www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Well,you said it(projilo).I think you covered all of it..only one thing else to consider,and that is just that musicians are not all the same obviously(maybe you did cover that),so some songs are going to be challenging for some and insanely ponderous for others.

You are not going to find Steve Vai covering "Hell's Bells",in other words.

Not really.At least not in Austin..Any band can go in and find a place to play..if they are good and the crowd likes it,the bar owner will notice and reschedule..if they are good enough,they end up fairly soon with a circuit of venues to hit on Tuesdays and Thursdays...Friday and Saturday will soon follow if they keep getting good feedback,and then they will usually get regular gigs.

If they aren't very good and the crowd does not like them,they better work on their act and try somewhere else.

You won't get anywhere being a cover band...except specialty gigs and parties.Free Bird won't get you a steady gig.

I just pointed out that rather-common misspelling to see what reaction I'd get. Another word was spelled 2 different ways 6 words apart and not a peep from me...As far as an Ella (Fitzgerald , presumably) reference, she did a good version of it but there's been 1288 others at last count. I just like the sentiments expressed and word play in it. Thank you, Arthur Hamilton.

And Brother Wesley--Austin is such a special place (along with Ann Arbor and Madison) that what you say is absolutely true.However, think of those poor bedraggled souls in smaller, more isolated, less caring places...and the audiences they have to try to please. The soul shivers...

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Well,the thing about Austin is that it has a wide variety of venues,so it is kind of up to the band to try to break in to the right venue..

Back in the day it was The Back Room and Liberty Lunch for punk and metal...Antone's for blues,etc...but you know,I have not kept up with the scene.

A guy I have jammed with in the past is still gigging around the metal venues in Austin,but the scene is alot tougher than it used to be...metal has progressed to the point where you really have to be in top form to get noticed...back in my teen years it was enough to just be "heavy".

But yeah,the thing is..the crowds are not as dumb as some musicians would like to believe..around here the bands that get great word of mouth are very,very talented..

Check out Storyville,Eric Johnson,The Arc Angels,Stevie Ray,etc...they were all crowd favorites with incredible word of mouth locally before ever making it big..

I once saw an incredible Rolling Stones cover band in the back room(about 1992)..they took all of the old songs and played them with just a bit more of an edge while still being true to the songs..but they were short lived..

But I guess that is all straying a bit from topic.

Okay, since you are wondering, let me just go ahead and break down the statements you made that I consider "talking out of your ass." And there is a difference between doing that and simply stating some reasonable opinions or guesses based on some limited observations...



If the musician wants compensation they are going to some degree care about how their audience responds. And your sweeping characterization of musicians in general, certainly a diverse group, is questionable and wholly unproven. The only evidence you brought is what you claim to know about the personal feelings of one guy that you know. This person is allegedly only interested in a can of beer, an electrical outlet, and an amplifier. Great, but even if wholly true, such is way inadequate to support your assessment of musicians generally, a group comprised of millions and millions of individuals worldwide.



More pontificating, but this time with statistics, “99%,” wow, impressive but nothing at all to back up the claim. Even if 99% of those seeking money either truly hit the big time or quit playing for audiences after two years, something of course absurdly unproven beyond telling us that you were a bartender, you still fail to grasp the complexity of human motivations, while operating from a false dichotomy. Human psychology is typically more complex than either/or propositions. It`s perfectly feasible that many musicians are motivated by both a desire for artistic expression and to make money, along with other factors.



More assertions of "fact," do you expect people to just nod and believe you? So how many regular Beale St. artists are there total? I`ll shoot low and say 50, so 100 for every one of these? That would mean we have 5000 homeless musicians in the city, in it for the art of it, but willing to do a show in a club for a bed to flop on for the night and a can of beer. Sounds like romantic, far fetched nonsense to me, something for blogs and travel guides, not serious discussions, and it all of course comes with no evidence, other than a claim that you`ve lived in music towns and worked as a bartender. But, even if true, there is still financial motive involved, and what specifically qualifies you to ascertain what their actual motive(s) are, or the extent thereof? Is it 90% for the art and 10% for the money? The reverse or some variations in between? Or it is any number of other possibilities depending on the individuals? Hey as Ronnie Van Zant told us, Curtis Lowe wasn`t going to do any playing until he got his drinking money and to an alky, that`s something highly important. But, at the end of the day, and all things considered, it`s obvious that you just like hearing yourself talk, and from your southerly most orifice. And, that`s really okay sitting around a table belting down cold ones with a group of guys that are doing the same, just don`t publish it on the internet as someone is liable to come along and call you on it…




Passing wind again I`m afraid. It`s not "free money," it`s money they are hoping to earn by entertaining an audience. And, if the audience isn`t appreciative, the same may decide to not play publicy, at least not in a certain venue, irrespective of how much they love their art, whether they "hit it big wthin two years or not," so whether they show up on that street corner again may be neither here nor there to your assumption of motivations. There is just a heck of a lot that you don`t know, really have no clue about but are in here speaking authoritative about. Personally, there is only one thing I`m confident you have a good grip on, and that`s buying prostitutes....

