…not our band, of course — the lead guitarist Is No More, Keyboards still lives in Seffrica, Drummer Knob in his Monaco palace, vocalist Gilly in Britishland and Mr. Average Bassist here in north Texas. Logistically, practically and (in my case) medically… fergeddabahdit.
Then Reader Sean F. sent me this epistle:
I have a story from my days in Miami, that while is not a suggestion in any way, is more a tale of “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.
For many years I was a member of the Miami Yacht Club, i.e. not blue blood, but blue collar. Although we were of an ordinary sort of fellow boaters and drinkers, there was always a bit of the “monied” crowd around, because it is expensive to own any kind of boat. Of course we all got along together, which was the whole point. It led to many amusing anecdotes, like this one.
Seven or eight guys and their spouses/girlfriends (groupies) decided that they were going to form a band. Some of them had some musical experience, but it was decided that they would all learn a different instrument. They all bought instruments, amps, etc. that they would need to perform with in the new band and commenced practice.
It took them over a year, but at last they decided to “debut” at a club function. Aside from the usual technical problems – they had no roadies, they really were not bad, and put on a good show of rock classics. They called themselves The Hoovers, of course, because “we suck”.
After another 6 months, they were getting local gigs, even though it was just a hobby for them. For the final gig at the club, they played that Pink Floyd song where there’s a helicopter hovering in the background, and just as that sound effect was about to happen in the song, a real small helicopter (rented by one of the members) appeared over the beach and provided the sound effect in a spectacular fashion. The band played around the sound in a very professional manner, and the crowd went wild! They didn’t suck at all.
I followed them, and encouraged/critiqued them from the very beginning, and got a lot of satisfaction from the whole endeavor. Anything can happen if we wish it.
I love that story, and it got me thinking. I wouldn’t / couldn’t do this myself for all sorts of reasons, but here’s the thing: as long as you don’t set your goals too high, pretty much anyone with any kind of musical talent can put together a band, and have fun. (You must have some musical talent or else you’re just wasting time and money. This is especially true if you want to play keyboards — without at least some formal background, it’s not by any means a “starter” instrument.)
Firstly, you need to find a few people who are about your age who share your musical tastes. (Trust me: attempting to get a jazz pianist to work with a rock guitarist, for example, is difficult beyond words. Ask me how I know this.) If you all want to play country, or 60s Britpop, so much the better. I would even suggest recruiting people using musical preferences as the primary filter. It will help if at least one of you is quite skillful on their instrument, especially piano or guitar, because a good one of those can “carry” the band through that awkward beginning phase. And if you can find a lady singer with anything like a voice, that will help.
Secondly, you need to practice on your instrument, probably for a few months by yourself, and then with the other people you want to play with. (It’s surprising how easy it is to learn as you go along with other people of about your skill level, or maybe a little more.)
Thirdly, your new band will need to build a repertoire of about fifty songs (12 songs per set, four 45-minute sets per gig). Deciding which songs will be surprisingly easy if you’ve decided on your preferred genre. Most country songs are fairly simple to play, as are 50s rock ‘n roll and 60s-era Britpop ditties. (Just not Beatles or Beach Boys — think of that as a Phase 2 project. Once again, ask me how I know this.) Old dance favorites from the 30s, 40s and 50s sound like they’d be easy to play, but are surprisingly difficult. If you have a good pianist, however, your task will be a lot easier. To put this together inside a time frame that won’t see you lose interest, you’ll need to practice (as a band) at least twice a week, and three times would be better. Also, whatever songs you learn, write down the lyrics and a simple chord chart (see below for an example), which will make memorization easier. (Don’t be ashamed to have a music stand with the lyric sheets in front of you; the big rock bands don’t but classical orchestras do, and our second guitarist Farty Marty played off his “cheat list” for over twenty years.)
Just for the hell of it, I’ve put together a list of 50-odd “beginner” songs from memory, encompassing ballads, pop songs and easy-to-sing ditties, as an example.
