Post-Covid Band Plans?

[wmhill]

I'll schlub along as best possible- but a lot of the venues just aren't there anymore. New York was particularly aggressive about places that had music. At one point it was even illegal to advertise the presence of live music, they have backed off that right now. The wineries have done okay as they had some more relaxed guidelines (compared to bars/restaurants). I would expect that the places that survive will look at live music as something they can't/won't spend money on. The trend in the B.C. (before corona) days was already moving towards the solo & duo acts and moving away from full rock bands. We diversified and offered a low-cost "lite" version of our band to capitalize on that. Three pieces, bass, drums (Cajon kit), and acoustic guitar. We use a bose system and have a pretty small footprint (although by law we now have to be 6' from each other and 12' from the audience). Our hundred gigs a year days are well extinct, I'll be surprised to see over a few dozen per year at this point. I'm closing in on 40 years of gigging, and the music scene has been declining steadily for the last 10 of those years- so if it fades away, I've had my share of the good times.

 

[ironworm]

My band hasn't been able to rehearse since the beginning of November. With the pandemic raging at its current rate, we don't expect to be able to do much for a while. However, after the nation opens up a bit, we plan on releasing a couple of 45's and playing live as much as we can. Live music WILL come back. We've just got to be patient and plan accordingly.

 

[el murdoque]

One of my bands is done, the frontman did not survive the pandemic. The other, however, already has gigs lined up for as soon as gigging becomes a possibility again. We're not a professional band, everyone has a dayjob, so that project will continue and none of us will starve. Several venues in our area have communicated that they'd be happy to have us on the first Saturday they can host a band again.

 

[coyote1]

My post-covid plan is to continue with my buds on our jazz journey. It’s new to all of us in this current context. I was a club date drummer who of course played jazz, and have had some exposure on guitar and know harmony... but while I have played bass onstage in the past, this is the first time in my life that I’m truly focusing on playing jazz on bass. The one guitarist in my trio has been my bassist for over a decade doing prog-rock and jazz and all manner of other music - but he recently fell in love with jazz guitar, and is making serious strides in his chord voicings, his improvised melodies, and his conceptualization of harmony. The other guitarist is a brilliant rock lead guitarist that we’ve had the good fortune of having in our group for over a decade, and he’s beginning to grasp the fundamentals of jazz harmony.

Where will the journey take us? Who knows? I certainly don’t want to get into the business of gigging with any frequency again; however if we get good at this, it would be fun to share that with audiences on an occasional basis.

 

[Kukulkan61]

Get back in the groove hopefully!

 

[Jimmy4string]

Hug a puppy. Long walks on the beach. Cheat on my wife. Enjoy a sunset. Water balloon fights. Build a monkey piloted rocket car. Create a race of atomic supermen .Take a bull fighting class. Have a food truck that sells hard boiled eggs. Develop a superpower. Try to grow antlers. Buy the Las Vegas Raiders and move them to Antarctica. Eat more stew, and then discourage people from eating stew. Listen to 40 minutes of any podcast without falling asleep. Bring back roller blading. Invent a cure for hemorrhoids but marketed as a dog chew toy. Read Stephen King's The Stand in 23 seconds or less. And most importantly eat less Pizza.

Shoot man, you dont need a million dollars to do that -you could do that now.

 

[DirtDog]

Hug a puppy. Long walks on the beach. Cheat on my wife. Enjoy a sunset. Water balloon fights. Build a monkey piloted rocket car. Create a race of atomic supermen .Take a bull fighting class. Have a food truck that sells hard boiled eggs. Develop a superpower. Try to grow antlers. Buy the Las Vegas Raiders and move them to Antarctica. Eat more stew, and then discourage people from eating stew. Listen to 40 minutes of any podcast without falling asleep. Bring back roller blading. Invent a cure for hemorrhoids but marketed as a dog chew toy. Read Stephen King's The Stand in 23 seconds or less. And most importantly eat less Pizza.

Will the hard boiled eggs be pickled or not?

 

[Basslice]

I think everyone in my main band wants to pick right back up, although our front man has a child on the way, so who knows? Wouldn't mind picking up a second band, and have been talking with a close friend about playing together again. Good singers and drummers are always hardest to find, though.

Kids definitely take a lot of wind out of the sails. My boy is almost 12 and I finally have some freedom to practice at home (he is a killer piano player). But for years there was not a lot I could do.

 

[PennyroyalWe]

Well, one band has been going throughout COVID, but without the gigs. The other band has pretty much dissolved, and I’ve been half heartedly looking for a replacement band to play bass with. All the people I’ve come across are a little too nonchalant about the pandemic for my comfort though.

 

[brianrost]

No plans.

I have no idea how many of the venues I had been playing will still be around. I have no idea if all the band members will want to start up again.

So I have no plans.

