Trials and Tribulations

Hmmmm...

A personal post once again...I know I don't do many of these but then I only really feel the need to vent when I'm upset or something is bothering me....I'm not a depressed person by nature (ok I am sometimes but I try not to let it overtake me)

What's killing me right now is managing this band, I have never had to do anything so challenging ever...why so ??? not because I cant make the music (I do have writers block from time to time but you learn to deal with it), no, its because of the members...

Now I don't know how normal bands run and tbh I have tried to throw bands together many times with no success...peeps just don't seem to be interested, sure they want to play in the band and sure they are passionate about music but you have to deal with their emotional states and lack of enthusiasm...

Currently I have 4 members, myself that, if not writing music then setting up the actual set, buying gear to make sure that the gigs work and just making sure that everything's works well in general, a vocalist who is now finally realising that there is a helluva lot of competition out there and has lost faith in what we do, a bassist who has decided that he will only need to rehearse when he wants to and a new keyboardist who is still trying to find her feet in the band...I have to somehow, once a week, get all these members to meet at my house (alot harder thing to do than you can imagine), motivate them all and try and get the whole thing to move forward...

Its not as easy as it sounds....the keyboardist plays in a number of other bands and gets gigs here and there and sometimes they fall on rehearsal nights....count her out...the bassist and the vocalist come together so at least its guaranteed but I have bigger problems....the bassist is allergic to cats, so unless the flat has just been cleaned the poor guy suffers (luckily, cleaning day falls on a Wednesday, the same day we rehearse)....add to that, the many system crashes we have on the studio machine and we are looking at alot of downtime sometimes...which leads to total boredom with the parties not involved in the recording...

I know what it takes to be in a session, ive been doing it for years so it doesn't bother me...these guys don't tho and it takes some getting used to...problem is, is that I'm starting to lose faith in what I'm doing...and asking myself the question, wtf is the point anyway ???

We have a gig coming up on the 24th of Feb, 3 new tracks and an entirely new set to rehearse and we still need to finish one of those tracks...so what that means is that we seriously need to start bumping up rehearsal time...a month may seem like a lot but it goes very quickly and with bands there is no guarantee that next week there will definitely be another rehearsal...

I phoned all of them yesterday to make them aware of my intentions of stepping up the rehearsals...the bassist is not playing on the gig night since he is in Durban so he doesn't see the reason in rehearsing ??? great....the keyboardist didn't get back to me....hmmmmm...brilliant and the vocalist...well at least she said she would come thru but if she is in any mood like she was last time we should have a delightful time...

Fuck and now I have to be the motivated one....get all these guys to be enthusiastic about the upcoming gig...mainly cos we need to rehearsal time if we want to do a great performance...

I question my ability as a manager in this regard....what am I doing wrong for this not to work...why are these ppl not as enthusiastic as I am....and wtf is the point of spending an absolute fortune on gear when nobody even really appreciates it ???

I'm down I'll be honest...I haven't slept a good nights rest for 5 days now, my back is killing me, im sore all over and the band keeps entering my dreams in the most bizarre ways...

Is this all worth it at the end of the day ??? I'm not doing this for glory as I've never really cared for that, my only reason is because I love making music...why should I have to force other ppl to want to feel the same ????