Musician Cliques

You definitely see it on facebook musician classifieds and the like
You have ageism
You have girls advertising that only want female band members, or LGBTQ groups only wanting trans/gay etc
And you can not prove this, but people from racial minorities are sidelined a bit
I don't waste energy on that ugly scene

As a working musician it only matters that you have the skillset AFAIK
Most of the best musicians I have worked with are misfits (like myself)
I don't really care if someone I work with thinks I'm a nerd or strange etc, I kinda like it lol
 
Depends how you define "clique".

I have a circle of musician buddies from past and current bands. If that's a clique; then yeah... I'm part of it!
 
Steve30907 said:
Musician Cliques does every town have them? Are you a part of one or do you stay pretty independent? Instead of jacking other threads I figured let's discuss the subject in it's own thread.
Click to expand...


There's certainly cliques and competing bands, and egos, etc. Can't help it.

There was a point where we worried about it - but we've found success focusing on making music, working with arts organizations and developing projects, etc. and we're so busy these days that the "cliques" we're working with are on a much different level than the local bands.

(And it drives them nuts, which is kind of fun haha)
 
around here, it seems like the cliquiest group is the blues guys...NO ONE is allowed in to that club

the metal scene had it's moments - especially back in the 90's - and the styles that were always more about image - glam/emo/ etc - were always worse than the bands who just got on stage and played...there was also a LOT of chest banging between guitarists and drummers

the punk scene was almost as bad as the blues scene...there was lots of "you are not punk enough"...

and honestly, the cover band scene was/ can be very catty! There seems to be tons of fake admiration in that scene sometimes

I hang in all the scenes except the hip hop/urban stuff, and the blues so I feel comfortable enough to cross over. it is just interesting to me to see all of the little tiffs and games being played
 
I've seen it around here, in some respects...either I'm naive, or I dont find it to be terribly malicious, in our case. One of the things that I noticed when I got back into the local music scene after a long hiatus was how little real back stabbing there was around here, and how supportive most folks were of each other.

That having been said, do people talk, sure. Pretty sure you'll find this sort of stuff happens in any large group of people, anywhere. Human nature, I suppose. Still, I think our local music community is pretty close.

I'm probably naive. 😉
 
Oh my gosh, yes. It's very clique-ish here. I live in bluegrass country, so just about every "band" here has an upright bass and a mandolin as the rhythm section. Also, there's a group of about 10 local "pickers" that make up about a half dozen bands in the area. The youngest ones are in their mid 50's. What's really sad is that we have a "[County name] County Music Hall of Fame," and every year they nominate usually a famous person who doesn't care, a dead local musician, and then one of themselves to be a part of it. It's terribly self-serving and a joke. With that said, these folks get all of the same local gigs. While a few of them are very talented, as a whole they aren't as good as they think they are.

There are other bands here outside of bluegrass, but every band plays a different genre. We have a few of Southern rock bands, a Christian band or two still lingering around, and our country band. I'm sure there are other bands that I don't know about, but as far as ones that play out, this is about it. We have all but quit playing locally because we don't want to be "that band" that just does local gigs. We don't want to be in the same circuit as anyone else if we know locally if can help it. Plus, there aren't any really good gigs to play locally anyways. Been there, done that. Time to move up and move out, which is what we are doing.
 
Steve30907 said:
Musician Cliques does every town have them? Are you a part of one or do you stay pretty independent?
Click to expand...
As a Hired Gun, I see this a lot in bands I sub for. I don't try to break into it as that's not my place. Occasionally they'll let me hang & that's when my phone really blows up for callbacks.
It's all in how you carry yourself. I've seen fellow musician buddies try to get into a clique, get rejected & then lambast the band on socials because "They were dicks".

All bands have them to an extent otherwise they won't be "bands".
 
Have you guys ever met one of those musicians from the click track clique? Fanatics I tell ya.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top