Is it just this part of the country or does everyone have troubles putting together a band anymore?

Granted, I live in a more rural area, but, being less than an hour from Washington, DC, and Baltimore, you would think that musicians would be a little easier to find. Great bands such as Clutch and Kix (not so great, but somewhat well-known) got there start less than 30 miles from here and I can’t seem to put four people in the same room with instruments. Where did the dream died?

Years ago I thought that I wanted to be a rock star. It was as easy as falling off a log to find musicians to play together. We used to have open jams at weekend parties. People would come from miles around to play with other musicians on a Friday or Saturday night. Styles would mix, sounds would gel and, inevitably, bands would form. It took little to no effort at all.

These days, I have networked, placed ads, called old band-mates and screamed in the town square to no avail. Have people given up on music?

I have been to two different psuedo-auditions in the past year. The first was with a group of guys in an apartment…I swear, a real apartment. They piled into the living room on the top floor of the three-story building and played from 8 to 10pm. None of them had any certain style, and the guitar player ruled with an iron fist, (and sounded like he played with an iron glove on his hand…not good!). That lasted for about three rehearsals, there was no direction at all with these guys but they were sure that they wanted to play out in the next few months. They were attempting to play originals and couldn’t seem to pull it all together. Not to mention, the songs were very…VERY bad.

The next band had three talented musicians, but they had no idea what they wanted to play. The guitarist could play most of any song ever written, but never seemed to be able to finish one and the originals that he wrote were very good, but the bass player and drummer seemed to be lost whenever he played them. I didn’t stick around long enough to be sure, but my thought on the matter was that the guitarist changed the arrangement each time he played an original.

I know this is a whiny piece of rambling nonsense, but, for guys like me who need music in their life to exist, this is a major issue and I am asking if this is a bigger epidemic than I know or if the problem is limited to small boring places where chewing tobacco is the official past time?

Keep the faith and keep rocking.