonder how many of you guys are in a band or get together to jam with a full group on a regular basis?

oh yeah - check out my web link to check my band out... you'd probably dig us if you're into the punkier stuff the Pixies or Dinosaur Jr. did... the website is definitely meant to be taken tongue in cheek as a dig at the rockstar life (thus the groupie app and the copped attitude, trash talk in the blog).

[GrungeGod]

very cool site man

[300mhz]

Yah very nice site. As for the band thing. Yah i'm in a band but we're getting no where fast. I blame the drummer. What's a good practice routine for a band?

[reallygeeky]

We have a tendency to practice twice a week and then 3 times a week, the week before a show. One of the practice we'll generally work on new stuff/goof around and the other one we'll generally seriously run through a set like we're playing it live. The run throughs are really important... we try to make sure we play with the same energy we do live (it's really tough with no crowd) and we do things like practice quick song transitions etc... it really helps with our presentation since we're usually a little tipsy when we play live. If you practice it, you'll do it. Things like not staring at your shoes and moving around a little become more automatic and you can still play tight.

When we first got together we'd practice every other day. I think sometimes we should practice more... I'm a bit of a nazi when it comes to playing tight and I get pissed when the stage antics get in the way of how we sound. Fortunately 90% of the audience never even notices.

[reallygeeky]

Thanks for the compliments on the site guys! We're lucky that our drummer is a designer... he does all our posters (he even got mentioned as designing one of the best posters of the year in our local paper). We're gonna do a site overhaul soon I think.

[j_stashko]

I put my self under the gig once a month section. I am kind of in two bands, one is metal and we haven't had any gigs yet. The other one I am kinda in and we play places like once a month, but we don't have drummer. It is kinda weird because the band that I haven't played any gigs with yet, well me and them are quite good, but there is conflicting schedules and the other members are lazy ass, I mean lazy, singer/other guitar player has been playing guitar for like 2 years and still has a **** amp, like 15 watts, and horrible guitar, and he has nothing for singing, not even a mic. These people are unorganized, so it is hard for us to practice/gig much. I also jam with as much people as I can.

[reallygeeky]

There used to be a cool local band we'd play gigs with occasionally that had no drummer. They were a 3 peice. A guitarist vocalist/a bassist and a guy who would walk on stage with a drum machine in a briefcase, put it on a stool, open it, plug it in and then stand there and smoke and drink for the rest of the show while pressing the "next" button on the drum machine. It was pretty humorous. They had great songs too... think Fugazi's Repeater with a drum machine.

[boovya]

hahahhha i thought i heard the midgetmen from somewhere!!!!! i did a review for you i think on garageband.com im in a band called hierosonic www.hierosonic.com we have a kick ass site as well. check us out.

[reallygeeky]

Ha. Cool. Thanks dude.

Reviews for the album have been middling to positive from most people... Haven't got a "this just sucks" yet. We also just had a review from a show that was super positive. (We're a lot better live than on album... plus our singer is orders of magnitude better than he was when we recorded... he's got way more range and confidence in his voice now).

[boovya]

where are you guys from again?

[boyecho]

i was in a band with a pretty damn good lineup of shows. we played every weekend at this nice little place in st. petersburg, and then usually one normal show a month when we had a weekend off of the regular place. it's great to be a house band and not do any covers :)

but, bassist quit, he has a yoko, so i'm trying to get a couple of things together. no one seems to share my interests :(

[reallygeeky]

Originally posted by boovya
where are you guys from again?

Austin TX.

If you're in a band (no matter what genre) you are so spoiled if you live in Austin. We can get a gig almost anywhere in town at a drop of a hat. You have have to beg a little bit for good weekend slots but it's not that bad and you always get paid a cut of the door (never do you have to pay to play). It's such a great city.

I remember in highschool in my hometown in Canada you were lucky if you could get a gig every 3 months.

[wihaga83]

where are you guys from again?

Indonesia....

my band plays Zeppelin things. and now we're writing few songs and all of em not sounded Zeppelin-y, but too Rock'n'roll-y.........damn !!!!

[ben murphy]

i'm somewhere between the first two choices. i'm in two bands. we tour, play shows at least once every two weeks around town or regionally. we make some money but it usually goes to paying for van costs/recording and other stuff like that. we all have day jobs.

[Ice age coming]

I play in two bands:

1: This is a Pink Floyd tribute band with 9 people, and i play the dirty guitar (www.lastbrick.com)

2. This is "my" band where i play rhythm guitar and sing. We play some kind of alternative rock ala Radiohead, Muse, Placebo, Smashing Pumpkins. (www.sub-urbanhype.tk)



i like both but the one with the ****ty bandname is most fun.

[FuzzFan]

ha! good luck starting a band in a hillbilly town like mine. There's a grand total of 2 drummers and they're all in about 50 bands already....maybe I should have stuck with drums when I was 8....

[Greyskull]

I voted "jam with a full band of regulars but no gigging yet".

We practice 7 days a week.

MTWTF mornings: 8am-9:30am
MTW nights: 7pm-12am
Sat: 8am-3pm
Sun: 1pm-6pm

That's right...two-a-days !!!

We want to be tight as possible - like a good catholic girl on prom night !

...now if we can just get a good bass player...

[reallygeeky]

Originally posted by ben murphy
i'm somewhere between the first two choices. i'm in two bands. we tour, play shows at least once every two weeks around town or regionally. we make some money but it usually goes to paying for van costs/recording and other stuff like that. we all have day jobs.

Hey Ben, I haven't been following this thread in a while but what bands are you in here in Austin?

[Ice age coming]

Originally posted by Greyskull

We want to be tight as possible - like a good catholic girl on prom night !

LOL!:D

[EviLTwiN]

my band have played once, but it was a each band get up and play one song affair at university (/college, whatever). Over this summer we are all over the world, so can't play, but are recording stuff and mailing it to each other, so when we go back in september we'll have 2 solid weeks of practise, and should start gigging at least once a month from then on.

check the site: http://www.red-llama.com/thunderstorms and tell me what you think of it :) (it's not meant to tell you everything, its a more arty kind of site...).

[Ice age coming]

Originally posted by EviLTwiN
my band have played once, but it was a each band get up and play one song affair at university (/college, whatever). Over this summer we are all over the world, so can't play, but are recording stuff and mailing it to each other, so when we go back in september we'll have 2 solid weeks of practise, and should start gigging at least once a month from then on.

check the site: http://www.red-llama.com/thunderstorms and tell me what you think of it :) (it's not meant to tell you everything, its a more arty kind of site...).

Really nice site! im listening to the mp3s now :D they also sound very nice :D

[EviLTwiN]

thanks :D

the mp3s aren't meant ot be songs or anything, they're just musical ideas that give the rough sound of the band (ie. we have proper drums... those were just recorded on my computer with a drum machine :P)

also our singer sounds like a more aggressive version of bjork, and we have at the drive-in style melodies... it's sounding interesting :)

eventually we hope to bring in some violins/cellos, and we've pretty much decided on another guitarist... hence the blank spaces on the site :P