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Rage Quit??? Nah.............I just quit!

#61
Kind of off topic: ...and i ask this with zero sarcasm or arrogance. So...you made $100 bucks a gig...prob at least 4 hours of your time per gig... plus gas to get there.
Is this a "labour of love" situation? Cuz thinking 'its just extra spending money' really isn't true - there's nuthin left for the efforts given.
I am a hobbyist player -so maybe any money is good for a gig? Sounds like it wasn't worth the stress or pennies.
Sorry to hear it didnt work out - kudos for the 3 year tap out.
 
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#62
DWBass said:
Well, i quit my main (10pc horn band) band. Just wasn't fun anymore even though we weren't gigging anyway. When we first started, it was stated we weren't going to be playing bars/clubs. Just upscale stuff. Was mentioned $200+ea minimum. Ended up being nothing but bars/clubs save for a few weddings and corporate stuff but mostly bars/clubs. Pay was a steady $100/gig. Never increasing after 3 years! Weddings and Corporate gigs paid more. BL is a music teacher and pretty much ran the thing like his music class. Not to mention the 'uniforms'!! Black shirt, tie, suspenders and jacket with band logo. Every damn body was reading even the drummer. Except me. I learned by ear and memorized everything. He had bandstands for the horn section and I was always positioned behind them making it hard for me to be seen. I hated it. 3 of us sang BGV's yet BL would never have any of us in the mains or turned up in the mains. So we're singing our asses off and no one is hearing us. I hated it. BL was full of jibber jabber when we should be playing music. The same crap every damn gig. I hated it. Mostly good music selection though save for a few questionable tunes that just didn't make sense nor fit the band profile. SMH!
Was just time to go. I still have my R&B band and I'll be doing side stuff for now. I do plan to start my own project in 2021. We'll see what happens.
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I would've left way sooner than you did! Lol. I've never actually rage quit, but it's just things happened that I knew it had to be done. Things like my two expensive Monster Speaker Cables disappearing during teardown. I searched thru all the bags with the PA cables thinking it was just an accident, but when they weren't there asked the guitarist to see if maybe they accidently ended up with his stuff. Maybe his gig bag or guitar case. He wouldn't show me, so I said, "I'm not being in a band with thieves", and left for good. Or the guitarist/Lead singer who told me to not play the exact Walking Bass-Line from the Studio version of Moondance, that I knew, note for note, but play the same 5 notes in one Octave, over and over and over, which I replied, "I'm not playing that cheesy part". This same guy, who was previously a 'One Man Band' for decades, not only wanted me to play many Bass Parts an Octave lower, but he played many songs at least 2 steps lower than the original, and sometimes more (making it impossible to play the really low notes). I can see maybe a 1 1/2 steps, but not 2 or even sometimes more! Then there was the guy who never mentioned it in practice, but after our first private party gig, decided to spring tons of backing tracks on us! Lol. The Bass was even in them! That really sealed it, but he also totally butchered songs, like no bridge where there was a cool one, and things like that because it was simpler for him to learn. Then he sprung a super long (like 2 minute) Spanish Flaminco Style intro to ELP's 'From the Beginning' to just show off, but it didn't fit whatsoever. He did secure a really nice lucrative out-door gig as the House Band for Joann's in Idyllwild, California, and it was that 1st gig where he sprung the Backing Tracks on me and the drummer, so I quit. Another Bassist was called, who I knew, to fill in for the next gig there. I talked to him afterwards and he told me, "I don't like his simple versions of the song!" Funny thing is a month later they leveled Joann's to the ground and it was just a big vacant lot. Ha ha.
 
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#63
dbsfgyd1 said:
I work with a band like that only with nine pieces. No band stands, but yes, the band players wear coordinated outfits ( singers wear the individual choice but coordinated color wise), and yes, we have music if needed but on IPads. The BL is a middle school teacher and we have use of his band room for rehearsals, runs the business well, and is a good guy. Another plus with the BL, if you are having trouble with a figure on a chart, he can walk you though it.

The deal is, when you get over a certain amount of players on stage, you can't have everybody "jamming" their parts. Having printed music has significant advantages. The first is it takes too long to work out musical conflicts so rehearsals are much more efficient, secondly it provides a standard template so as players come and go, again again getting replacements or subs up to speed faster.

For instance, when I joined, I was given the unbound bass book for the band with at least 75 songs, most of which I never played in my life and one week to become totally proficient. These were very detailed arrangements that you just could not show up and jam through it. I spent 4-5 hours a night, 8 hours on the weekend for that week, to go through the charts to make sure I had all of the difficult figures ironed out and went to the gig book in hand.

The gig was an outdoor community event celebrating the 4th of July. It was a nice warm day and things were going well until the 15 to 20 mph winds came upon us which made controlling sheet music impossible and lost a fair amount of the music that blew into the lake.

Hence the IPad Pro 12" screen with an AirTurn page turner pedal and the forescore app. A bit of an investment, but I'll never lose a chart again.

Anyway, sorry your situation didn't work out. Obviously you've been playing for a long while, but I highly encourage you during this lack of gigs period to learn to read. You don't have to be great at it, but it will greatly increase your marketability as a bassist. It's a great tool to have.
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I had another thread regarding reading. I can read and have no problem learning material. I just prefer learning songs by ear. I've been doing it since the 70s.
 
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#67
Murph and the Magic Tones?
84338088_107537554177048_2969707333833195520_o.jpg
 
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#69
graphics1988 said:
Kind of off topic: ...and i ask this with zero sarcasm or arrogance. So...you made $100 bucks a gig...prob at least 4 hours of your time per gig... plus gas to get there.
Is this a "labor of love" situation? Cuz thinking 'its just extra spending money' really isn't true - there's nuthin' left for the efforts given.
I am a hobbyist player -so maybe any money is good for a gig? Sounds like it wasn't worth the stress or pennies.
Sorry to hear it didn't work out - kudos for the 3 year tap out.
Click to expand...
Even at $100 per, with the frequency of gigs I was able to save money to buy 'toys', pay off my car loan early and pay my phone bill. I'll miss that aspect of it but the bad outweighed the good. I have another band that will get my full attention if and when we get back to gigging (most likely 2021). I'm also planning to form my own band of some sort, if I can just find the right musicians. I also do remote recording and plan to step that up a notch as well. As for the money aspect.....I expected it to start out that way but it never got better. The weddings and corporate gigs paid really nice though. Just didn't think the bar/club gigs would be the regular thing especially when he said we wouldn't be doing it. The stage/playing areas were horrible. Everything was always tight we were always squeezed in right on top of each other. One spot had a horrible electric ground issue and had the smallest stage of them all. Ugh! I thought long and hard about my decision but when he started doing a 'lite' version and using other cats, that annoyed me and cemented my decision. Why would you use cats NOT in the band? It's all good. He's green to this (his first time leading a band) and he'll learn over time.

Lastly, I'll add......when he formed the band........he enlisted a lot of his buddies. Most had no experience playing R&B and Soul music and it showed!! Took me a while to gel with the drummer. But I hung in there. Original guitarist died suddenly. I gave him several names of well experienced cats who could bring in experience playing the music but he chose a cat who's mostly into jazz. He never played anything with any authenticity. Still I hung in there. He fussed a little about the music reading thing. I made my case that I learned (and memorized) all my parts damn near to the letter while the music reading cats weren't capturing the feel and vibe of the tunes. I still hung in there but this long break (7 months no gigs) I actually enjoyed the time off and just decided that it wasn't worth it to continue being miserable. My R&B band isn't really all that good (we're decent though) but I have fun and I like everyone in the band. Feels more like a family. I never hung out with anyone in the horn band. Just hello, play the gig, then goodbye. And not that it means anything really but I thought I'd mention, I was the only black guy in the band. Again it doesn't mean anything. I got along with everyone just fine.
 
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#70
DWBass said:
Even at $100 per, with the frequency of gigs I was able to save money to buy 'toys', pay off my car loan early and pay my phone bill. I'll miss that aspect of it but the bad outweighed the good. I have another band that will get my full attention if and when we get back to gigging (most likely 2021). I'm also planning to form my own band of some sort, if I can just find the right musicians. I also do remote recording and plan to step that up a notch as well. As for the money aspect.....I expected it to start out that way but it never got better. The weddings and corporate gigs paid really nice though. Just didn't think the bar/club gigs would be the regular thing especially when he said we wouldn't be doing it. The stage/playing areas were horrible. Everything was always tight we were always squeezed in right on top of each other. One spot had a horrible electric ground issue and had the smallest stage of them all. Ugh! I thought long and hard about my decision but when he started doing a 'lite' version and using other cats, that annoyed me and cemented my decision. Why would you use cats NOT in the band? It's all good. He's green to this (his first time leading a band) and he'll learn over time.

