Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,571
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Post by Confessor on Aug 1, 2020 8:48:18 GMT -5
So, the good news is that I have a gig this Sunday afternoon! My first since March. It's outside in a socially distanced pub beer garden and it's at one of my favourite pubs to play.
The bad news is that, what with evidence of a second spike swelling in Europe, the British government has postponed the reopenning of places like gyms, bowling alleys, conference meetings, and allowing live performances indoors, which was to have happened today. The latter will obviously affect me and my ability to work in pubs and clubs.
So, while I'm glad to be out playing again this weekend, the future still looks pretty bleak for a jobbing musician like me. So bleak, in fact, that I actually went online this weekend to see what jobs are out there in terms of home working, like data entry, conducting telephone surveys and the like. There are a few about actually, and it may well be that I will have to try to get myself one as we move into Autumn. After all, who knows how long this crap is gonna last?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2020 9:58:51 GMT -5
Good luck. I hope that the home-working roles work out if they become a necessity for you, but hopefully as time passes, gigs will become regular for you.
What kind of music do you sing?
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Post by spoon on Aug 1, 2020 11:47:44 GMT -5
Number two son just got his LSAT scores. He scored a 170, which is very good. Good enough to get into a top 14 school. He's aiming for Georgetown or NYU. So he's happy and I'm happy. Really fantastic score! Congrats to him!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,571
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Post by Confessor on Aug 1, 2020 12:48:35 GMT -5
Good luck. I hope that the home-working roles work out if they become a necessity for you, but hopefully as time passes, gigs will become regular for you. What kind of music do you sing? I sing American rock, country-rock and alternative rock in one of my duos, and rock, pop and soul in the other. It's all covers, because ultimately that's what most people wanna hear in a bar or at a wedding/party etc, but I make a point of only playing well known covers that I genuinely like. That's like a major rule for me. So, you'll never hear me cover the likes Ed Sheran or George Ezra or bash out "Wonderwall", no matter how popular they might be. The trick is to find covers that are rewarding for me to play, but that also really connect with an audience, and I'm pretty successful at doing that.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 1, 2020 17:38:09 GMT -5
Good luck. I hope that the home-working roles work out if they become a necessity for you, but hopefully as time passes, gigs will become regular for you. What kind of music do you sing? I sing American rock, country-rock and alternative rock in one of my duos, and rock, pop and soul in the other. It's all covers, because ultimately that's what most people wanna hear in a bar or at a wedding/party etc, but I make a point of only playing well known covers that I genuinely like. That's like a major rule for me. So, you'll never hear me cover the likes Ed Sheran or George Ezra or bash out "Wonderwall", no matter how popular they might be. The trick is to find covers that are rewarding for me to play, but that also really connect with an audience, and I'm pretty successful at doing that. I don't know if I've asked this before in years past but are there videos of you playing?
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,571
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Post by Confessor on Aug 1, 2020 19:48:31 GMT -5
I sing American rock, country-rock and alternative rock in one of my duos, and rock, pop and soul in the other. It's all covers, because ultimately that's what most people wanna hear in a bar or at a wedding/party etc, but I make a point of only playing well known covers that I genuinely like. That's like a major rule for me. So, you'll never hear me cover the likes Ed Sheran or George Ezra or bash out "Wonderwall", no matter how popular they might be. The trick is to find covers that are rewarding for me to play, but that also really connect with an audience, and I'm pretty successful at doing that. I don't know if I've asked this before in years past but are there videos of you playing? Nothing pro-shot, I'm afraid. Just mobile phone videos that people in the audience have shot in various pubs. Here's the duo I'm playing with tomorrow doing Fleetwood Mac/Santana's "Black Magic Woman"... And here's us covering the Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black"... Although we do mostly play American music, we also play some stuff by British bands too, as you can see, but only those bands which sound kind of American, like the Stones of Fleetwood Mac. Most of our repertoire is by U.S. bands or songwriters though, honest!
