u/YogSoHot

Success in any business endeavor requires three things: a good plan, lots of hard work, and good luck. Planning to network as a high priority is part of the "good plan".

It's best to avoid wallowing in schadenfreude. But a little bit is okay.

Any situation where you're asked to personally sell tickets: avoid. Pay to play is a dead end.

Yeah: Friends and family are generally good for one show--either the debut or the album release party. They also don't tend to drink heavily, if at all.

My experience, as someone with degree and a professional job, is that people who went to college and want to pursue a music career "strategically and gradually" don't work out--they're too tied to their day jobs and straight life. You need people who only have a job so they can fund their music. People who don't blink at rehearsing twice a week, every week. Nice folks with degrees and good jobs stay in that lane.

I use an Ampeg MicroSVT 2x10 in that scenario.

It sounds like you're playing with inexperienced amateurs.

I wouldn't get involved with anyone who didn't have representative recordings of their past work and, oh, fifty gigs under the belt. Minimum. People that don't fit those two criteria aren't "the right ones".

That's the "work friends" phenomena. Once you're no longer working with them, the need and desire to keep up drops off drastically. It's (probably) nothing personal.

Two years working on an EP? When it's 90 percent done, it's done. Get there and move on.

Every thirty minutes, take a five minute break.

It's as if they believe that their inner creativity was somehow unlocked by having a computer do all the heavy lifting and want to take full credit for it. There's always going to be people who take the path of least resistance--avoid them.

The worst part is that the target demographic here LOVE IT. 

Logos are for corporations and kids. If you're in a cover band, you're essentially working within a corporation. Learn to embrace the ick.

This is all true.

I have been unable to correctly build the planetarium set, despite, tearing it down twice, I get to the exact same wrong configuration, and looking at it, I'm unable to see how it could be made right.

Having different guitars is like having different suits--they all do basically the same thing, you just feel and look different when doing it. Even having "just" a second telecaster will provide that "this is novel" feeling.

That said, I'd recommend a 335-style if you just have one telecaster.

It is selfish, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that. However, your bandmates might pick up on your feelings regarding band work and resent it. Or, fire you.

Plenty of ways these days to make music without others.

Steely Dan was a songwriting duo: Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. Fagen once explained their work dynamic: "I can't finish a tune and Walter can't start one."

Consider a collaborator.

"Luck is created by showing the fuck up."

So much of success is definitely showing up on time and prepared.

Over the decades I've been playing, I've read many, many musician interviews and memoirs, and one thing they pretty much all had in common was the advice: "Take Every Gig Because You Never Know Who's In The Audience".

As long as they show up prepared when scheduled, I don't care. That's all the motivation I require of a band mate. Anything more can just be a bonus.

"Can only do" trumps "prefers".

Singer got pregnant.

Depends on definition of "musician" and "make it". For most folks "making it" means "making a living". On the other hand, most people who play music, i.e. musicians, aren't trying to make a living, they're just doing something they enjoy and maybe making some money along the way.

Everybody wants to be a gangster until it's time to start doing gangster shit.

There are three things required for success in the music business: talent, a good plan (which involves a shit-ton of work), and good luck.

Because I don't like sitting around watching a drummer set up and tear down their drums when I could be playing music.