Lame Jam Session

[Zac]

Saturday, I drove an up North to jam with some guys who play "technical black metal with orchestral elements" as they had posted on their forum. I arrive & everyone is very cool at first. Now before I go any further I brought both of my Cort's (4 string fretless & my 6) which for some reason did not sit too well with these black metalers. Also,I was sent preview tracks that I later found out were not the actual band.

As soon as I start tuning up I get this from the drummer.
"That's alot of strings, this isn't Dream Theater"

He then tells me 6 strings dont have a place in black metal.
What a moron....ever hear of Tyr from Borknagar?
I told him not to worry, because I do in fact have the same strings as a 4 or 5 string!

I ignored it & took it as an ice breaker since the guy laughed.
They tell me the first song is in Eb, so I tune down. We start playing, and guess what... Iam out of tune. Are you in Eb? guitarist asked

I told him yes, and hit a few open strings to let him know.
"Thats not Eb" he tells me. After that we argued about tunings.
These guys were in D the whole time, not too mention one of the were sharp.

I then try to help by getting everyone in tune, and al of the sudden I have an attitude & ego (aka they don't know shit) At this I point Iam starting to get angry. After riding through the first song, I wanted to just sit back & listen to them & try to get some kind of lead sheet for myself. Listening to these guys was weird, because they were tight....but sounded horrible.
I don't know what the hell the keyboard player was doing.

I know the answer was no, but I asked anyway.
"Do you guys have any written music for the songs" I asked

"Only tab, but thats probaly not good enough for you"

I left after that remark, and one of the guys told me to go listen to Rush.
Whatever the fuck that means. what that supposed to be an insult?

These guys were too metal for me apparently.

 

[drewski]

Wow they sure don't seem like very friendly/professional guys. I wouldn't work with people like that if I could help it. Whether they're good musicians or not, crappy personalities ruin things for me. The important thing is that you didn't act dumb with them. I always try to be nice regardless of how the other musicians are treating me. Anyway I hope you have better luck in the future.

Drewski

 

[Zac]

I think they were a little insecure with themselves.
I was merely trying to help them out, and apparently they took my musicality as egotistical & rude....which it totally was not.

 

[metalgtr84]

Haha, that shit happened to me one time. My old band used to jam at this really cool studio and the guy that owned it was a real nice guy. He calls me one day and says "I got this guy down here that's written some songs, kind of like rock 'n roll type stuff and I thought you'd be really good." So I figure, hey what the hell, I'm always down for hanging out and jamming with new people. The studio owner happened to also get ahold of a bass player and a drummer, so I'm thinking "Hey, right on we're going to jam some rock 'n roll!" and they were already set up by the time I got there.

So we're waiting for this guy to show up and he shows up with an old piece of shit epiphone sg and a crate amp (I HATE crate amps, but that's beside the point) and started playing the worst guitar I've ever heard. He said he was playing for 5 years but I had to show him how to play a B major bar chord. I thought it couldn't get any worse until he showed me his lyrics, good lord I wanted to laugh at him and slap him in the face with my guitar, but I held fast...my gift of patience sometimes does me no good. (I seem to remember one of his songs being about cyborg monkeys traveling from the future.) And on top of that, he was one of those guys that loved to talk and talk without really having a point. Needless to say it was a big waste of time and I feel retarded for having gone down there. I found out later that he had done some contruction work for the studio and the studio owner had "repaid" him by allowing studio time and by calling some other musicians in to "help" this guy out...but shit I don't even think the almighty Broderick could've helped this jabroni out.

 

[Chris_Broderick]

Man Both of those stories suck!!!
I agree with Drewski, even if they were good musicians I wouldn't work with them. Probably the biggest thing that will get you studio work in this buisness is that you are easy to work with and professional, I doubt the people from either of those two situations will get studio work Ahahaha.
Chris.

 

[Cecchini]

Heres my story! Sweeeeeeeet.

Now, me and my 3 best friends have been a lovely little power metal band for awhile now (3 Headed Monster... shameless plug ), we're the type of guys who write power metal stuff and name the songs after wrestling related things, Godzilla related things... whatever....

So anyway...

So 3 Headed Monster keeps pretty busy during the summer months, but during the school year we kinda slow down a little bit spreading out our shows and practicing every other week instead of every week unless its a large show coming... So I tend to constantly yearn to have a second band to have some fun with and play some gigs with to fill in the gap. So one day, I was introduced to this kid who plays drums and was looking for some people to jam with... So I said hey, lets do some bluesy/doomy riff metal type stuff.

All seems well thus far.

So we start jamming and I bust out a couple of riffs I have and we jam on them and then he starts saying how the riffs are "to metal" for him and he suggests this wicked wicked original guitar part... (get ready, you might want to steal this)

open string chug chug chug... chug chug chug... chug chug chug... artificial harmonic on E

whoaaaaaaa nelly. I tell him that thats wicked generic and he says "well, you just don't like 'energy' bands like Nonpoint, you like that Children of Bodom/Iced Earth shit."

Now that was aggravating because even though I can't stand the bands he listens to I still didn't come out and bash them because, well... thats not my style. lol So we kinda laugh it off and we continue minus the chug part.

But then!

"You know what this song needs? Go open open hammer on 3 pull open... It'll be one of those 'bounce with me type riffs!'"

Now me's cant stands no more. I was just like dude noooooooooooooooooooo fuckin way. Then a few days or so went by and he tells me I'm to "metal" to jam with him and that the stuff I listen to will never be "popular or appealing" or some shit like that... Then I went off on him about how much nu metal sucks and how ignorant it is to dismiss an entire underground metal scene... We're still buddies, we'll just never talk music together. lol

So the moral of this story, start bands with your friends... and play power metal... because power metal is awesome.

Ohh as for my nu metal buddy, he started a band finally... and guess what their name is.... Disasta.... how fuckin awesome of a name is that?!?!?!?


*crickets*

 

[Lopes]

Disasta? Funniest/lamest band name "eva."

 

[Chris_Broderick]

I love this post, it's like band try out disaster stories!!!
Chris.

 

[Stardust2112]

I left after that remark, and one of the guys told me to go listen to Rush.
Whatever the fuck that means. what that supposed to be an insult?

Sounds like good advice to me.

~Christina

 

[Zac]

Sounds like good advice to me.

~Christina

I love Rush! Geddy is one of my favorite bassists, even if he sounds a little gnomish at times,(I know you'll kill me for saying that) his voice is unique at suits the music. I use YYZ as a warmup before I play, it's a great song & great exercise for both hands.

 

[metalgtr84]

Damn Checchini you're pretty good, you sound like Chris in those recordings.

 

[Stardust2112]

I love Rush! Geddy is one of my favorite bassists, even if he sounds a little gnomish at times,(I know you'll kill me for saying that) his voice is unique at suits the music. I use YYZ as a warmup before I play, it's a great song & great exercise for both hands.

Maybe Geddy is part of The East Coast Gnome Movement... Be afraid...

~Christina
P.S. This doesn't mean you're off the hook for saying Ged sounds like a gnome.

 

[Cecchini]

Damn Checchini you're pretty good, you sound like Chris in those recordings.

Hahah that is actually the other guitar player in half of those solos... we do alot of dual solo sections though and we use the same gear so its tough to tell where one of us ends and the other begins to some degree I suppose. lol

But either way, thanks alot dude for checking us out and enjoying.

 

[StevieHimself]

Yeah I've auditioned for some god-awful bands that couldn't find their assholes with two hands HAHA! Thank God I got wise and formed my own band; I found two great musicians and we play what we like and that's that. Took me 17 years to find the right people but damn I finally nailed it!!