The time has come…

  • Thread starter Roadappledrummer
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For me, playing music (or any other creative activity like painting, writing, etc.) should be done for the artist first. If other people like it, even better. And if they’ll pay to enjoy it, big win. But it has to be in that order for me. Doing all this to get attention and recognition from an audience seems… disconnected?

Side note: I’m tired of the YT rants - we know they’re just for the clicks and intentionally pitch a doom-and-gloom take on “the current state of ______” but they still keep cranking them out. Maybe that’s the kind content we get when the creator only wants a reaction out of the audience?
 
Literally just posted something similar to this about two months back. I'm almost a month post retirement from my last gig. I can say from my personal experience, I have no regretted it one bit. I was constantly frustrated with bandmates, finding gigs, getting paid for gigs, and the usual band drama. It was a hobby for me, and it wasn't bringing any fulfillment or joy anymore. I left my last gig, tired, sore, and exhausted. But not emotionally. I left playing what I felt was probably my strongest performance in years, and was happy to know I was packing up for the last time. That's stand bag, even with wheels, is my nemesis. LOL

Everyone has to make a decision at some point about when it's time to move on. To the OP, if you're already having thoughts about hanging it up, then it's probably closer than you think. BUT only you can decide when it's the right time.

Best of luck!
 
Maybe consider a different genre of music? Not sure what your experience or situation is exactly, but for me, after playing in a cover band for over 20 years (which was great fun, don’t get me wrong), I now play in a jazz trio. Much different band experience, and much different the way the audience interacts with the band.
 
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I can relate. Most of my gigs were from WAY back in the 70's & 80's when it was FUN to be out around other people in BIG city clubs, music stores, record shops, and most of all concerts. Now it's cell phones, spotify, and computer generated pop music. That said, I have a few nice kits that I absolutely love to play here at the home office. I can just practice or play along with whatever music I choose. I have about a 250 song playlist that keeps me plenty busy. I stopped gigging. I didn't stop playing.
 
Roadappledrummer said:
I appreciate all the replies… there’s a lot there to think about. I just saw a Rick Beato video that backed up what I’m feeling… basically bands are dead in today’s music world. That’s totally affected how people see live performance…
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I don't really buy that. Bands might be dead for the general public, but certainly not for certain scenes and I would say that playing for more selective audiences will always be more satisfying than playing for a more "general public" type audience anyway. I helped start a music non-profit in my town that puts on a big yearly jazz festival, almost exclusively of local and area talent. This thing gets bigger by the year and even though the genre of jazz may seem like a minor one and one who's golden age has passed, there are lots of young musicians coming up the ranks with continually new conceptions of what this music can be. I see plenty of younger people at the shows and I remember having a conversation with one of them who told me that jazz was actually quite popular with her peer group.

I play in an original rock group, that for lack of a better descriptor, I will call "indie rock," and though we don't play a lot of shows, I really feel like audiences appreciate what we do and there seems to be plenty of people who are into showing up for original live music. If anything, I enjoy playing live much more than I did playing in similar type bands back in the 90s. Back then, the vibe of the clubs was more drunken and rowdy, where people seemed to mostly only respond to really loud agressive music and weren't really tracking the subtitles. It may be true that younger people for the most part aren't going to clubs to hear live music as much, but our band seems to draw older folks, ones who came up when I did, in the music scene in the 90s and are still interested in live music. Those folks might have been more into punk rock scenes decades ago, but like we all do when we age, we mellow and our taste becomes more eclectic, which means that they are far better audiences to play for.

I'm not sure what type of music that you play, but if it's covers of hit songs, then it may just be that at some point after hearing those same classic songs for decades, folks just got tired of hearing them and younger folks who didn't grow up with that music don't have that kind of nostalgia that makes that kind of thing resonate with them. Folks often get excited about experiencing something new, so faced with the choice seeing a band that plays some very old classic songs, which have been heard so many times, and a DJ spinning the latest electronic dance music, then folks may understandably be more drawn to the new thing...
 
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This is a lame take but if you’re that jaded then you need to move on and do something else in my opinion. Good luck motivating an audience to vibe on you when you actively resent all of them.

Maybe some old timers can confirm or deny this, but hasn’t popular music always been about the front man from the start ? How many screaming girls knew who was drumming for Elvis ? There are exceptions and certainly “the band” as a unit was a thing in the 70s rock heyday, but every decade has had superstars and their support.

Believing that bands are dead is right next door to believing that nobody makes good music anymore. It’s just not true! Just because something has receded from its peak of popularity and cultural influence does not mean it is dead.
 
Roadappledrummer said:
I’m thinking the time has come to hang it up… I’ve been fortunate to do a almost a couple thousand gigs with a popular regional band but I’m just getting tired of the way the music scene has changed. American Idol, The voice and the way music is made today in a computer with no real instruments is behind this thinking. People only care about the front person/singer now and real musicians that play behind them are just part of the scenery. I played a gig the other night in front of hundreds of people all fawning over the front person. It hit me that I have no motivation to play well for the crowd (only for my band mates) because a drum machine could just as well take over and the crowd wouldn’t notice. I used to feel like I was contributing to the performance and people were responding to the BAND as a whole. Now it might as well be karaoke with a good front person/singer. In fact, a local band has started doing that… a drummer on electric drums playing to all tracks with a singer out front…other musicians not needed. I really think the drummer is disposable as well but he’s married to the singer lol. Rant over…
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Crash Davis said to never mess with a winning streak...

