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"Commitment"
- Thread starter hrodbert696
- Start date
CL should add another "reason for flagging" link;
please flag with care: [?]
miscategorized
prohibited
spam/overpost
best of craigslist
makes entirely too much sense
please flag with care: [?]
miscategorized
prohibited
spam/overpost
best of craigslist
makes entirely too much sense
Well stated.
Another angle to consider: Many musicians are strictly part-timers at it, with full-time jobs, families, mortgages, & various other commitments that are not related to music. They have their priorities in a particular order, & playing in a band may be well below the top of the list. Somebody could be a great player, a great bandmate, etc. but if they have a job that requires them to work every Friday & Saturday evening, it makes booking gigs a challenge. They've got a choice to make & their choice may be different from mine.
I consider my self "committed" to being a musician. To me, that means I organize the rest of my life to make this possible. That's quite a bit different from being "exclusive", as far as any one band is concerned. As is often the case, different people have different interpretations for the same word. Whenever I audition with a band I try to make sure they understand what "committed" & "exclusive" mean to me in the context of their band, what my expectations are, & what I'm willing to deliver.
I always wondered who these people were that posted angry messages to CL, like it was a chat board........
Seems to be a chat board for lots of people.
"Wanted: Musicians crazy enough to want to play with my sorry arse. Must have proof of a recent commitment or a doctor's certification of one or more advanced mental disorders. You must also have at least 5 instruments and/or amps that are so expensive that you would never gig them. Substance issues a plus! Text me at 555-YAH-RIGT"
Seems to be a chat board for lots of people.
Well, where I posted that was the "musicians" section under "community." There are separate sections for "For Sale," "Jobs," "Services," and even "Gigs." There is even a section for "Discussion forums." Given that "community" is apparently distinct from the strictly classifieds sections for jobs, services, and gigs, I don't see any reason why people shouldn't post news and opinions there that are relevant to the musical community. I can't find any language in the CL terms of use that my post would have violated. So what's wrong with it?
Do I care enough to plunge into some labyrinth of appeals and review to get my post deflagged? Not really, no. But I don't see anything wrong with posting as I did.
While I agree with everything in your post, there is a valid reason for it getting flagged, at least technically. If you look at the flag menu and mouse over "miscategorized", the examples given are "wrong category, wrong site, discusses another post, or otherwise misplaced.
So when you say, "But I keep seeing these ads ..." it would be a fair assumption that you are referring to CL ads, (and perhaps others).
But I think the actual motivation for the flaggers is that you are making entirely too much sense. People don't like it when you do that. Especially clueless people. It takes them out of their comfort zone.
Been there. A while back, I had two projects going, one with a keyboardist and another a cover band. Neither went anywhere, and it just never came up in conversation with one that I was working on the other, there was never a schedule conflict between them, and I was always fully prepared for practice for both. One time I ran into the singer from the cover band with my wife and I introduced him to her as "the singer from the Manchester band" (identifying it by the town where we practiced). He gets this look on his face and a raised an eyebrow and said, "you mean the singer from THE band."
And the other thing to think about is, what about the "star" singer or guitarist who gets signed to a label deal and then promptly dumps the rest of the band? Where's the "commitment" then? Granted I know that sometimes the label (not the artist) makes that decision but the commitment thing goes both ways.
"stealing song lists"? If you are a cover band, the material is not your property. Anyone can go to your gig and write down what songs you play. The only way to "own" the songs is to play them better than everyone else.
I think that the real reason is because that section of CL is not is discussion board (there is a reason that posts in that section have no "reply" button), and those rants are just useless clutter.
exactly. i think people who are possessive of song lists are mainly jealous and possibly suffer from inferiority complex.
Yeah, I'm dubious of the "climbers" notion too. If a group is good enough to go somewhere, you don't "climb" beyond it. You don't network with good musicians by quitting their bands. If the group isn't that good, you don't profit much by hanging around it. Not much point in playing with guys to "steal" set lists when you can get them free on the internet... we actually had a thread on that a year or so back.
"Climbers" does sound to me like an idea coined to console people whose projects weren't going anywhere, to explain why the capable people left - "Oh those guys were just a bunch of climbers, out to steal my brilliant set list..." The fact that said people went on to join successful bands only reinforces the notion.
jive1
Commercial User
I'd much rather have someone that errs on the side of ambition than on complacency. If you have motivated folks, they will want to advance whether it's through your band or another. And if things are cool, you may advance along with them, or reap a benefit in the future.
Personally, I am annoyed by bands who try to keep everything to themselves because they are afraid someone is going to steal something. Me, I take the opposite approach. You want to know what songs work for a certain bar? I'll tell you and teach you the chords. You want to meet an agent? Sure I'll introduce you to him/her. You want to sit in to get exposure? No problem.
As if the music industry isn't reeling from various factors, but when musicians get all proprietary, it lessens the scene. A stronger scene is better for everyone, and it takes a communal effort to make it happen. If every musician took a 'MINE' attitude, we're literally up s*** creek without a paddle. If we help each other out, we at least have a paddle.
Well said, and I think that on top of everything else you mentioned this also gets into the area of bands coming in and "lowballing" to get into clubs, which over time winds up devaluing the market for everyone. It seems like the thinking is, "well we can't (or won't) be better than the top dollar bands so we'll just be cheaper."
My current BL got tired of competing on price for local bar gigs so he went the other direction... put more money into our sound and lights, hired guys who are willing to travel to where the money is, raised his price and effectively said that if price was all that mattered to the local bars there were plenty of other bands they were welcome to hire. We're as busy as we want to be, making more money than ever and we don't play more than about 8 or 9 bar gigs a year anymore with only 2 or 3 of those actually being in our home town.
Perhaps, but you may be overthinking it a bit. As stated earlier, it may just be code for "don't waste our time if you're a flake." Granted, that won't necessarily keep the flakes from contacting the people looking for players; my guess is that most flakes don't have introspective times that they self-reflect on their flakiness.
In my experience, the best way to screen out flakes is to hit up your trusted personal contacts and see if they've worked with the candidate in question before. That works better in a smaller scene and may not always work great in a city, where there are a lot of musicians and not everyone knows everyone.
