Never have. Did a sit in once and played Mustang Sally. Completely cured me of doing sit ins.

See, why not 'Moondance'? Now, that's a great song.

We do Moondance, great keys song. I am a personal fan of the Van.

I like moondance as well. great bass lines.

For original projects, I'm much more picky about the songs. I only work with people whose music moves me one way or another. Cover tunes however - I'll play pretty much anything and do my best to make it work, whether I'm being asked to play it faithfully or reinterpret. That said, I typically get called because someone wants me to take the songs somewhere different.

There is a reason that many of these tunes are hits - they are well crafted songs and they speak to people. At Saturday's gig I played Brown Eyed Girl (it's got a built-in bass solo - bonus) and the dance floor was packed. That makes the 1am tear down worth it.

Music isn't soleley about what makes me happy - that's masturbation. If I can connect with the other musicians and/or the audience - that's music. Too many guys spend their time listening to themselves play and judge a gig on how *they* did rather than how the band and the audience did. Gawd knows I did that for decades. Victor tells a story at camp about doing a session with the Memphis Horns early in his career. He thought he killed it, and afterwards outside the studio Wayne Jackson pulled him aside and said, "you know Victor, one ear is for you, the other is for the band."

I try not to play a single note without keeping that in mind. Took me a long time to realize these things and a lot of hard work as well. I get it if someone just wants to play and have fun - that's totally cool. But there is a difference between playing and making music.

Yup.
Last night I bought a digital 8 track portastudio for $100. Damn nice equipment. Now I can share my ****ty original songs with my close family and others I wish to torture without hitting a studio or them coming to see me.

Isn't that called "playing for the song"? Tonight we did Hold Your Hand at practice. We ran through it a couple of weeks ago and I was only "meh" about it. Then all that 50th anniversary of the Beatles invasion hoopla was on. So for my bassists sake, I went home and ran through it a couple of times. Tonight's version came out pretty good so I'm pleased I could do this for the rest of the band. It's certainly not my favorite song to listen to, but it's fun to play and sing. Having a well executed song makes up for all the over drumming and forgotten lyrics in the other stuff we work on.

You could spend a lifetime learning the subtleties of Beatle's tunes.

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And a lot of times seemingly simple pop tunes have sublime musicianship within them. For instance many of the early 70's AM radio pop tunes had amazing arrangements ("Brandy" by Looking Glass comes to mind). And I sat down to learn the Fagan tune IGY for an upcoming Steely Jam gig. Seems simple, then I dug into it and went, "whoa...this is sick" Then I found out who recorded the track:

Bass Musician Magazine Interviews Gerald Veasley | Bass Musician Magazine

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So true. The British Invasion band I saw the other night had it, though. They had every harmony down, every subtle guitar bend and even had an acoustic guitar play the albums' keyboard parts. It was just amazing and made me feel like such an amateur.

Update: I pretty much spent yesterday focusing on the set list, viewing YouTube videos of the songs that I was less familiar with and at the same time lurking in here every now and then to see how the discussion was progressing and to see what everyone's input was. First off, I would like to thank all you guys for taking the time to pass on your experiences, opinions and words of wisdom to me. It really does mean a lot to me. After soaking everything in and doing some soul searching, I decided to contact the band and thank them for the opportunity to try out, but that I didn't really think that I would be a good fit for them. They responded back cordially.

I think that if I was trying out as a guitar player that I would of probably went ahead and tried out (Following Todd's advice as well as others). Being that it was for lead singer, I opted to go with Dave's advice and chose not to try out because I would have been miserable and it would of eventually been a waste of time. I was almost reluctant to do so because I have been trying so hard to get something going for the last year to no avail. I have posted ads on Craigslist, talked to a lot of people locally, gave out my number etc... I have made one good friend who is also a guitar player and we have gotten together a couple of times and basically we would just improvise, I would lay down rhythm and he would lay down a lead over it and vice versa. I think what he and I do sounds unique and somewhat good, but he has health issues that he needs to address so anything with him is sort of in limbo. On a positive note, I went to the local salvage yard yesterday and found a Chauvet Hurricane 1700 and brought it home I guess for now, I will just smog out the house and crank the Marshall to 11!

You play to the crowd.
Bars hire bands. You sell drinks, band gets rebooked.
Dance music attracts women. Women attract men. Men buy drinks for dancing women and themselves. Bar's bottom line goes up. Band gets more, and better gigs.
Yeah, it sux, but that's the way it is...
Carter (aka a guy who hangs around with musicians)

I agree, I think if it would have been a little more structured like a British Invasion type band or Classic Rock band I would have been more willing to do it. I guess the way that I am computing it in my mind is if I were going to be their guitar player, I would consider myself more of a session type player at the time and that would have been okay. I am very picky about what music I listen to on a daily basis and the vibe I get off of it. I think that translates into my willingness to sing certain songs and not others. I want to feel the feeling I get when I am listening to a song when I sing a song. If I don't get that feeling, I know that I can't fake it...

As a guitar player, I did not enjoy playing songs I hate by bands I hate. I've done it as a favor for bands that needed me to fill in. Never again. Don't compromise. Come up with a plan and stick to it.

Considering the amount of work and stress it takes to pull it off, why bother if its not what you want to be doing....

That's how it works, sure enough.

But I'd still rather stay home.

Its hard not be constantly awed by Steely Dan. And 'Brandy' what a great song that is.

WOW. And that's probably AFTER the pizza. It is more impressive than the Toto version.

G

What about wild night?
There's some serious base work in that song, he's all over the place.

Great song..

The original, or the cover by John Mellencamp? If the latter, "he" is a "she" (and she's bad***)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aoywIHLqbs

I agree but you obviously have a higher tolerance than me. I can play just about anything and I'm usually the best listener in the band. It's the conversation between instruments that I enjoy most.

Even though I don't like playing something doesn't mean I won't.

But, The poster was talkin about the type of set list I really hate to play and listen to when I'm out, the beatles to Judas Priest and everything in between type.

When I hear a band say "we play a little of everything" I run away.

I simply don't enjoy this approach and unfortunately these types of bands are everywhere on Craigslist and in the sports bars these days

I'm not a fan of trying to please everyone at once, as a listener and as a player

I like sticking to a particular style within the context of the band.

I guess it's fair to say I could never play in a wedding band

We play that one and the bass is great! The original has the same lines. I like Van Morrison. I would never think to mix open and barre chords in the same progression. Then Gloria does the same thing for the solo. We do Caravan since the drummer picked it...I ended up singing that one.