The Topic here is ...MUSIC and MUSICIANS. Anything that's said about that or them is on-point. I do apologize about neglecting to mention the other great music areas of the US--I only mentioned the ones that came immediately to mind--so you guys that live in NO or the Quad-Cities of NC or whever there's good original music being created, please don't bitch-slap me when we meet, OK?

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

You are preaching to the choir on that one with me.I have been saying that for years..but really Vai has his rabid fans and certainly does deserve the award for most hours spent practicing his craft.

I saw Eric Johnson in Austin at the old building downtown on Academy,I can't recall the name,it no longer exists,but it was an icon.The funny thing about him is that if all you ever hear is his recorded music,you barely scratch the surface of his talent..He is great live.

Funny thing about that venue..I also saw Wasp/Accept/Metal church there,as well as group of christian metal bands that we got tricked into seeing...the guy that sold us the tickets on a street in Austin said they were "heavier than Slayer" and said nothing about anything else..imagine our surprise when we were told to "mosh for Jesus".

Crazy what you get into when you are wandering the streets of Austin on a Friday night as a teenage dirtbag

I think you are referring to the Armadillo World Headquarters. Wow….what a blast from the past. Saw Frank Zappa there as well as Willie, ZZ Top and Jerry Jeff Walker when I was in college back in the 70’s. Wesley, do you remember the mural on the wall left of the stage….. the painting of BB King hitting a hot lick on his guitar, Lucille and the tail of an armadillo piercing his chest?

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Cigar smoking doesn’t reduce us, it elevates us; It makes us more content to be alone, or it helps us to enjoy our companions. It encourages us to dwell on the simple moments and celebrate the sublime.
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Hung like Einstein and smart as a mule.
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You're not drunk if you can lay on the floor without holding on.

As a slightly-less-than-world-class guitarist, I don't think you can really call any of the monster guitar heroes 'best.' They all have incredible technique. I recently got a Steve Vai 'album' and was amazed at his technique, and finished listening with a 'so what' feeling. But knowing guitar players, there a lots of them whose only goal is to 'shred,' to get up and amaze other guitar players with their flying fingers. It's not only guitar players who suffer from the malady of playing to some imaginary musician in the audience who is impressed by their speed or trickiness.

I am seldom able to achieve it to my satisfaction, but when I am in the zone, my playing isn't about how fast I play or how many weird sounds I can get my guitar to make, but the emotional content. Having said that, I'd love to have any of those guitar monster's technique. I would probably just not play quite as fast all the time as they do. People's brains can be amazed by the number of notes played per second, but can't really process it, they just register a blur.

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"The only normal people are those you don't know very well." Joe Ancis

As most creative musicians will tell you, sometimes it's not the notes you play that are important, sometimes it's the spaces between--this is certainly true in jazz but this concept holds over to other genres also. There are any number of players I have a hard time listening to because they don't adhere to this--Oscar Peterson is one, Melvin Taylor, another. They're just too "busy" for me to enjoy. OTOH Bill Evans played the spaces excellently as did early Miles.

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Austin Opera House is what I meant..it was closed in the late 90s I think.I drove by today to try to recall the name,and now it is some kind of business center or something.A guy in the parking lot reminded me of the name.

Great post Bilko! Someone once said that Eric Clapton (or maybe it was Albert King or Buddy Guy?) could convey more emotion in one note than most guitarists could in an entire song. 'Flying fingers'...reminds me of a couple of 'speed burners' in Japan now (the band is called Galneryus...see link below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DXRNwfY4Yc

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"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

PLAY SOME SKINARD!

First off, let's look at analytical reality. Some of the famous venues have musicians who are basically competent, but play/sing like they really think they are good- overdo it and play what they shouldn't try. The worst offenders are Beale Street and Bourbon Street. Crappiest music I ever heard and if you were drunk as people in those venues get, then you might think it's good. REALITY- it's been this way for years and it's 2010. The prevalence of Radio, then telephones, then tapes, then faxes, then internet and share video/audio thereon has changed things. Therefore, any musician worth a damn is going to be in New York, Nashville or LA. You are NOT going into a sleepy back bar on Beale or Bourbon Street and "discover" the next Louis Armstrong, Elvis, Cash, J.L. Lewis, Carl Perkins, B.B. King or Muddy Waters. Those days were over decades (before 1955) ago. Therefore, you only get musicians on Beale and Bourbon St. anyone in the industry knows cannot make it recording anything. Serious folks, the crappiest talent I have seen the past 20 years is on Beale and Bourbon- a complete joke each time. HOWEVER, you may find (AND WILL FIND) better talent in a Wilmington, NC scene where local talent is actually coming out. If they are good, then they are usually snatched up quickly, but these local music scenes are much better and much more fun!!!!