-
And have done a couple shows together at my monthly residency. It's starting to get good! I had been looking for the final piece of the puzzle, a keyboard, for about five years. Rehearsed and jammed with a couple guys in that time who seemed worthwhile, one guy was absolutely a mindblowing world class blues player but he would rather do shit gigs close to home so it never panned out. Anyways, had hit a jam a few months ago and the keys player there approached my drummer and one thing lead to the next.
Finally I can focus more on vocals! It only took me 30 years to do this with the right players who all have their chops together, heads on straight, and WANT to be playing the blues. Hell must've officially froze over. There has been a great decline of capable blues players over the last 20 years I have witnessed first hand so this has not been easy to find the right guys. I'm wondering who will get sick or what will go wrong?!?!
Powerhouse drummer, veteran blues bass player, educated blues-loving man on keyboards, jazzier rhythm/lead guitar man with great clean technique, and myself on guitar and vox. Everyone has such a good attitude and work ethic!!! Club owner kindly paid me the additional to cover the extra man so nobody took the hit I expected. Love that guy! Packed house Saturday over spring break left almost 600 ducats in the bucket. I forced them to have a good time and even the people in the "combat seat" out in front of the cranked Twin stayed put!
Had to share. Apparently, it can still be done!
-
03-17-2025 11:37 AM
-
The only people who think it can't be done are the quitters. As long as you're above the grass there is still time.
Originally Posted by DawgBone
-
It's true but there are definitely more challenges involved these days not only personnel wise but funding a larger band and finding actual dedicated venues that routinely book the stuff I play... Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Seems like the last blues peak was the mid 90's to early 2000's so the talent pool of competent players to draw from has gotten smaller. The boomer generation is mostly aged out, many of whom actually had blues as a core skill because they came of age int he 1960's. Mnd many of them own/ran clubs that featured the music they grew up on. The clubs are gone. There is only one actual "blues" club left in TX that I know of. The people in their late 60's now are mostly 70's rock dudes who can play a few blues tunes passably but not a night full and would rather be doing journey covers. A lot of guys are doing the tribute band stuff too, which pays well but also isn't blues.
Most younger guys I know do not want to play blues,seeing it as below them or something. They want to play "jazz" which sounds like funk jam band music to me that meanders along with no real destination so it's cool for 15 minutes. Plus you have top 40 country cover bands that can pull $3500 on a weekend night around here as the base pay that siphons off a lot of the most talented players looking to pay the bills with a guitar in their hand at all costs.
-
Dude, I got so lucky with my band, everyone likes the same kind of jazz, or at least if they don't like my picks they don't tell me which also works.
-
That's cool. In a world with so much obscure music out there it's hard to find people on the same level. Guys will post "really into blues like the black keys and white stripes" and stupid shit like that. I don't think half of the musicians out there actually know what blues or jazz even is. Like the young "jazz" dudes around here who just play jam-funk stuff. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
-
Congrats Dawg! Hope it lasts and that you can find gigs that pay that many cats. I have always found paying a quartet is tough and paying a quintet is beyond tough. Over the last 20 years, about a third of my gigs have been solo gigs (that way I get paid a fair wage). At this point in my life, after playing thousands of paid gigs, if there ain't enough bread to feel "respect", I'm staying home.
I am semi-retired this year (will probably do around 50 gigs at around $200 a pop). The wife and i are planning on making Montana our primary residence next year (she grew up there) and while we will keep a place here in California as a "getaway", I plan on being in the Rocky mountains most of the year. Perhaps I better start honing my country chops if I want to play out?
Western Swing is part of my wheelhouse. I wonder if the cats in the northern Rockies like that stuff? Guess I will find out.
You keep on channeling SRV/Albert King. It seems to work for you. I hope the new Keys player sticks around!
-
Thanks Stringswinger. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Congrats Dawg! Hope it lasts and that you can find gigs that pay that many cats. I have always found paying a quartet is tough and paying a quintet is beyond tough. Over the last 20 years, about a third of my gigs have been solo gigs (that way I get paid a fair wage). At this point in my life, after playing thousands of paid gigs, if there ain't enough bread to feel "respect", I'm staying home.
I am semi-retired this year (will probably do around 50 gigs at around $200 a pop). The wife and i are planning on making Montana our primary residence next year (she grew up there) and while we will keep a place here in California as a "getaway", I plan on being in the Rocky mountains most of the year. Perhaps I better start honing my country chops if I want to play out? Western Swing is part of my wheelhouse. I wonder if the cats in the northern Rockies like that stuff? Guess I will find out.
You keep on channeling SRV/Albert King. It seems to work for you. I hope the new Keys player sticks around!
I have managed to keep the quartet working most weekends during season plus a weekday here and there for quite a few years now. The keys player is employed in the music field with a day gig so it works out. I've been bringing him in for the better paying gig(s) so keeping the quintet to an as needed basis works for everyone. The 5th man definitely starts to make the per man $ a little light if the gigs aren't premium paying venues.
