So, I'm a little pissed (Quitting the band that I put together)

[heavyfunkmachin]

hi all,

first of all: drugs will fry your brain. thats a fact.

i have no experienc with meth, but i see it as a scary thing, actually, maybe even worse than heroin.

that being said, i think that maybe he was just "trying out" or something, i dont know... i just wanted to give him another perspective. to be in a band with friends is such a great thing that i thought that maybe he could enjoy it just by taking a different aproach.

i have some exeperience with drugs, both personal and with people related to me, and i´ve seen the recreational "good" use and the face of death and lots in between. i dont make a drug-use apology and have never and never will recomend someone to use any kind of drug, BUT everybody is different and i´ve seen some people mess with bad stuff, duck, i met a guy who snorted coke just to get down from acids... and everybody is different, some poeple seem to be aple to fookl around and allways fall on their feet, but i have to agree that those are the few... usually drugs jsut destrois lives.

anyway, i think that you can be around some of the people that do drugs and be friends or help them out, what i mean is that you dont need to run away from every time you see the slightest clue of drug use, its not a contagious illness if you have things strait in you head.

[Stumbo]

You talk about how the other members of the band don't communicate yet you rant and decide to quit instead of calling a band meeting to let everyone know how you feel.

mmmmmmmm....

[Paulie Jay]

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

Doesnt seem flippant at all. We rehearse as a band to grow tighter, even though, yes it is improv, rehearsing helps us better learn each others playing styles so that when we are on stage we can gel better as a unit. Agreed though, that we have busted out some absolute gems in rehearsals, though the same can be said for the stage as well.

That makes sense I think it's a very exciting concept - if you were based in Australia and needed a second bassist I'd be in like a shot.

[von buck]

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

Thanks for your thoughts and input guys.
.... I conceded and we went ahead and did an awesome cover of White Rabbit. When the band decided they wanted to play some of the songs that we recorded, even though I didnt,....

I don't get why you would be against playing songs you guys recorded.Why waste the money recording if they weren't going to a part of your repetroire?

Yeah it sounds like they don't dig your singing, but replace the vocals with guitar wanking? unless you're an incrediable musician instruments and BORING Maybe look into getting a singer? Or honestly look at your own vocals and see if they could be on to something.

also, fire the drummer.

andy

[Spinal Tapper]

don't take last minute gigs. they can be hell on a band

[modulusman]

If the band doesn't want you to sing their might be a reason. Either you can't sing well or the lyrics you make up on the spot are not very good. Just saying.

[Winterpegbass]

Meth is definitely bad news.

I was putting a band together with an old guitar player friend about three years ago and he and the drummer were constantly on meth. Most meth users are trapped in a 3-4 day repeating cycle where they stay awake for 3 days and go into a 20 hour "coma" on day four.

The withdrawal symptoms are so severe (depression, low energy, irritable mood, suicidal thoughts) that abstinence becomes nearly impossible. Because of the "coma" on day four, chronic meth users are unable to work, go to school or be reliable for gigs. You never know if day four is going to land on a gig night.

When intoxicated on meth, the user is grandiose, has a high energy level, is disorganized (especially on day 3 without sleep), impulsive, irritable mood, has poor judgement/decision-making, is agitated in behaviour and prone to violence. If they are on meth for months straight they can develop "amphetamine psychosis" that resembles schizophrenia with delusions and hallucinations.

This band fell apart quickly with the guitar player and drummer eventually liquidating cars, houses, musical equipment, furniture etc to buy more meth. The guitar player was arrested after a year of wandering the streets with no fixed address for threatening to kill his parents when they stopped giving him money for meth. He spent 4 months in jail and was declared "not criminally responsible" for his crime because of his psychotic state and was transfered to a forensic psychiatric unit for the criminally insane. After 4 months he was released into a single room occupancy halfway house where he has lived for the last 9 months.

[MatticusMania]

So, I figured I'd give anyone who cared an update.

Got the whole band together for a meeting with the intention of making my decision to walk or stay after telling the band my thoughts. We settled down and immediately the keys player says that he overstepped his boundries. Everyone agrees that the last show was a bust.

We managed to hash things out and everyone immediately got back on the same page. Since then we've had two awesome shows (agreed upon by everyone), we've added the vocals back in, we've come up with some awesome ways to work things out. The other day we had what our guitarist was calling a "writing session" and I was kind of skeptical, but when I showed up we pretty much just chilled and listened to some recordings, and rather than structuring things like I thought it was going to be about we more or less just talked about what chords we were playing, what kind of dynamics we could bring to it, without actually doing any jamming. So far, things are great and we're all excited about continuing.