Question: What genre(s) do you play with your band(s)

[ch willie]

We've got a bit of new blood and lurkers, so I thought this might pull them in and help us all to get to know each other better.


Even though my tastes are wide in what I listen to and play privately, and I write songs in different genres, I like being able to tap into it all. My band plays classic and modern hard rock--we're not really metal, but we're not mellow. I like to think of it as good rock with a heavy edge--Stones, Alice in Chains, Steppenwolf, Ozzy, Hendrix, Beatles, Guns, Floyd, etc. I use a Strat with humbuckers for our heavier numbers; otherwise, I play a Tele with Nocaster pickups.

With my band Bellend (snicker) last Halloween. I was dressed as a fatal illness, EbolaAIDS (not making fun of the ill; more of a meta comentary on the media; I was raised on satire with a dose of irony and pity).

[phantomman]

For me it was always classic rock and some blues. I've also done a few fill-ins with a country band or two.

[smitty_p]

Interesting question. We have everything from Johnny Cash to U2 to Bon Jovi on the set list.

We have a lead female vocalist, as well as a male, so that opens a lot of territory. We have some Heart and Miranda Lambert in the mix.

[S. Cane]

It kinda depends on where we'll be playing. But our main pièces de resistance are classic rock and classic heavy metal, with some progressive thrown in...

Judas priest, Led Zep, Deep Purple, Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Rush, Hendrix...

I myself like some bluesy rock stuff too, especially Clapton. But I don't really play it with my band.

[ch willie]

Long......

I was born in 62, Kenny. I grew to love Yes, and I think their Going for the One tour was the second rock concert I ever saw.

I was a bassist primarily and lazily and inaccurately learned a bunch of CS licks, but I was and am a McCartney fan, and I spent a lot of time learning his, Leon Wilkerson's, Carl Radle's, and assorted rock bassists licks. One of the first things I learned was McCartney's "Silly Love Songs"--say what you want about the sappiness, but the bass is great. I also learned TV theme songs like the ones from Barney Miller, Batman, and Sanford & Son.

Kenny, you and many of us were raised on music that was gutsy rock but artistically crafted, played, and recorded. The best albums were an artwork, and the artist was aware of the album as their canvas. Songs were important both as hits and in the context of the whole album.

What a "song" is has changed now. The album is almost dead. How a song should sound has changed. I play with a lot of younger musicians who are gravitating towards overkill on computer technology, at least for the kind of music that I like and like to play. It's quantity over quality now, computerized perfection of sound, but void of the man made flaws in playing and capturing that sound. Just yesterday, our lead guitarist says the sound on ALL Beatles albums is so bad that he can't listen to any of it. I told him lo-fi is not always a bad thing, sometimes the choices they made were done so because of the limits of technology, and that makes the playing, production, and mix more interesting.

Yes, I am old fashioned now. We all are Don Quixote, running at the windmill with our Fender headstocks.

[ch willie]

A Gibson headstock will work. Or we take a cue from Keef, take our Teles and just batter the shit out of those windmills.

[Don]

Blues and classic rock, a little rockabilly and country.

I was born in '63 and picked up the guitar for real when I heard Clapton's music from the late '60s when I was about 15. That made me somewhat of a musical outsider in high school in 1980!
It was many years later that I learned to play other forms of music by playing with others.

[Offshore Angler]

I'm a total whore.

Whatever the paying gig is that night...that's my genre.

The whole deal for playing guitar for me has little to do with the love of the music or the "it's my calling" BS.

I'm a working guitarist and I LOVE to be paid to play guitar. Gives me a rush, and that's why I do it.

When somebody hands me cash and says "Thank you" while they're doing it, I get all tingly.

In fact, I really don't like playing the guitar all that much, but I like money.


OSA

[Laker]

I started playing with bands back in 1959 or 60 as a sax player but switched permanently to bass guitar in '63.

My first gig on bass was playing six nights per week and a Sunday afternoon matinee at a popular lounge in a local bowling alley complex and doing a weekly radio show that was taped during the Wednesday evening gig. We covered everything from standards like "I left My Heart in San Francisco" to current rock hits of the day. Eventually, with bands that followed, I got into playing early rock (Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, etc) and then covering stuff like the Beatles until leaving for the army.

After service, the type of bands I was in changed to R&B doing stuff by artists like James Brown or Sly and the Family Stone. I spent quite a few years with New Orleans bluesman Bryan Lee which got me more interested in playing that type of music. Playing into the new millennium I was with a 10 piece horn group (9 here) doing Tower of Power/Chicago stuff and playing/recording our own originals.


Since then I've played a lot of different styles even doing a stint in a comedy polka group.


