Hell is NOT other people

So far on this blog I've stuck mostly to talking about songwriting and recording, and sharing various pieces of music with you. But the other side of this project is finding other musicians to play and collaborate with.

Despite the fact that I am really enjoying the stuff I'm creating by myself (this month's songwriting has been a blast so far, by the way, and I'll talk about that soon), I'm always at my happiest when playing with other people. If I thought for a second that the only outcome of this project would be me only performing alone with an acoustic guitar - or even electrified with backing tracks - I'd shut it down right now. That's not to say I wouldn't do that at all; I suspect I may have a hard time finding musicians willing to play the drivel I create here (if for no other reason than it's going to be stylistically varied and licensed in a way they might not agree with). But ultimately I'd like to see an ensemble come out of this in some form.

While I do have friends that are musicians, this doesn't mean I have an instant pool of bandmates. Some of them I greatly enjoy discussing music with and even jamming with occasionally, but differences in our musical tastes make a cohesive act an unlikely scenario. Some are simply geographically inconvenient for trying to regularly meet and collaborate. And others are quite content with noodling at home, already have a musical endeavor of their own (in some cases several), or are professional musicians who I wouldn't want wasting their precious time with an amateur venture such as mine, even if they were willing to do so.

As a result, I've had to find ways to meet more musicians.  I've tried a couple approaches so far, and I'll share how successful I've found each of them.

1) Jams at local bars, pubs

One of my first thoughts was jams. For those not familiar with jams, it involves having a host act - sometimes a full band, sometime just one or two people with guitars - who allow anyone who comes in to either join them or in some cases take over the stage entirely.  You tend to see all sorts come out: singers, guitarists, bassists, drummers, harmonica players, keyboard players... sometimes you'll even get some big band instruments like sax making an appearance.

This actually hasn't been as fruitful as I would've hoped, though admittedly I might have better luck if I headed into Toronto rather than stick to Brampton.  The turnout of people to play with has been meager. Some of the singers would probably also be better served by attending karaoke rather than a jam; that's not to say the didn't have a nice singing voice, but it seemed like they were mostly interested in just pounding back a few drinks and belting out the few tunes they knew without a care in the world.

The other problem with jams is that sometimes you don't know what you're going to get for a host, and you have no idea what songs they'll know. The last one I made it out to was hosted by two guys with acoustic guitars.  As more of an electric and full band player, it was difficult to find common ground with them. If the host doesn't know any tunes I'm used to playing, I usually take the attitude of "I'm happy to play whatever you feel like, I'll pick it up as I go along", but sometimes the host will choose something convoluted where there's no chance I can see stuff coming if I don't know the song. The end result is it doesn't go well, and you get the sense they'd be happy if you never came back (they'll usually make some polite comment like "hope to see you again", but their tone and body language would suggest otherwise).

I haven't wrote off heading out to jams like this completely, but it certainly hasn't met my hopes so far.

2) Classifieds

There are a number of specialized classifieds for finding musicians to play with, such as Bandmix, but sites like Craigslist and Kijiji also have sections for musicians. I decided to try Kijiji as a first attempt. I did my best to spell out in my ad what I was aiming for: people who were interested in being a "weekend warrior", being in a band where being creative and gelling as a group was taken seriously, but nobody was looking to drop their day job and chase a crazy dream of becoming huge rock stars. I also made sure to give people a sense of the musical styles and musicians I was into.

I received quite a few responses, and as you might expect from Kijiji, quite all over the place. A number of people clearly didn't pick up on my musical tastes and listed influences that were far removed from anything I'd go for (and I'm fairly open-minded). Others didn't quite grasp my goals; some were simply inviting me to come hang out in their basement and play Eagles songs, while others wanted me to come out an audition for their band, making it clear that they expected a definite level commitment for becoming "the next big thing".

Somewhere in amongst the junk, I did get a couple e-mails that have panned out. One guy had decided he wanted to host a bi-weekly jam at his home. I've been going to these jams for over a month now and it's been a lot of fun. The guys who come out to it are a great bunch; they're all talented individuals who are easy to get along with. This may not lead to any sort of performing group, but I'm perfectly happy with it just being a relaxed get together a couple times a month that still forces me to work my musical muscles in a full-band setting.

The second one was a drummer looking to put together a cover band. He does play in an established band already - which he doesn't plan to quit - but he's been somewhat disappointed with the direction his band has taken. Rather than do full night, paying gigs of covers with some original stuff throughout as they used to do, they're moving towards only doing the originals, performing unpaid short sets opening for larger bands in the hopes of making it big. So he's looking to put together a side project for himself that sticks with the full-night-of-mainly-if-not-all covers approach. It's still in its infancy; I met with him over a month ago now, but he's been in the process of moving to a new house with his family, so it's put things on hold. I've kept in touch with him, and hopefully it works out.

So that's where thing are at the moment on the collaboration front.  I still might see about adding to my network of musical associates, but it's a start anyways.