You're still getting to play.

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If you are basing decisions on what Rick Beato thinks , I’d rethink that decision!!!
 
Houndog said:
If you are basing decisions on what Rick Beato thinks , I’d rethink that decision!!!
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I think the man has some interesting, on-point things to say, but he's typically talking about big generalities of the music biz. He's lamenting the state of the industry these days, which I get, yet I don't think any of that has to effect the kind of thing that most of us do in terms of the music that we we're making for ourselves. Most of us aren't trying to be pop stars and to make it in the larger realm of things, we're simply trying to make music that entertains ourselves and maybe a small crowd of people who also enjoy that. it's just not very useful to think about the big picture, when we are mostly all working on a much smaller canvas. We can feel lucky that we don't have to be bothered by what the big picture is for the music industry...
 
I have to say that playing in my Petty tribute band gives me the most joy. My other R&B band is much more work and I love playing with the great musicians in that band, but like I said I’m busting my ass in that band carrying the PA and lights and managing keyboard tracks that we use. It’s exhausting. But it is rewarding. I just wish we gigged more. It always seems to be an uphill battle. But we always have people praising us…

The trib band on the other hand has a baked in fan base and it seems much more to look forward to. It’s just fun to see appreciative fans come out and see us.

To be honest, getting older though, is making me wonder how much more I have to give.
 
Disco Mystic said:
I can relate. Most of my gigs were from WAY back in the 70's & 80's when it was FUN to be out around other people in BIG city clubs, music stores, record shops, and most of all concerts. Now it's cell phones, spotify, and computer generated pop music. That said, I have a few nice kits that I absolutely love to play here at the home office. I can just practice or play along with whatever music I choose. I have about a 250 song playlist that keeps me plenty busy. I stopped gigging. I didn't stop playing.
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My thoughts exactly

I just play in my basement an hour or 2 four or five times a week

I love playing and I can quit and go upstairs eat and read and go to sleep
 
Disco Mystic said:
I can relate. Most of my gigs were from WAY back in the 70's & 80's when it was FUN to be out around other people in BIG city clubs, music stores, record shops, and most of all concerts. Now it's cell phones, spotify, and computer generated pop music. That said, I have a few nice kits that I absolutely love to play here at the home office. I can just practice or play along with whatever music I choose. I have about a 250 song playlist that keeps me plenty busy. I stopped gigging. I didn't stop playing.
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It's still fun to play out, provided you're playing in a place and and for an audience that you dig and digs your music. I did the most gigging in the 90s with a few bands I was in at that time, and decades later, in my 50s, I'm actually enjoying playing out more than I did back then... even if then and now, it's been mostly a labor of love and not something that I'm making any money to speak of out of.
 
5 Style said:
It's still fun to play out, provided you're playing in a place and and for an audience that you dig and digs your music. I did the most gigging in the 90s with a few bands I was in at that time, and decades later, in my 50s, I'm actually enjoying playing out more than I did back then... even if then and now, it's been mostly a labor of love and not something that I'm making any money to speak of out of.
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This^^^^ hints at some of what I’m at. The places and audiences are getting younger and they aren’t so much into the band or the music. They come to gawk at the hot singer and watch her. It’s what they know and have been brought up on… singular artists with invisible back up bands. Some places with older crowds are more fun because they enjoy the band and music but those places aren’t near as common anymore…I love playing and playing with the band but I could do that in the basement if the gigs aren’t enjoyable enough. Sometimes they’re not because of the cultural shift in attitudes towards bands.
 
Roadappledrummer said:
I’m thinking the time has come to hang it up… I’ve been fortunate to do a almost a couple thousand gigs with a popular regional band but I’m just getting tired of the way the music scene has changed. American Idol, The voice and the way music is made today in a computer with no real instruments is behind this thinking. People only care about the front person/singer now and real musicians that play behind them are just part of the scenery. I played a gig the other night in front of hundreds of people all fawning over the front person. It hit me that I have no motivation to play well for the crowd (only for my band mates) because a drum machine could just as well take over and the crowd wouldn’t notice. I used to feel like I was contributing to the performance and people were responding to the BAND as a whole. Now it might as well be karaoke with a good front person/singer. In fact, a local band has started doing that… a drummer on electric drums playing to all tracks with a singer out front…other musicians not needed. I really think the drummer is disposable as well but he’s married to the singer lol. Rant over…
Click to expand...

Quit if you truly believe it's your time to bow out.

If you are quitting because you don't think the world no longer needs drummers are bitter, then to quote my dad, "Quit crying boy, or I'll give you something to cry about!" Go take a nap, eat some protein, drink some Mt. Dew, and get back out there.

Don't make me turn this car around...
 
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