Which brings me to currently playing the blues.

[lure555]

I've recently fallen back in love with playing after putting the guitar down for about 7 years. I don't know what genre I'll fall in to. Really into ambient sounds. Bill Frisell meets My Bloody Valentine? My previous bands have been of the heavier variety, but didn't fit neatly into any particular category. In my Rock days, I found that I'd listen to very little of Rock. I would be more likely to listen to Middle Eastern music. Nowadays, it's all Blues.

[ch willie]

Laker--great stuff!

[Laker]

I can't believe there are only three or four people that can contribute to this thread.

[FrankJohnson]

I started playing late - at 38. at that point, I was pretty much interested in blues/classic rock stuff - but didn't have much under my belt playing wise. Fortunately, I had good local mentors. A couple of attempts in year 2-3 in playing with "bands" resulted in being treated pretty crappy. I was fortunate enough to sit in/fill in with a couple of really good local guys from time to time - but couldn't find my "thang". Local guys for the most part (except those already gigging and showing me some things) wouldn't give me the time of day. In my 3rd year I started going to a blues jam about an hour away, and found a whole new group of people. on the fourth week, was asked to play for the house band, recognizing that I was green, and would learn a lot, but that there was also something there to work with I guess (had them fooled - didn't I?). That was with David Bromberg.

The venue closed almost 4 years later, and i put Bad JuJu together. It ended up Being a core and blues jam type band,and would usually be rounded out on a lot of gigs by people I had Jammed with. to this day - we try to keep the core 4 but it doesn't always work that way - (8 years later). So I would say mostly Blues, blues rock.

Funny, I got to meet, open for and play with Bryan Lee - will find a pic somewhere. I helped found the Central Delaware Blues Society with a friend and do sound for our venue. I have been fortunate to meet a lot of great players, both Local and national act wise. Among them, Albert Castiglia, Joe Louis Walker, The Nighthawks, Bob Margolin, Eric Steckle, Chris Duarte....... Blues people are damned good people. I am glad I found this as part of my life.

[blackonblack]

Back in the day, it was rock (which is now classic rock), country and some basic blues. A touch of hair rock as well. Nowadays, classic rock and CCM.

[dirtdog]

Primarily country - old Nashville and Bakersfield stuff, through to modern "bro country". Somewhere in the middle is George Strait and that's pretty much what we sound like. Also trying to work my way into an acoustic country/bluegrass-y combo on dobro and console steel.

But I started in the very early '80s as a young teenager playing Beatles, Buddy Holly, Eagles and the like. By the end of high school, I had gone through the Stones/Zeppelin/Who thing (totally bypassing the hard rock and metal of the day) and settled into the Texas/Mississippi/Chicago blues in my 20's. Brief dalliances with grunge/alt/indie music in the 90's, followed by a time playing R&B/soul/British blues/southern rock in a variety of band with a very short side trip into classic rock and rockabilly territory.

Mostly on bass, a bit of guitar and most recently on pedal steel, console steel, lap steel and resonator.

[Rickenjangle]

I'm a total whore.

Whatever the paying gig is that night...that's my genre.

The whole deal for playing guitar for me has little to do with the love of the music or the "it's my calling" BS.

I'm a working guitarist and I LOVE to be paid to play guitar. Gives me a rush, and that's why I do it.

When somebody hands me cash and says "Thank you" while they're doing it, I get all tingly.

In fact, I really don't like playing the guitar all that much, but I like money.


OSA

I cry bullshit on this post. Well, except for the first line.

Most of you have never seen OSA's cheese-eating grin when he's ripping off a particularly tasty solo on his Strat or Tele, through the Rat and into the Fender DRRI. Or watched him go right out into the crowd with his guitar lead trailing behind him, just to dance with a fan or two while he's playing.

As for me and mine, well, I used to play in a country-rock outfit called Crossfyre with OSA and the late, lamented Mikey. That was fun - but it ran its course.

Now, I play a lot of blues-based classic rock and some heavier stuff on occasion - and with some pop and rockabilly thrown in. My acoustic Duo plays some more "Americana" material.

The third band I play with plays mainly '60's and 70's one-hit-wonders (with some non-Beatles, non-Stones British Invasion stuff thrown in. (Think Bus Stop and Ferry Cross the Mersey). That stuff is fun to play, and challenging. I'm working on Todd Rundgren's "I saw the Light" (harmony lead guitar part), Steve Forbert's "Romeo's Tune" (great keys part - with some tasty pre-Hootie and the Blowfish pentatonic guitar soloing) and "Brandy" by Looking Glass (which I'll sing so not too much guitar-ing on this one). Love the diversity and the challenges that operating without a safety net brings...