advice for finding hard-to-find musicians to start a band?

[play paintball]

I had a little trouble thinking up a good title for this thread, forgive me.

Right now, I play bass in a garage ska/punk band, nothing serious, we practice maybe once or twice a week. Its fun and all, but I'm starting to get burnt out on that type of music.

Lately, I've had some good ideas about forming a rocksteady/reggae band that would sound sorta like a combination of The Slackers and The Wailers (before Bob Marley became the leader).

Considering I'm a junior in highschool, I don't have that many options as to other musicians to play with, and frankly I have not played with too many that impressed me.

I've asked around, and have found someone who wants to play keys and a rhythm guitar player. I have a friend who is very good at the drums, but has said he would rather play trombone (in a horn section). That sort of put me in a bind, considering finding a skilled drummer is hard enough, and finding one who wants to play reggae/rocksteady is even harder.

I had originaly figured that I would get a keyboard player, rhythm and lead guitarists, drummer, and myself to play together and work on just becoming comfortable with each other and the style of music, and then branching out and attempting to find a trumpet, trombone, and saxaphone player.

Would any of you have a suggestion as to a good way to go about finding skilled musicians other than just asking around school, or asking friends that play music?

Sorry if this is a bit confusing, I'm just writing down all my thoughts as they come to me.

Thanks for reading!

[Daniel Baskin]

I empathize with you considering that I'm a senior in high school at the moment and its hard to find good musicians...and when you do find them (which I have), they have different approaches to music. Generally, when I have found good all-around musicians, they are eclectic listeners.

I'm in a progressive rock band right now with some fairly decent players who have a very different approach to music than I do. Both guitarists have just as much (and one of them, more) fluidity and technique on their instruments as I do, but they don't see the music theory and rhythmic nuances that I see/hear when we play.

I want to know a good way too. I think the easy answer, though, is to just grin and bear it until you get out of high school.

[driver800]

there are two primary websites I've had good luck with, but only if you're near a large metropolitan area:

http://www.communitymusician.com/music-classifieds.html
find the nearest city to you, then use the classified links on the right.

http://craigslist.org
find the nearest city listed on the right, then the "musicians" link under "community" (top-near-left).


YMMV, but the Atlanta versions of both these sites are pretty active.

other than that, post messages in music stores, coffee houses and anywhere musicians gather (McDonalds, Domino's? )

[play paintball]

Thanks for the links Driver.

[bigtexashonk]

Hang around the local Banjo Center (Guitar Center) on a Saturday. All kinds of folks will come in to try out equipment. Kind of like an audition without them even knowing it's an audition. If you hear somebody you think might work - trot up and ask if they would be interested in the idea. If nothing else, they should be pleased that you even asked.

[pointbass]

Go to www.themode.com and find your area code .......

Good site for younger cats ......