50s: Rock Around The Clock, Peggy Sue, That’ll Be The Day, Tutti Frutti, Blueberry Hill, Let’s Twist Again, Roll Over Beethoven, Ain’t That A Shame, Blue Suede Shoes, Johnny B. Goode (as long as the guitarist can play the signature lead solo, otherwise forget it), Jailhouse Rock, Be Bop A Lula, Rock And Roll Music, Summertime Blues, You’re 16 and Sweet Little Sixteen (if you dare LOL), All I Have To Do Is Dream, Good Night Sweetheart (always a great gig ender, btw). That’s eighteen, and there are probably even more goodies I’ve forgotten about.
60s: House Of The Rising Sun, To Love Somebody, Wild Thing, Crimson & Clover, Love Is All Around Me, Bad Moon Rising, Pretty Woman, Honky Tonk Woman, Louie Louie, Proud Mary, Stand By Me, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, You Really Got Me, Happy Together Ferry Cross The Mersey, Then He Kissed Me — okay, that’s sixteen and I’m not even trying.
Things get a little more difficult after this era, as pop music became more complicated. Still:
70s: Brass In Pocket, Because The Night, The Boys Are Back In Town, Smoke On The Water, My Sharona, I’ve Got The Music In Me and that’s the easiest half-dozen I can think of, offhand.
Country: Angel Of The Morning, Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses, From A Jack To A King, Rambling Rose, I Take A Lot Of Pride In What I Am, Tulsa Time, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Let Your Love Grow, Help Me Make It Through The Night, Act Naturally, Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, Mr. Bojangles and oh good grief that’s a dozen and I haven’t even got to Dolly yet.
Evergreens: What A Wonderful World, Fascination, Honey, Everybody’s Talkin’, (It’s Only) Words, Love Letters In The Sand… and don’t get me started on the old standards.
See? That was easy. Now all you have to do is learn how to play them.
Sample lyrics/chord sheet:
———C ——————————————- F ————————————– C
Well I woke up Sunday morning / With no way to hold my head that it didn’t hurt;
———- C ———————————— Am ————— Dm7 ————- G7
And the beer I had for breakfast tasted good / So I had one more for dessert.
…etc. (I think those are the lyrics and simple chords, but my memory may have failed me. It’s a representation, not a frigging official lyric sheet.)
The beer I had from breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert…
After over 30 years of being a bedroom guitarist I started a blues band. Unfortunately, my band mates were my age, so after a helluva lot of work and one performance it broke up when our female singer needed a knee replacement and couldn’t walk for 6 months, and the other guitarist went off to play with another band.
Undaunted, I started all over again, and my new band has done a couple of successful gigs. It really is a great feeling to be part of a tight knit team where everybody is doing something different but the resulting total sound has people dancing in front of the stage, and applauding at the end of each song. And there’s that sensation of absolute trust between you all where the drummer goes “One two three four” and you know that everybody is gonna be tight and hit their note loud and hard exaxtly on that next “One”.
A good band really is a brotherhood.
My wife’s cousins have a family band that has quite a few concerts during the year. They play at a couple of bars/restaurants, breweries and maybe a few farmer’s markets. They’re not bad. They get some money for the evening, they practice a hobby they enjoy and they have fun with it.
As you know Kim, nothing beats being in a good crew on a good night.
Ahh, five sets of ten songs. We were a self described corporate covers / good times band. Our target audience started as over 30s, but became over 50s by the end, lol.
We basically only played songs that everyone knew as a twenty something that you could get up and boogie to. Some of those songs (the Scottish song aka 500 miles) literally three chords, no bridge, no solo, and walking on sunshine by Katrina and the waves were always winners, guaranteed to get people up and dancing but god they got repetitive. Of course, being a covers band you pretty much need arrangements that are recognisably similar to the original.
