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I Guess I Spoke Too Soon: Out of the Band


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3 hours ago, LucSulla said:

Well if that ain't the fucking gospel.

What really gets me is when you ask before going out to some band's practice for the first time if any of the keys have been changed and they say no, then you get there and there are several.  Or a song is in Eb on the album and it's awkward as hell so you know it was originally recorded a half step down, and you ask "do you guys move this one down to D or up to E and they say "we play it like the record".  You get there and of course they've moved it one way or the other and it's usually the non-intuitive way.  These things have happened to me plenty of times.

Most recently when I was meeting with some new people for the first time, we go into a song and it's chaos.  We stop to figure out what's going on and one of the guys says "I can only play keyboards for this one in C even though it's originally in E".  WTF???  Then a few minutes later we went to play some raucous-ass guitar song like Funk #49 or something and this idiot (same guy) says that one's in a different key to because he plays BANJO on it.  He also said he had "written" "cool mandolin parts" for certain other rock songs.  He was not proficient on any instrument and it was clear that he just wanted to showboat like he was some amazing multi-instrumentalist.

They also had two female lead singers who sang in the exact same range.  They'd discuss who was going to sing a song based on whose "range" it fit better, then they'd sing in unison and say they were doing harmonies.  When they decided they needed a THIRD female singer, I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

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6 hours ago, tommy p said:

Or a song is in Eb on the album and it's awkward as hell so you know it was originally recorded a half step down, and you ask "do you guys move this one down to D or up to E and they say "we play it like the record".  You get there and of course they've moved it one way or the other and it's usually the non-intuitive way.  These things have happened to me plenty of times.

I forgot about this one.  One band I auditioned for pulled the "we play it like the record," routine.  Some of the stuff was in standard, some was tune to Eb, but they insisted that it was "like the record."  So I set up the one FR guitar I have for Eb, and it turns out the play them all in standard.  Turns out "like the record," meant we just learned the tab.  

I have to say hearing those jerkoffs learning a song by blasting it through a PA and playing it all a flat second off through pure force of will was interesting.  I never went back.  

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"Play it like the record". HA! The country band I was in could only 'play it like the record'. They were strictly song players, with nearly no ability to improvise. It was weird for me. I mean, EVERY band has a couple of songs you can stretch out on, right? But these guys couldn't add 4 bars to a solo break! WTFF?

It was a good discipline-learning experience, but at the end of the night you were just tired. And not in the good, satisfied/exhausted kinda way.

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I am amazed at how many bands post adds that say things like they need a new guitarist ASAP and mention that they have a gig two weeks out so you need to learn all 80 of their songs before then. I always laugh and think if you are the kind of person who can pull that off you probably already have a band.  

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