Hi guys! This is my story (will try to keep it short). I'm Argentinian and moved to Madrid (Spain) in August 2003. I joined a band here a year ago and we are going to part ways tomorrow because we don't like our drummer (poor playing/sounding/grooving) nor our singer (good one but can only sing Incubus like melodies and timbre -wich I hate- and his lyrics suck, basically because they are boring and say [email protected]). Besides, their attitudes are not the best as they don't accept the fact that we (the quitarist and I) are the ones who have the musical product perfectly outlined in pur head and know exactly what direction to take in our music; they're immature and even pointless in their assertions and suggestions. So we (the guitarist and I -by the way, the ones who make the songs-) are parting ways with them to face a new project with (no matter how long it takes) exhaustive, exigent and unforgiving search of the two "missing" parts of our band ("a cara de perro", we use to say). Parallel to this, my old argentinian band is playing live tomorrow on the #1 rock radio on Argentina. And this is good, very good, as they're like brothers to me and I love them. And I'm not regreting the fact that I quit the band to move to another country, but this fact reinforced the feeling that I LOST A FUC#ING YEAR OF MY VALUABLE TIME WITH THESE TWO USELESS KIDS! So tomorrow we're talking to them about this but at my current state of mind I'm full of regret with them. I don't want to make this personal, just purely musical, but I can't hold my anger at this moment because attitude also had a lot to do with this situation too. How should I handle this not to end up in pointless personal agressions? Thanks everybody! ANDRUCA
Here's another way to look at it: If you've learned what to do and what not to do in your next endeavor, then that year wasn't exactly lost. Good luck!
andruca, Did YOU improve as a player during the past year? I thought so. Not to say it's not frustrating, but this is definitely part of being a musician. I think most of us would agree that there a lot of flaky people who call themselves musicians. I seem to be a special kind of magnet that draws them to me. I try to keep focused on my own development during frustrating times. Woodchuck is right - you learned what not to do. Also, your radar for "players" like that will be greatly enhanced - which will help you avoid this stuff in the future. Good Luck!
Hi again guys! Thanks a lot for the encouragement. We changed our meeting to last night. We met at our rehearse place at 10.30PM and I started talking in a relaxed but firm "we are not united in our ideas nor our vision of our musical product" way not to hurt any feelings. Then the guitarist said so after me and we ended with "we're sticking together as there's a symbiosis between us that doesn't exist towards you". We're all sorry to have wasted a year (although I'm much more sorry as I'm de oldest -30-). Tried to keep it off the personal environment but agreed that some musical tensions may have influenced our personal relationships (I personally apologyzed if in any way I used not so good manners some time -I know I didn't, I'm very careful with these things, but the guitarist is more "in your face"ey when he doesn't like something and may have hurted them sometimes-). Good balance after all. And now our heads are 100% on our look for a new drummer and singer to whom we can share the music of our dreams with. Thanks again and take care! ANDRUCA
Yes, what they said. Besides, the young ladies in Spain are spectacular. Then again, the Buenos Aries girls are hotties as well.