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 1, 2020 22:16:46 GMT -5
In another era maybe you'd be an in demand studio session player Confessor!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 2, 2020 9:36:02 GMT -5
Good luck. I hope that the home-working roles work out if they become a necessity for you, but hopefully as time passes, gigs will become regular for you. What kind of music do you sing? I sing American rock, country-rock and alternative rock in one of my duos, and rock, pop and soul in the other. It's all covers, because ultimately that's what most people wanna hear in a bar or at a wedding/party etc, but I make a point of only playing well known covers that I genuinely like. That's like a major rule for me. So, you'll never hear me cover the likes Ed Sheran or George Ezra or bash out "Wonderwall", no matter how popular they might be. The trick is to find covers that are rewarding for me to play, but that also really connect with an audience, and I'm pretty successful at doing that. My best friend has had a series of bands over the last twenty-some years (he's a banker by day). He's a pretty talented guitarist, a decent singer and an okay, if uninspired, song-writer. Usually he'd do a mix of roughly 60/40 covers to originals. Which was fine. I generally love live music, but I'm the rare individual who would prefer less covers and if I have to have covers I want them to have something new to say about the song (he used to do a fairly hard-edged version of Sweet Caroline that was excellent). My wife, on the other hand, wants to hear something she knows. I will say, that one of the few pluses to the Covid-19 situation is that I haven't had to see (or avoid seeing) his newest band play in quite a while. Because it is, quite frankly, absolute shit. And I don't say that because it's just a style of music I don't like. The songs are just objectively bad. I had to sit down and read his lyrics because I can't for the life of me understand a damn thing they're singing. Loud noise. Luckily we're like brothers and I can gently tell him that it's not my cuppa without excessively offending him. But back when he played a better vein of original music (that didn't make my ears bleed) he used to get a lot of this type of thing.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2020 11:27:41 GMT -5
It's funny that this topic is here as I've been looking for a band to entertain at my wife's 55 birthday party in September. I'm looking for a cover band that does Air Supply, Queen and KC and the Sunshine band.
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Post by impulse on Aug 4, 2020 15:23:41 GMT -5
Well, I just got some good news at work. One of my less enjoyable responsibilities is being moved elsewhere, and I am picking up some business to offset that should be both more lucrative as well as less stressful. It's not final yet, but even the promise of being rid of that aspect is a huge pick me up in a time where I am happy for all the good news I can get.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2020 13:43:48 GMT -5
Best wishes and good thoughts to comic retailer (an author of Tilting at Windmills) Brian Hibbs who is recovering from a near-fatal heart attack a few days ago.
-M
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Post by The Captain on Aug 7, 2020 15:44:09 GMT -5
Wife and daughters went out of town this weekend to Ohio to visit her brother and his family. The "big event" for the weekend is the birthday party for our niece's 3-year old son, and since I get limited vacation days from work, I didn't feel it was a prudent move to burn two of them for something that I really have little interest in attending.
My plans for my bachelor weekend are pretty minimal. Doing some genealogy research this afternoon, then going to have some leftover BBQ ribs and potato salad for dinner tonight, followed by watching Blazing Saddles (and possibly another movie if I can stay up that late). Tomorrow, probably some comic book reorganization in the morning, then going to hang out with my sister and mom in the afternoon (my mom needs a couch for her new apartment), and finish the day getting sushi with my sister for dinner and watching Inglourious Basterds (which she has never seen). Sunday, I am going to do the weekly grocery shopping early in the morning, do some more genealogy research before lunch, then do a back-to-back of Infinity War and Endgame, with leftover baked chicken legs and grilled zucchini for dinner.
Not that I won't miss them, but it's been almost a year since I had a weekend to myself (they all went on a church youth retreat last October), and I'm looking forward to just having a little "me" time to do some things I want to do without feeling like I'm ignoring them so that I can do them.
