People/musicians are so strange...

[Keyser Soze]

I like a lot of different kinds of music. I've gigged playing bluegrass, jazz, rock, blues, "singer/songwriter," "hits," roots, standards, et al. I have (almost) always found something to like about these situations. I like listening to all kinds of music, too.

Squeeze was a top shelf pop band. To compare their catalog unfavorably to Poison is asinine. They crafted magnificent pop records and have long been highly esteemed in the industry. Find the BBC doc, if you can. Find out about all the talent that was in this band.

I play music mainly for fun, for intellectual stimulation, to be part of something bigger than myself, for personal growth, many reasons. (For money is not really one of them, so my situation is different than some of you.) Challenging music is fun. Working out some Squeeze tunes would be fun, for me, anyway. I'd certainly rather do that than regurgitate Classic Rock, for example. That, to me, would be beating a dead horse. Difford and Tillbrook's tunes are a treasure trove of songwriting and arranging craftsmanship. Most of us could learn some valuable lessons deconstructing and reconstructing some of the gems in their catalog. Or not, I guess. YMMV. LOL.

But to write off someone who wants to do this as "weird?" Look in the mirror, bro.

 

[basted]

I gave up playing music to go back to study. When I returned four years later and tried to get going again Poison were a big name and bands wanted to play their songs. They were an influence to sell my gear and give up altogether. Decided to start again in 2000. The ups and downs of the music biz.

 

[Michedelic]

I perused over the 20 songs of their greatest hits album, I don’t even know one, but that’s just me.

View attachment 4760068

Jeez, not even “Tempted” or “Black Coffee”? You’d hear those on supermarket muzak systems. Yes, brilliant craft songwriting.

 

[LowActionHero]

Wait….Poison was cool?

WHOA, no one even told me.

I mean, my cousin tried once, but I didn't believe him...

 

[Michedelic]

I gave up playing music to go back to study. When I returned four years later and tried to get going again Poison were a big name and bands wanted to play their songs. They were an influence to sell my gear and give up altogether. Decided to start again in 2000. The ups and downs of the music biz.

You’d let one band in particular bum you out?

 

[ebo]

I’d love it if I could find a competent drummer that didn’t have some sort of substance abuse problem.
I’d even settle for a guitar player that doesn’t need a ride everywhere.

There’s one drummer out there but you can’t have him, he’s mine. Bwah ha ha!!

 

[Spidey2112]

" Squeeze!"

I loved these guys. I know... weird, right?

 

[LBS-bass]

It's hard for me to imagine there are people out there who don't find the chorus to this song instantly recognizable:

 

[Spidey2112]

This is like a trip down memory lane.

 

[Michedelic]

I don't mean to be negative either, but I've never even heard of them. But then there's probably a lot of music I'm not familiar with. I'm 65, so I'm not sure what timeframe they fit into.

They(the two principal members)are your age, roughly. They were nominally part of the new wave era, but had been struggling along for a while before that. Clever, brisk, Lennon-McCartneyesque songwriting, plenty of hooks, very competent instrumentalists. They fit in with Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, The Police, and so on. They were miles away from “punk rock”, but because of radio prejudice in the US against anything of that general movement, they were ignored until much later(but were reasonably successful in the UK). Their original keyboardist, Jools Holland, was a boogie woogie piano monster, and went on to host a long running music show in the UK, sometimes seen in the US(Holland and Tom Jones did a killer blues album together). Paul Carrick, once of the band Ace(“How Long Has This Been Going On”), joined, and sang on their hit, “Tempted”.

 

[Spidey2112]

It's hard for me to imagine there are people out there who don't find the chorus to this song instantly recognizable:

Outta my head, @LBS-bass!

 

[Spidey2112]

“Tempted”.

I'd do these songs with the right group of weirdos, in a heartbeat.

 

[LBS-bass]

I'd do these songs with the right group of weirdos, in a heartbeat.

I did this one a handful of times with the band that broke up after Covid locked us down; when the leftovers from that band put together a new band, I decided (after listening to some old recordings of us) that the arrangement was lacking with only me, one guitarist, and a drummer, so we shelved it. But I've got another guitarist now and might also be bringing in a keyboard, so might want to revisit it. It's fun to play.