I could probably gig four or five nights per week if I took solo-duo stuff but to me that's kind of like working a day job and it can be so lucrative that you find yourself turning down band gigs because it's like playing top 40 country, getting caught in a loop of not my ideal playing situation just for the $$$. Not really my bag to be background noise for people so I just do my thing and pick up all the decent paying band gigs I can find.
I've looked at western Montana acreage. Beautiful, congrats. I assume you mean western Montana cause eastern Montana is like ND so if that were the case then you have my sympathies, lol. I just can't stick cold weather anymore. I hate it, though Idaho-Montana is gorgeous in the summer. Pretty sure you will find some gigs there once you get out and network some as that is an area with a lot of money, people, and businesses flowing into it. Should be a great retirement. Good luck!!!
-
Dawgbone, Western Montana with both a summer and winter break in California will be our retirement for a bit. Besides music, motorcycles and the outdoors are my passions. No helmet law in Montana (and the deep red politics there suits the wife and me just fine) and our home there is about a mile from a Federal wilderness area, so I plan on hiking, snowshoeing and maybe a little hunting to my heart's content.
They say Western Montana and North Idaho are God's Country and I can't disagree!
-
Not for long if those red politics keep winning. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
-
I doubt that. We like our hunting preserves in the Red States. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
And our guns.
-
That’s just wasted real estate to big city elites like Trump. Perfect spot for Musk to build a battery plant with no EPA regulations. Or if they find copper it’ll be strip mined.
I’m just saying, you can’t count on federal parks. You need to buy the land hope it doesn’t get imminent domained.
-
If it’s any consolation, I’m usually wrong but it’s because something worse I hadn’t considered happens.
-
Wilderness areas are not parks. I agree that buying land to preserve it is the best policy. The Wilderness Society is a big part of my estate plan. That is my cause. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
-
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Allan is correct, Trump is already amending the Wilderness Act to allow operation of commercial interests in national parks (wilderness areas are designated sections of national parks), and he rescinded Bidens regulations that protect it. And he's rolling back all the policies to fight climate change, that alone will eradicate wilderness areas before too long. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Trump’s Assault On Alaskan Wildlands - Rewilding
-
Sounds good, Dawg, best of luck to you.
-
Winning... Also, why would Trump care about preserving the wilderness act? Congress is giving power of the purse to him, are they going to stand up to Trump over a bunch of trees? Originally Posted by Mick-7
Also, sorry about politicizing your thread DawgBone. Everything is just a twig snap from politics now.
-
Thanks Ragman! Originally Posted by ragman1
It's the sort of band I used to see growing up. Loud, powerful, driving, with plenty of intensity. I'm still working out my spots cause it's been so long since i have worked with a keys player in a 4-5 piece I have to remind myself "you don't have to play rhythm guitar so much now". I love playing rhythm,, but it's mostly from necessity so it's nice to just throw licks in on top of the band. Things should really start to tighten up nicely in the next couple months as we get more time to play together.
-
I'd love to hear it if you get anything recorded. Originally Posted by DawgBone
-
While I would concede that today's GOP are whores for the extractive industry, I am not worried about President Trump's executive authority having much effect on the wilderness area in Montana and Idaho (almost all of which have nothing to do with National Parks). Sure, Trump is throwing some bones to the Eskimos (Aleuts) ,if the Courts don't stop him, by building a road through a wilderness area in Alaska (which Biden wanted to do as well). The Eskimos want the road, but building that road angers San Francisco liberals, you know, the folks whose wilderness experience is putting on their $500 Pantagonia jackets to go check out the avocado toast in a different neighborhood than the one that their rent controlled apartment is in. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
-
Seems like something yall could handle via private message?
-
Hell, if today's radical socialist left had their way, humans would be mostly barred from wilderness areas in any case and they certainly would be prevented from shooting Bambi in the fall. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
My Marlin 30.30 (Lever action of course) is at the ready.
-
Talk to Allen and Mick about that (by PM of course) Originally Posted by pamosmusic
-
Originally Posted by Stringswinger
You started it. I'm just trying to point out, your retirement plans might be at risk from your own deep red politics. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Talk to Allen and Mick about that (by PM of course)
-
OK. We have all made our points. As I posted earlier, I might need to hone my Country music chops if I want to play out up there. I have been mostly playing Telecasters as of late, so I am getting prepared. Telecasters make for GREAT jazz guitars BTW. Ed Bickert and Ted Greene were on to something. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
And I will concede that the conservative party (the GOP) has been pretty shitty when it comes to actual conservation (at the same time, I feel that today's Dems have thrown common sense out the window when it comes to this issue). Somewhere though, Teddy Roosevelt is probably not very happy.
-
All of the best paying gigs I've played in the last 15 years or so have been country gigs. For a while, I got calls to back up a few performers on what I (never to their face) called the "geriatric circuit," matinee shows playing Johnny Cash and other classic country stuff, but those guys haven't come back through town since Covid. I subbed a few times in a more modern country band, but that music is...it's just god-awful. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Reply With Quote
escow.com
Today, 07:56 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos