Never Too Old to Rock and Roll - Making Music With Your Friends
Rock and Roll Band - Easier the Second Time Around So you want to start a band, relive your early days of carefree life.
A time when you had unlimited amounts of free time, didn't particularly worry about where your next meal was coming from or how much money was in your pocket.
You had a mistress called music.
It was something that you dreamed would bring you fame, fortune and popularity.
All you had to do was everything your friends said to do and most of all have some luck.
Ah yes, the late nights, the parties, the notoriety of being in a band, your next gig, chasing the elusive dream, a real record contract.
Now after a few years go by you may have played in a band to help raise money for college or skipped college to continue your musical journey.
In any event you are rapidly approaching a point in your life, oh no not 25? This is when I sat down and took stock of life with as little knowledge as I had of the world at the time and figured there must be a way to make more money doing something I could tolerate along with my music.
Well it happened; I started a job, enjoyed it, enjoyed the people and started getting raises and a promotion for what I felt was fun to do.
Looking back, I was really good at it.
Well the next logical step in a young mans life is to have a steady girlfriend that you can go places and do things with because now you have money, real vacations.
Obviously this is great but it leads to love which leads to marriage, which leads to children which means you put away your music.
Sure you take it out of the closet, tune it up and play for however long you can remember chords or your fingers start to hurt.
You promise that one day you'll be back.
Let's fast forward maybe 15 years.
Your kids have reached the age where you are not needed for their transportation or daily amusement, the wife has gone back to her career or just likes fixing up the house and you have lots of time.
Your career was successful and you are on cruise control.
So you head to the music store to see what has changed over the years..
..
...
a lot! The one thing that remains is the passion you have for playing music; there are still the same guitars and amps, although a lot more expensive than you can believe and effects that will make virtually any sound you want.
So you pick up some new strings a new tuner and spring for an amp.
Must have tubes.
What you will soon realize is that how you ever got your Marshall Super Lead 100 with 2 4X12 cabinets up to 8 will forever remain a mystery.
Actually a 50 watt single or 2 X 12 amp will give you all the power you need and most importantly is a lot easier to carry around.
Now you need friends: a drummer, a bass player, another guitar or keyboard, a singer or instruments to provide the sound of whatever style you want to evolve into.
After you try out many different guys (it gets tiresome) and find the ones that like the same music you do, is at your talent level, wants the same thing you do in music, is committed to playing and you can get along with, the magic comes back! You have a band, nothing better! I have been playing with the same guys for 3 years now and can still tell you that we all look forward to practice each week, we have a democratic way of picking songs so we all get to play some of the ones we like, (some are really weird), and since there are no egos, or attitudes because we lived through those, we just play, laugh, and truly enjoy making music with our friends.
We play out about 5-6 times a year and our friends and families come to enjoy and mostly can't believe that we can still play really well.
It is very special now and so much easier the second time around because we know that Nashville isn't looking for us, but..
..
they would be impressed!
A time when you had unlimited amounts of free time, didn't particularly worry about where your next meal was coming from or how much money was in your pocket.
You had a mistress called music.
It was something that you dreamed would bring you fame, fortune and popularity.
All you had to do was everything your friends said to do and most of all have some luck.
Ah yes, the late nights, the parties, the notoriety of being in a band, your next gig, chasing the elusive dream, a real record contract.
Now after a few years go by you may have played in a band to help raise money for college or skipped college to continue your musical journey.
In any event you are rapidly approaching a point in your life, oh no not 25? This is when I sat down and took stock of life with as little knowledge as I had of the world at the time and figured there must be a way to make more money doing something I could tolerate along with my music.
Well it happened; I started a job, enjoyed it, enjoyed the people and started getting raises and a promotion for what I felt was fun to do.
Looking back, I was really good at it.
Well the next logical step in a young mans life is to have a steady girlfriend that you can go places and do things with because now you have money, real vacations.
Obviously this is great but it leads to love which leads to marriage, which leads to children which means you put away your music.
Sure you take it out of the closet, tune it up and play for however long you can remember chords or your fingers start to hurt.
You promise that one day you'll be back.
Let's fast forward maybe 15 years.
Your kids have reached the age where you are not needed for their transportation or daily amusement, the wife has gone back to her career or just likes fixing up the house and you have lots of time.
Your career was successful and you are on cruise control.
So you head to the music store to see what has changed over the years..
..
...
a lot! The one thing that remains is the passion you have for playing music; there are still the same guitars and amps, although a lot more expensive than you can believe and effects that will make virtually any sound you want.
So you pick up some new strings a new tuner and spring for an amp.
Must have tubes.
What you will soon realize is that how you ever got your Marshall Super Lead 100 with 2 4X12 cabinets up to 8 will forever remain a mystery.
Actually a 50 watt single or 2 X 12 amp will give you all the power you need and most importantly is a lot easier to carry around.
Now you need friends: a drummer, a bass player, another guitar or keyboard, a singer or instruments to provide the sound of whatever style you want to evolve into.
After you try out many different guys (it gets tiresome) and find the ones that like the same music you do, is at your talent level, wants the same thing you do in music, is committed to playing and you can get along with, the magic comes back! You have a band, nothing better! I have been playing with the same guys for 3 years now and can still tell you that we all look forward to practice each week, we have a democratic way of picking songs so we all get to play some of the ones we like, (some are really weird), and since there are no egos, or attitudes because we lived through those, we just play, laugh, and truly enjoy making music with our friends.
We play out about 5-6 times a year and our friends and families come to enjoy and mostly can't believe that we can still play really well.
It is very special now and so much easier the second time around because we know that Nashville isn't looking for us, but..
..
they would be impressed!