 

[stratovani]

I'm thinking that once things open up again, probably late in the summer, that this will be it for me. I've been in the Petty tribute I'm in since 2012, I'm not getting any younger, and with our keyboard player calling it quits I'll be the last original member of the band. Our last gig was back on October 4, and we haven't even had so much as a rehearsal since then. The way it's going now I have no idea when we'll be getting together, my wife and I are talking about buying a trailer in 2022 and seeing the country, and I'm finding it more appealing than playing bars and schlepping gear around. I really don't miss playing, although I'll miss the guys in the band. We're never going to be anything more than a bar band, and even though just a few years ago I was hoping the band would go on to bigger and better things I have a feeling now that we're just going to always be a bar band. So all I'll do is content myself with playing my bass and guitars at home. It was a lot of fun playing rock star, but the end of the road is nearing.

 

[Hypercaffium]

I voted for #1, because that's what I would like to do. But I'll probably end up with #4, which in my case means that the band will probably break up, unfortunately.

 

[Basslice]

I'm thinking that once things open up again, probably late in the summer, that this will be it for me. I've been in the Petty tribute I'm in since 2012, I'm not getting any younger, and with our keyboard player calling it quits I'll be the last original member of the band. Our last gig was back on October 4, and we haven't even had so much as a rehearsal since then. The way it's going now I have no idea when we'll be getting together, my wife and I are talking about buying a trailer in 2022 and seeing the country, and I'm finding it more appealing than playing bars and schlepping gear around. I really don't miss playing, although I'll miss the guys in the band. We're never going to be anything more than a bar band, and even though just a few years ago I was hoping the band would go on to bigger and better things I have a feeling now that we're just going to always be a bar band. So all I'll do is content myself with playing my bass and guitars at home. It was a lot of fun playing rock star, but the end of the road is nearing.

Did you guys play Kendrick Park in Amherst a couple years back at the Downtown Fest? There was a Petty Tribute band there I saw. I was working a Boy Scouts Booth across the street.

 

[rickwebb]

I think i'm done. I was running out of steam before the pandemic. Time to focus on something else...

 

[Passinwind]

Tomorrow morning I’m having a revision (as they call it) of the total hip replacement I had in 2009. I won’t be playing much of anything for a few weeks, then probably just my clarinet for a few more. The way the arthritis in my hands is accelerating, my recent thoughts of switching from standard to short scale bass may be insufficient. Once I can get out again I’m considering taking up mandolin. There are more opportunities to play that than to play bass in this town where everybody plays bass; even drummers! It’s weird! Everywhere else I’ve lived, if you played bass you had a gig! Here it’s, “Get in line.”

Heal up soon my friend.

And yep, in this area we live in it is much easier to get a gig on just about any instrument than bass. I've seen quite a few open mics where there are 10 slots and at least a dozen bass players, and where being house bassist just means you get the first or last slot and get to bring your gear for everyone alse to play through. I've been retired from gigging for a couple of years now, but I could easily see porting back to guitar and guitar synth and hiring someone else to play bass, since finding a guitar player who brings what I want is seemingly a much bigger ask.

 

[stratovani]

Did you guys play Kendrick Park in Amherst a couple years back at the Downtown Fest? There was a Petty Tribute band there I saw. I was working a Boy Scouts Booth across the street.

No, that wasn't us. It might have been Good To Be King, a Petty tribute out of Springfield. I subbed for their bass player a couple of summers ago at a winery gig in Southampton. I don't even know if they're still around anymore.

 

[wyleeboxer]

I’ve got 5 bands, 2 are working cover bands and 3 are original alternative bands.. of course all gigs were canceled last April and nothing has opened up yet, especially for paying gigs as restuarant/bars can barely stay open as is. So a big change coming for my cover bands is that we’ll probably end up playing gigs for next to nothing when things open. Out of all 5 bands only 1 original band has been staying active with practicing/recording in our studio, and just hoping things open up soon but not holding our breath?

 

[BassDad1964]

What is interesting, since the summer, we have picked up three local places (that we never played before) to fill in our schedule. We had been playing a lot of shows in the town that is 50 miles to the east, but two places that we played monthly are still not doing bands and another place got sold and I don't know if they will be doing bands. I am hoping when things get better we can get back to those venues.

I have a friend who was just down there, Daytona area, visiting for a week or so. He said they went out and heard live music every night. Makes me miss my home state.

 

[Marc valero]

I have a friend who was just down there, Daytona area, visiting for a week or so. He said they went out and heard live music every night. Makes me miss my home state.

Yes, 11 shows this month for my classic rock band, 7 in February and 7 in March so far.

 

[Tosh]

The last band I was in actually Dis-Banded at the end of February of last year. It was a 6 person band, that was hard to place in a venue (in this town, anyway), and it was one big sitcom (sometimes). I was the Keysman.

Anyway I'm not interested in that anymore. Been working on bass guitar for the past year now, and I intend to use a bass and small keyboard setup, working with a very talented singer/guitar player, and go out as a duo or trio (perhaps quartet).

Seeking those lucrative Winery gigs (Brewpubs too!)