Riadsala’s Blog

So, I’m thinking of starting a new band. Or trying to find an existing one, but that seems unlikely. Although finding a collection of people to play with also seems unlikely. Where does one find musicians to play with? Gumtree? Hmmm. I think my biggest problem (beyond being an opinionated and argumentative so and so) is that I like a lot of different genres of music, and so trying to think of a description of what I’d like to play is somewhat tricky. Is there common thread running through Count Basie, Miles Davis, King Crimson, Brian Eno, John Martyn, Richard Thompson, Talking Heads, Tower of Power, Portishead etc?

I’m not really sure there is. There’s definitely nothing coherent there. And I think I like it that way. Put me in a rock band, and I’ll develop a longing to play around minimalism. Put me in a prog band, and I’ll want to play music people can dance to. And then I’d probably complain about the dynamics. Never happy, and I don’t have the attention span to actually master anything. [If I did, I'd be playing jazz.... At least, I'd play jazz until I wanted to rock out. And anyway, learning jazz bass seems to consist of learning a huge number of standards, and you only get to play with the good local musicians once you've proved yourself on the standards. I want to skip straight to the fun creative stuff].

None of this would make for a good advert on Gumtree. And all the good drummers are already in bands anyway. Any who aren’t can probably take their pick of bands, and I can’t see my vague, handwavey desire to do something interesting getting their attention to long. Especially as it’s probably at the expense of playing many gigs. [Good gigs are a lot of fun, but most gigs aren't good and the novelty of hanging around small music venues for hours and hours wore off years ago.]

Maybe I should concentrate on academia and go. There’s a backlog of novels to read on my bookshelf. Musically, I can probably keep myself entertained trying to master Bach’s cello suites.

But you know, there’s just something about being in a band.

I recently read Perfecting Sound Forever and found it a pretty thought-provoking read. In particular, the pros and cons of editing as a tool and process when recording music. As soon as you start editing and mixing music you’re no longer creating a record: the sound you end up with was never performed and furthermore, it’s potentially misleading (i.e. auto-tuning vocalists who can’t hold a note in tune). Where do you draw the line? Is there a line that should be drawn in the first place? Does it matter? The last question is the easiest to answer: of course it doesn’t. At least, it doesn’t matter what I do. I just play around my guitars and computer in my spare room

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I know two Dan’s. They’re very similar in many ways. Both are great people, and great musicians.

Was chatting to (the Glasgow based) Dan just now, and he was asking if I’d like to play with his band. I was weighing up the pros and cons, and he came out with this:

give it a bash, its not like I’d stop being your pal if it didn’t work out, I’m too much of a pro that way

what happeend to your old bassist?

we fired him

That man has style.