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Post by impulse on Aug 7, 2020 15:52:36 GMT -5
Wife and daughters went out of town this weekend to Ohio to visit her brother and his family. The "big event" for the weekend is the birthday party for our niece's 3-year old son, and since I get limited vacation days from work, I didn't feel it was a prudent move to burn two of them for something that I really have little interest in attending. My plans for my bachelor weekend are pretty minimal. Doing some genealogy research this afternoon, then going to have some leftover BBQ ribs and potato salad for dinner tonight, followed by watching Blazing Saddles (and possibly another movie if I can stay up that late). Tomorrow, probably some comic book reorganization in the morning, then going to hang out with my sister and mom in the afternoon (my mom needs a couch for her new apartment), and finish the day getting sushi with my sister for dinner and watching Inglourious Basterds (which she has never seen). Sunday, I am going to do the weekly grocery shopping early in the morning, do some more genealogy research before lunch, then do a back-to-back of Infinity War and Endgame, with leftover baked chicken legs and grilled zucchini for dinner. Not that I won't miss them, but it's been almost a year since I had a weekend to myself (they all went on a church youth retreat last October), and I'm looking forward to just having a little "me" time to do some things I want to do without feeling like I'm ignoring them so that I can do them. 100% understand this. I adore my family and love spending time with them. Having the house to myself is an exceedingly rare treat. It also sounds like you have a much more organized and deliberate strategy than I would do. I would probably order unhealthy delivery, binge eat, and play video games until I hate myself. Yours is much better. And no pants at all. If only underwear had a pocket for my cell phone...
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Post by The Captain on Aug 7, 2020 15:58:38 GMT -5
Wife and daughters went out of town this weekend to Ohio to visit her brother and his family. The "big event" for the weekend is the birthday party for our niece's 3-year old son, and since I get limited vacation days from work, I didn't feel it was a prudent move to burn two of them for something that I really have little interest in attending. My plans for my bachelor weekend are pretty minimal. Doing some genealogy research this afternoon, then going to have some leftover BBQ ribs and potato salad for dinner tonight, followed by watching Blazing Saddles (and possibly another movie if I can stay up that late). Tomorrow, probably some comic book reorganization in the morning, then going to hang out with my sister and mom in the afternoon (my mom needs a couch for her new apartment), and finish the day getting sushi with my sister for dinner and watching Inglourious Basterds (which she has never seen). Sunday, I am going to do the weekly grocery shopping early in the morning, do some more genealogy research before lunch, then do a back-to-back of Infinity War and Endgame, with leftover baked chicken legs and grilled zucchini for dinner. Not that I won't miss them, but it's been almost a year since I had a weekend to myself (they all went on a church youth retreat last October), and I'm looking forward to just having a little "me" time to do some things I want to do without feeling like I'm ignoring them so that I can do them. 100% understand this. I adore my family and love spending time with them. Having the house to myself is an exceedingly rare treat. It also sounds like you have a much more organized and deliberate strategy than I would do. I would probably order unhealthy delivery, binge eat, and play video games until I hate myself. Yours is much better. And no pants at all. If only underwear had a pocket for my cell phone...I told my wife that tonight after work was going to be POF, and she knew exactly that I meant "Pants-Optional Friday". After I get back from the store on Sunday, it will likely be more of that, as the temps are expected to reach 90 here. AC+floor fans+no pants = happy Captain.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 8, 2020 11:44:52 GMT -5
Mail delivery times within Canada seem back to normal, within my home province maybe even faster than usual as they have hired extra people because the volumes have been up, also I've gotten a couple things from a sub-contractor delivery company I'd never even heard of before which might be new. From mainland Europe I've found it to be pretty fast too... Germany and France in particular are around two weeks so maybe they have also been hiring? England is a little slower though where it used to be pretty fast. From the U.S. has gone from slow to record wait times slower though. I was getting used to about 30 days or so for something to reach me, but the last few have been about six weeks. I heard they have actually been cutting the USPS while volumes have increased? Perhaps on top of people getting sick? I'm going back to really hesitating to order from the U.S. and allowing as much as two months for the last couple of things, one book was Amazon U.S. so we'll see if that is any different. I don't know what happens to people who get their meds delivered by mail, glad I'm in a position where my pharmacy is a mere couple of blocks away and I'm automatically covered for substitutions/upgrades regardless of price. I normally see my family doctor and do blood tests in the fall, but as we've had a spell of 0 or at most 1 new cases of covid a day for awhile I wonder if I should go in a bit early in case things might get worse/busy again. Having alone time seems more a healthy and normal human thing; balanced, individuals. Wanting to be together all the time seems fine only for kids supposedly madly in love... I have no choice though with the border closed... it's like a military marriage where he is deployed overseas or something lately!
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