We're mostly comprised of musicians that have paid our dues playing clubs and bars. I had quit for 25 years before finally getting any interest in picking again.
Now we do not play as a group anymore, but we all have DAW's, and we send CD's back and forth to each other. When someone wants me to pick on their CD, they just mail the .bun file to me, I open it, record my part, and send it back.
Since I have picked up a guitar again I have met quite a few musicians from the area that I had not met before. And I have jammed with some of them, and recorded with others.
Most probably I will also do some projects with people I have met at SoundClick. As long as I like the song and feel I can ad something positive to it, I'll do it. I just get to use what I play on in my CD's as well. I work cheap, don't I? On the other hand, no one could pay me enough to pick on a song I didn't like.
I started playing guitar in my early 20's while on board a ship. When I left the service I was offered a job as a bass player, and I worked steady in area clubs for about 5 years. Then someone found out that I also played finger style guitar. That was probably the beginning of the end for me.
I used to do about 40+ finger finger pickin instrumentals back then, so the band would announce to the crowd that the lead guitar player would play a few instrumentals for them. Then everyone would leave the stage and abandon me in order to squeeze an extra 10 minutes onto their break. They would hold their beers up high where I would notice, and "toast" me, then grin real big to rub it in. I didn't especially enjoy that because I felt like a bug under a microscope. It actually seems funny now, when I think about it.
At 33 I was burned out. Jesus had my number. He clearly told me that I did not belong there. I gave the band a two weeks notice, found another guitar picker for them that knew the material, and never looked back. Unfortunatley, it was too late. I had already lost my love of guitar, and music in general.
I was sick of playing songs I didn't like, in places where I didn't care to play, for people I didn't want to entertain. I was tired of the instrumentals I knew, and I didn't hear anything else I wanted to learn. The music was dead. I had hit the proverbial "brick wall". So I hung up my guitars never to play again. And for 25 years I was happy with that decision. During that time I didn't even have the least desire to play.
Then, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine found an old cassette tape of rather crude "Live" instrumentals that I had made. I have even posted a couple of them on here that are "public Domain". Donny insisted that I begin picking again, as he himself had found a new desire to play again. I told him that I didn't have to start doing anything. So Donny, who respected my position, began sending guitars to me as a bribe to get me interested in playing again. First he sent a 100lb plywood Fender Strat, under the guise of having me work on it. Like that was really tempting. Then a new Les Paul arrived at my door. That raised an eyebrow. Then a few months later, a brand new American Telecaster was on my doorstep. Donny later confessed that he felt extreemly bad for sending the Strat, and told me to just throw that in the trash.
In the 25 years I didn't pick guitar, I had made all new friends. Their jaws about hit the floor when I picked up a guitar one day and started ripping out a "Chet Atkins" tune. Maybe that was worth it!
So here I am, only this time with three kinds of crippling Arthritus in my hands, playing catch up, and learning all over again, with only a small measure of the success I had when I was younger. 25 years of playing music lost. Maybe someone will learn from my bad experience. Before it stops being fun,.... run.
I have met more local musicians latley, and you can hear them in my MP3 section. I have also met some people on SoundClick that I may collaborate with. Not too many finger pickin tunes on here as of yet, since I did "cover" tunes for the most part, and copyright laws tie my hands.
Nonetheless, you will hear a lot of finger pickin chops on my tracks. On the instrumentals, I play bass, rhythm, and lead. I play lead and rhythm on most of the others.
Update: 2010 I started writing songs in the last couple of years. Since there was no one to sing them, I started singing them myself. I never sang before, and I only "sing"when I record a song, so don't expect too much. Unfortunately, I don't think I will be improving much since my first love is playing the guitar. I apologize if I damage anyones hearing with my vocals.
Well, that's my story, and I'm stickin to it. I hope you like our music.
Most certainly. In front of my computer or at jam sessions. Fortunatly I have not had the opportunity to play "dead" yet.
I think it's always a special moment when your fingers do something that catches your mind off guard. And afterwords, if your lucky, you will have the opportunity to learn the lick, if it has been captured on media of some sort.
I like almost all music. Country, because of the melodic riffs, Jazz, simply because it's jazz, rock, because it does, and fusion .. because that's where it is all found at once.
My picking is always a blend of all the above. Never could keep it straight.
So to put it in a nutshell, my picking style is rather like "Duane Eddy and the Ventures meet Chet Atkins."
I use home made Strats & Teles now days. I used to be a Gibson only guy back when I played clubs. I design and build all my own amplifiers, pre amps and effects. Electronics engineering and PCB design was what I did in the real world.
The songs on our page have not been completed. We did NOT use any compression schemes on these mixes in order to improve dynamic range. So they sound a little "quiet" compared to heavily compressed songs. I am hoping to re master them with live drums later on.
Only Bad Luv and Almost BR have any final editing tools used on them.
We will add slight mastering compression after a "live" drummer is added to these songs. That should boost the volume a bit and still retain dynamics for the most part. Remember boys and girls, "heavy compression kills"