 

[J Wilson]

To me, the saddest thing about coming to Nashville early on when I was trying to make some connections and maybe become a sideman for an artist was running into all the what I came to call the NoChance WannaBe's.

These were folks washed up in Nashville like musical driftwood. Here from some little town somewhere in the Great Out There with their own little catalog of mostly bad songs, over- and poorly produced demos, maybe some sort of little press kit. Anyone who'd been around would hear about 5 minutes of them, and you just knew they needed to take whatever life savings they hadn't burned through yet, and get on the Greyhound and go home while they still could. More worryingly, there's certainly 'record labels' here for them that did take the rest of their money, produce little customs of their songs, promote them (!), and I could see them start to spriral around the drain . . . . but they really thought they'd be golfing with George Strait by this time next year, and there was no shortage of those buzzards damn near guaranteeing just that . . . . for a little more money for promotion, etc.

And you could never tell them otherwise. It was just sad.

 

[Spidey2112]

And you could never tell them otherwise. It was just sad.

Sometimes, that carrot is so far in the ground, it's not worth pursuing...

... unless...



... you're this guy. He's like the honeybadger of hares... and he don't cares, one bit.

 

[jerry]

Squeeze was/is a killer band, learning their stuff can teach somebody a lot about songcraft. It's never too late to write a good song even if it's just for your own creative outlet. Just Paul Carrack's song catalog is amazing, a much-underappreciated singer also.

 

[glocke1]

I loved these guys. I know... weird, right?

theres nothing wrong with the band or their music.

the " problem " is that the guy asked me if I was interested in doing some playing and when I asked what he was interested in, he basically said " squeeze and only squeeze " and went into some kind of tantrum that held a fair amount of disrespect towards me when I said that stuff would require a larger time commitment than I am interested in for something that is basically some informal playing and suggested material that wouldn't require me to sit there for hours learning tunes because I just simply don't have that kind of bandwidth. I gave the guy a lot of other reasonable options and he just got weird.

the bottom line is, playing music is a game of give and take. For instance I like the Grateful Dead an awful lot, but I really ONLY like the period from the late 60s to mid 70's...However I know that if I want to play that stuff I have to be flexible and play stuff from other eras even if it is material I find cringe worthy. Heck, I am a huge Duran Duran fan, but I know I'll never find others who want to play Duran tunes so never mention it and just playing along to their albums instead.

The point is you just have to be reasonable with expectations and what you want from others. Telling someone you only want to play squeeze and nothing else is just simply not reasonably especially when you are complaining about not being able to find people to play music with. So instead of saying " sure, Im down for some rock or blues ", the guy throws a hissy fit. It's just weird...

 

[whero]

I'm very lucky. I turned 61 last year and for the last five years or so have been involved with a bunch of guys who are in exactly the same place as me, musically.

They are aged from about 45 through to 63, all very capable players, a couple of whom I think could have done really well if they'd got into the right project when they were younger. They are all great people, no egos, all mature (emotionally as well as in years). The kind of people I'd gladly share a beer with, or have over for a barbecue, even if we weren't in a band together.

We all have day jobs and families, and we play for no reason other than we enjoy it. Fortunately, we live in an area where there are a few local bars with a mostly older clientele who still enjoy what we do (although there are some younger ones in their 20s who seem to enjoy our geezer rock) so we play out once every two or three weeks, with our main bar work being classic rock with some poppier stuff from the 80s thrown in. Our full repertoire includes some funk, disco and 90s pop, and we do some of that at the bar too, but mostly that stuff gets rolled out at private parties and the very rare corporate-type event.

Putting it bluntly, I served my time with enough @sshole$ in my 20s, and I don't put up with that $hi% any more.

 

[Spidey2112]

... he basically said " squeeze and only squeeze " and went into some kind of tantrum...

Sounds like... it was... another nail in his heart.

 

[glocke1]

But to write off someone who wants to do this as "weird?" Look in the mirror, bro.

See my other replies " bro "...again..the issue is time. The issue is the guy is ONLY interested in one thing, and that one thing requires a time commitment from me that I don't have. I gave him other options for things I know he can play and got an earful of " the blues sucks, classic rock sucks, etc..etc.. ". The key thing is the guy approached me about wanting to get together to hang out and play music...and than says he is ONLY interested in doing one thing..that is the weird thing.

hopefully thats clear..broseph.