How often do you break from recording / music???

[RAMI]

It's great "playing" live....everything else associated with it generally sucks, IMO.

Yeah, the actual playing on stage part was ok. But, when I got back into it just a couple of years ago, the rehearsing, moving equipment (being a drummer is the worst), and dealing with a stereotypical premadonna, psychotic female singer that wasn't half as good as she thought she was but acted like she had it all was just too much for me. The other band I played in didn't have the bitch singer, but I was playing with 2 of the most boring guys ever that had no idea how to play to an audience. I was drumming, singing most of the songs, controlling the sound board and the lights. Lucky for them I had the experience and talent to carry them.


...and the modesty.....

 

[Greg_L]

It's great "playing" live....everything else associated with it generally sucks, IMO.

Yes, exactly. If there was a way I could "beam" myself from the couch to the venue with all of my gear at the exact moment we need to start, and then beam right back home, I would love gigs. But alas, I was born too early for that.

It's the extraneous shit that I hate about gigs. I suppose it would be more fun with real roadies, truck drivers, and techs. I'd just show up as the "talent" and play. That would be fine. I hate having to get there three hours early to stake out a spot to set up my kit where it won't get bumped into while the other bands play. I hate having to tear it all down the second we're done. I hate sound guys. I hate having to talk to people. "Hey Greg, great show". "No it wasn't we sucked tonight, and you're stupid for not noticing, but thanks for coming". Lol.

 

[Armistice]

I find, with working a full time non-musican/day job that I can either concentrate on recording or concentrate on being in a band and getting gigs (man) and that if I try to get both into my life at the same time I end up not much liking either...

So at the moment, seeing my "band" is all but dead, it's back to recording. Look out MP3 Clinic!

Oh, and like you need to gig to be a moosician. You need to gig to be a gigging moosician, but you can be a moosician without gigging...

 

[miroslav]

...I can either concentrate on recording or concentrate on being in a band and getting gigs (man) and that if I try to get both into my life at the same time I end up not much liking either...

Exactly.
That's the same thing I found every time I tried to get back to the band/gig thing.

I am well aware of the type of effort and commitment it takes to get a decent band going, and then to keep it going...and once committed, I would give it my all....but then there's the rub, since I totally dig the studio environment, and like to also commit myself to recording and put in the serious effort....one of the two starts to suffer.
So...at the end of the day, I'm asking myself if want to spend my time working on someone else's songs, since most bands want to do at least a decent amount of covers so you can get gigs...or do I want to spend my time working on my songs or at least original music, which I find more rewarding from a creative perspective.
The studio wins out every time for me....but I keep thinking that at some point it will come together where I can focus on originals in a band environment, and where we only gig a couple of times per month doing just them....
...but it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Mr Clean]

Don't feel bad....when I moved back in '99, I had to let the studio setup go for almost a year so I could deal with getting the rest of the house move-in work that was needed (it was the longest break I took from music, but it wasn't by choice).


It will come back to you....

A year! Damn, I'm not going to be leaving it all packed up for that long. I probably would've had it set back up on day 2 of living here but my uncle is building me a new desk and our move coincided with his 3 week Florida holiday. He's back on Sunday so I should have my desk sometime next week.

2 months is definitely too long for me but, I have my guitar and a load of work to do on the new (old) house so I don't feel like there's a rush to have it all back. My studio and recording is my relaxation, it'll be nice to have it back. I haven't stopped in weeks.....

If there was a way I could "beam" myself from the couch to the venue with all of my gear at the exact moment we need to start, and then beam right back home, I would love gigs. But alas, I was born too early for that.

With the internet age we're in now, I wouldn't think it'll be too long until gigs are streamed into pubs and clubs. The age of the lazy musician is nearly upon us. Until then, I must carry that big, fat ass, heavy sonofabitch, bass amp.

 

[dreib]

Im with greg too, the hassle and logistics of playing gigs becomes less appealing when your musical habit is being quenched by other things you love to do musically , recording, writing, etc. You don't have to play live 7 days a week to be a "real musician" or whatever.

In fact I really don't believe "anyone" plays 7 days a week....I could be wrong.

 

[Greg_L]

logistics of playing gigs becomes less appealing when your musical habit is being quenched by other things you love to do musically , recording, writing, etc.