We all had day jobs, young families and other commitments which often got neglected for the band. For us it was basically a Friday / Saturday night thing but it also meant, for example that I knew I was “busy” every weekend in December, always working New Years Eve.
For many years, because of how I’m wired I owned, set up and ran the PA on the fly.
That meant all afternoon of a gig hauling in and setting up. Often after a 4 or 6 hour drive to the venue. Play from 8 till 12, 1 or 2 in the morning. Then tear down and load everything into the truck and drive back to the lockup. Not unusual to be home in time for breakfast.
I also was “the guy” who seemed to need to be organised. Ran the diary. Confirmed the gig, the date, the venue, the run sheet for things like speeches, and THE MONEY. I don’t know why it is, but organised and musician just don’t generally go together. We would get people walk up to us during a show and book us for their works Christmas function. So I had to collect details, dates, discuss rates and payment etc. But we always got paid.
That band did for several marriages over the years. Partners used to resent us going off together as a crew. It was a lot of weekends wrecked by having a gig as far as they were concerned. Plus a couple of the band seemed to only need to look at a member of the opposite sex in the audience and they would take their clothes off and lie down.
I have chronic back problems from lugging amps and 4 x 12s up and down fights of stairs. I have significant hearing loss and tinnitus from spending 6 or 8 hours standing three feet in front of a cranked Marshall half stack. My left hand locks up solid now after about an hour of playing.
We made a night special for thousands of people over the years. Were the backdrop to some awesome weddings, birthday parties or just that one night they were out and had a fantastic night at a pub, danced all night, met their future husband all to the sound of 500 miles, walking on sunshine, Johnny b good or jumping Jack flash.
Some of the best times of my life…..
Yikes. I have a contrarian view.
Musicians are ethereal Gods of the Universe, but bands are egomaniac assholes who play whatever the fuck they want at whatever tempo or volume they want.
That’s fine in private, but in a venue where an audience has paid good money to hear what they want to hear, bands need to be disciplined with the iron fists of ejection and non-payment.
I was aware of this in the 1970s when I worked for a manager of multiple bars and night clubs, a 5’6″ Englishman, soft spoken and tough as tough can be. But I understood only on an intellectual level. Then my wife forced me to learn to dance.
Why would a band agree to play in a dance venue for people who have paid to to dance to dance music and refuse to play dance music?
Questions and answers:
Please play a slow waltz. Fuck you.
Please play a Tango. What the fuck is a Tango? Fuck off.
Please play at a lower volume permitting conversation and not blowing our eardrums. Fuck you.
Please don’t take half hour breaks and come back drunk and incompetent. Fuck off.
Do you know how many beats per minute there should be in Rumba or maybe a Cha Cha and could you please play at those tempos? No, and I don’t give a fuck, fuck off. Hey, where’s my tip?
Sheesh, Fred… you must have some really shitty bands out there in Backofnowhere, West Canukistan.
Good point. We do. Especially here in Western Canada, Calgary to be specific, where we are still pretty rough and raw.
It’s terrible here, but I’ve had the same shit different smell all over the world.
I had drum and piano lessons from age 5-17. Was in a couple of high school bands in the middle 70’s and during my first 10 years in the Navy, played in barracks and ship “bands” where the standards were not “are you good” but “are you loud.” I wanted to be a musician but settled on being a drummer. Quit it all until my Late Wife died, then picked up the keyboards again. Now I’m in a loosely configured groove trio/poker club where 5-6 guys show up some play cards and some play instruments and some do both. I’m a middle C player and while I can play 4/4, I read music in 1/4, so every new song is a chore to learn. Still, it keeps me off the street and I get to hang around people who can barely stand me (and vice versa), which at my age (67) is a rarity.
You know, a blog band would be fun, though it would be almost impossible to pull it off. I’d love to play with Kim, though I probably a lesser musician than he’s used to playing with. I’m a singer first – and a very good one – and a very average guitar player. I really enjoy cranking it up, but I have no illusions I’m a serious guitar player. I do have a good time, though.