Lastly, I'll add......when he formed the band........he enlisted a lot of his buddies. Most had no experience playing R&B and Soul music and it showed!! Took me a while to gel with the drummer. But I hung in there. Original guitarist died suddenly. I gave him several names of well experienced cats who could bring in experience playing the music but he chose a cat who's mostly into jazz. He never played anything with any authenticity. Still I hung in there. He fussed a little about the music reading thing. I made my case that I learned (and memorized) all my parts damn near to the letter while the music reading cats weren't capturing the feel and vibe of the tunes. I still hung in there but this long break (7 months no gigs) I actually enjoyed the time off and just decided that it wasn't worth it to continue being miserable. My R&B band isn't really all that good (we're decent though) but I have fun and I like everyone in the band. Feels more like a family. I never hung out with anyone in the horn band. Just hello, play the gig, then goodbye. And not that it means anything really but I thought I'd mention, I was the only black guy in the band. Again it doesn't mean anything. I got along with everyone just fine.
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soooooo....you are switching up cats for dogs now. Gotcha!! ;)

Ya this explanation was good - i see the whole pic now. You did good by leaving. ...also...i am colourblind...a good person is a good person...and you sir, sound like a very good person - sure as h@ll i would not have lasted and bit my tongue as long as you did! Kudos.
 
#71
Good for you. Life is too short for BS.
Your gig sounds like the last one I was in.
Once again BL was a dick, small venues & small pay.
He controlled everything and would not take any input
from band members. Kept the mics very low for BGV. When we
complained he'd turn them up for one tune then turn them down.
We work in a very poopy business.
 
#72
DWBass said:
I had another thread regarding reading. I can read and have no problem learning material. I just prefer learning songs by ear. I've been doing it since the 70s.
Click to expand...

I kind of thought you may have, but, having not read the thread about your being able to read, I plodded along undaunted... apologies!

As for me, like you, I can also learn songs by ear, and on something simple, it is preferable. But in a large ensemble, complex arrangements, and and or large volumes of material to digest in a short period of time, I'd much rather work from charts. Then after the band is squared away, I'll add my "art" to the piece.

Nothing worse than spending an hour or two working out a piece off a record, only show up to practice and the band doesn't sound at all like the record, and now your part sounds out of context due to pitch, tempo issues, or having to fill in a void due to the lack of instrumentation. But I'll bet like me, we just roll with it no fuss no muss, but it doesn't change the fact that we had our time wasted. JMO.
 
#73
dbsfgyd1 said:
I kind of thought you may have, but, having not read the thread about your being able to read, I plodded along undaunted... apologies!

As for me, like you, I can also learn songs by ear, and on something simple, it is preferable. But in a large ensemble, complex arrangements, and and or large volumes of material to digest in a short period of time, I'd much rather work from charts. Then after the band is squared away, I'll add my "art" to the piece.

Nothing worse than spending an hour or two working out a piece off a record, only show up to practice and the band doesn't sound at all like the record, and now your part sounds out of context due to pitch, tempo issues, or having to fill in a void due to the lack of instrumentation. But I'll bet like me, we just roll with it no fuss no muss, but it doesn't change the fact that we had our time wasted. JMO.
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The 'good' thing about this band was that I was already familiar with 95% of the tunes and have played them all before. Wasn't much of a learning curve for me.
 
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#77
Space Pickle said:
I never quit, I just rage
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I almost made a drummer cry once. After being mr nice guy for about 8 weeks I got tired of it and laid into him a rehearsal. I told him I was tired of being embarrassed because he was too lazy to earn the songs, along with a few other helpful suggestions. :whistle:

He wasn't incapable, he was lazy. For about two weeks he must have practiced his buttocks off because there was 100% improvement. I compliment him in front of everyone and the next week he was right back to ground zero so I fired him.
 
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#78
Stories like this remind me why I'm glad I've never tried to do music professionally/semi pro. I'm out of there the second uniforms are mentioned. Hell, it's part of the reason I didn't re-enlist in the army! Now, the hiding in the back behind the horns sounds nice. No one can see my bass face that looks like I've been lobotomized. As for the gigs with other players, that's the BL's prerogative, but they should at least make it clear upfront that the band is more of a revolving door business rather than "a band".
 
#79
MYLOWFREQ said:
I actually think it's better than standing in front of them :)
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That aspect of it...yeah!! But I had family and friends come to see the band and they were wondering where I was. That's how hidden I was. His thing was to feature the horns. Everyone else was secondary. Guitarist got a lot of solos. Drummer and I got a few. Mine was mostly on one particular song which was actually horrible to solo on. So I did the same exact solo every time because it just bored me to death.
 

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