That's a good point and one I hadn't considered. I do greatly prefer writing and recording. That's where I get my "fix'. Before I was into all this shit, I did seem to like gigs better. So that must be it. Gigs suck to me because I don't need them as my outlet anymore. I do still really enjoy playing with bands in the garage. I love playing with a band, I just don't love gigs. I need to find a bunch of guys that like the same music as me and have no goals, egos, or aspirations whatsoever.

 

[DM60]

If your primary income is from music, you're a professional. That is actually what the term implies. Whether weekends or 7 days or none and you just record and sell. I think gigging or not and how often is irrelevant.

Playing live - I can see where this would not be as appealing as in the past. There are so many ways to get your music out there. Playing live in the right setting would be great. Problem is, the right settings are far and few and many have to take the crap venues. For those about to rock, I salute you.

As I was getting back into music I was preparing to start playing live, the more I thought about it, the more I thought. No way, that is a lot of time to prepare, go there, set up, play (usually marathon sets 4 or 5 hours of playing is a lot of work!), tear down, come back, unpack. Most likely the venue not optimal, the crowd would be drunk (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I kind of like people to listen), equipment issues, there is a lot going on. I don't think I am up to to occasion. Full respect for those who do, 7 days or weekends.

Right now, I am working on recording and playing with sound and if no one comes to listen, hey what can I say? But the ones who do come, I think do listen. But I just had to upload it once. I'm not a professional and would not pretend to be in the same league as those of you who have sacrificed your life for music. That is why I am here to get sage advice to those of you with knowledge and experience.

(OK, I think that is about as much smoke blowing I can do for one day)

 

[dreib]

When I stopped gigging , I would go about 2 or 3 months and be ok , then I would go stir crazy, I use to wish I could take a pill that would flush my desire to play music , then I finally learned how to play guitar (somewhat) and started writing songs and then started to get into recording, for no reason other than to feed my habit and then I noticed that I was happy and content. You cant beat the feeling you get when your locked in with other musicians and you know what each of you are going to do without even thinking about it, but it takes a lot of time to get to that point and a shitload of work.

 

[miroslav]

A year! Damn, I'm not going to be leaving it all packed up for that long.

Well....I was moving into my "new" house, and wanted to remodel the kitchen and bathrooms top-to-bottom, paint the all the rooms, set up all the furniture and typical stuff, etc.
The studio space became just storage for that year, with all my gear stacked up and covered. As much as I wanted to focus on the studio, I knew the other stuff needed to get done, so I figured I might as well just get it out of the way.

Then I spent about a few months setting up the studio....building all my gear racks/furniture (I did that right there in the studio space), installing all the gear, and finally making all the snakes and wiring up the patchbays (I did a LOT of soldering).

I would not enjoy doing all that again from scratch.....

 

[RAMI]

playing gigs becomes less appealing when your musical habit is being quenched by other things you love to do musically , recording, writing, etc. You don't have to play live 7 days a week to be a "real musician" or whatever.

For sure. I've said that many times. I'd probably NEED to play live if I didn't have a guitar, bass and drums sitting less than 5 feet away from me ere. I get my musical outlet by writing and recording, etc....

If your primary income is from music, you're a professional.

Absolutely.

 

[Greg_L]

I should admit though that with all the amps and cabs and guitars I've bought over the last few years it has lit the fire in me to go play guitar in a band and I've been mostly enjoying that part of it at least. It's been a really long time since I've gigged on guitar.

 

[RAMI]

I should admit though that with all the amps and cabs and guitars I've bought over the last few years it has lit the fire in me to go play guitar in a band and I've been mostly enjoying that part of it at least. It's been a really long time since I've gigged on guitar.

I've thought about playing guitar live too. I've only done it once and I loved it. I've always gigged as a drummer except for about 3 years of singing up front. I prefer singing from the drums only because I could never find a drummer who I thought played well enough to warrant me not playing drums.

 

[Greg_L]

I've thought about playing guitar live too. I've only done it once and I loved it. I've always gigged as a drummer except for about 3 years of singing up front. I prefer singing from the drums only because I could never find a drummer who I thought played well enough to warrant me not playing drums.

I feel the same way. That's part of the reason that I don't really have any desire to play my own solo music live. Not that I'm some great musician that can't be duplicated, but really, no one good enough to play my stuff will want to be bossed around by me, and I'm not going to let some shmoe "interpret" his way through one of my songs. You play it the way I recorded it and that's it. Lol. I play with a drummer that's technically good enough to play my music, but his style is all wrong. So I just let him do whatever with the bands music. He knows I play drums too, but I don't ever talk to him about it. We never discuss drum ideas or whatever. The bassist is about as basic as there is. I'm fucking awesome on bass. I don't try to teach him anything. I don't care. I just play my guitar loud, and it's been pretty liberating.

 

[RAMI]

I really don't believe "anyone" plays 7 days a week....

If I did, I wouldn't be bragging about it.

 

[dreib]

If I did, I wouldn't be bragging about it.

I don't know, If it sounds hard to believe AND a musician says it well.....? How many times have you guys ran into some random dude that had an uncle that...blah blah blah....or some dude that says their band is getting signed..etc, etc....yea, Im jaded.

 

[Greg_L]

Whenever I hear that some local band has been "signed" I laugh at them. Fucking idiots. It's not 1982 anymore. Being "signed" is a joke now. Good luck paying back that big advance. Wait, you did get one right? No?

 

[DM60]

Whenever I hear that some local band has been "signed" I laugh at them. Fucking idiots. It's not 1982 anymore. Being "signed" is a joke now. Good luck paying back that big advance. Wait, you did get one right? No?

My nephew was signed back in the 90's (he was 15 and it just went from bad to worse from there). Even though he sold over a million albums, he still owed "the company" (Universal) when it was all said and done. I am convinced that getting signed is a curse for the true artist. Pop, probably a good thing, but for someone who wants to create a vision, signing today it is a bad thing overall.

 

[JimmyS1969]

I missed this thread somehow...

I'll just jump in inappropriately now.

The 90's were good for me gigging. My band then was basically managed by Barry Fey. At least his guy who did the dirty work was in control. We were able to open for sold out headliner shows on a regular basis. Mile High Stadium (Rocky Mountain Jam 2) was one of the gigs we were able to play because of the connection. Yeah, we went on at noon, but there were 11,000 people there. I thought we were on our way to stardom! lol! That didn't pan out like I planned...

In those years, we could demand $1500 for a weekend gig at a 300 capacity (cover) club for one 45 minute set. The money maker gigs were renting DAV halls, calling them reception parties, renting stage, lights, PA, and off duty cop, and providing beer with $15 donation. $5g would be made from these regularly. Well, until we ran out of DAV halls... Nothing to make a living from, but there was actually a music scene then that was worth playing. Plus, we had 5 or so guys that would set up/tune our gear before the shows, then tear it down after. Of course they were paid by alternative means, but it was fun for everyone.

We actually had a record deal, but it fell through. Surprise surprise....

Many years and other projects later, things have changed drastically. I still had fun being in a band with a local Radio DJ that allowed us to open for sold out crowds for bands like Suicidal Tendencies, Korn, blah blah.. Hell, the gig I enjoyed the most was being the backup band for Jim Brewer doing his 'party in the stomach' routine as well as his impersonation of Brian Johnson and Hetfield. But it became more of a bullshit thing about who I knew, and not what I believed in. The scene (fans) are not there like they were for most genres. I just have grown tired of dealing with other people and their personal issues, drama, and addictions. I still play, but mostly in a recording situation. I occasionally go out and do reunion shows, or fill in for someone, but it is just not as fun as it was when I was younger. Moving my drums is something I wouldn't wish on any friend. And I don't sell drugs...

I agree, that since I became more involved with recording, the less I care about being a 'rock star'. My wife thinks I am, and I'm sure my daughter will feel the same. That is enough for me now.


As to the OP's question, I never take a break from music. I just evolve with what moves me to a new direction. Now, I mostly record other musicians broken dreams. lol

 

[sava66]

Funny

Funny, I just asked this question to myself yesterday: do I take too many breaks? I think I'm just too hard on myself though. Since it's just a hobby, the only deadlines that exist are in my head.

Usually I take the dog for a walk whenever I finish tracking something. Like moving from drums to synth or guitar to vocals. Just a walk around the block with my dog and then it's back to work. Probably every couple of hours. The only time I've had the gumption to record for a whole day was when I was collaborating with someone else. But then again, I have a wife, 5 year old, and I'm in the military. So I really don't have a lot of time for this hobby.