my guitarist is getting on my nerves (pointless moan)

mrbling

Silver Member
im really starting to get annoyed his obbsession with jack white is going to far. first he buys all his stuff makes us do jw covers and now demands i sell my sabians and buy paiste 2002 guess why because he uses them he recons they sound so perfect! arrg it so annoying what can i do to quit with all this! i refuse to sell my SABIANS!!!!

rant over
 
Wow. It's one thing to be consumed by an artist, quite another to suck others into that alternate reality.
How did you answer THAT one?
 
word of advice...don't sell your cymbals because of your guitarist.

if he insists tell him to sell his Kay Hollowbody for a fender strat.

See how that flies.
 
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well we are quite good freinds and have known each other about 7 years so i didnt want to change that i just said oh well go to wembley drum centre and ill see but im just going to outright ignore them well unless i do really like m but ill probably just be stubborn and not give them a thought.

well he dosent have all his stuff he has no good guitars :S just good pedals and a fender amp :p just squier strats and he does actually consult me on what he buys. and i wont sell my cymbal yet he is really annoying about my raw bell dry ride.
 
lol ok im just going to convince him to buy everything john fruciante uses
 
That's weird, bling, because Meg's cymbals aren't trashy either. Her drum/cymbal sounds are always classy. I read on another thread that:

The cymbals she uses are Paiste, 14'' Signature Medium high hat, 19" Signature Power Crash and 22" 2002 Ride

So she's not turning her back on Paiste classiness either. I bought a Paiste 2002 crash the other day. I went through every crash in the shop and was originally planning to buy a Zildjian with character. But when I lined up the two cymbals that sounded best to my ear - a Zildjian Custom A and a Paiste 2002 on the practice kit it was no contest. I think of Paistes as being like Afghan Hounds - beautiful but not a lot of personality. But I still like them :)

I've met the type of guitarist that drive drummers crazy but I've been lucky enough to play with very laid back personalities with a quiet passion for music and who have always been team players. Maybe the overbearing types don't gravitate to bands with women in them? Just guessing ...

Whatever, it sounds like a phase your guitarist is going through. If he's a friend you might need to smile and nod, do what you do, and wait for him to get obsessed with someone else.
 
My guitarist is just a big headed, arrogant, judgmental, ignorant douchebag! He is a terrible terrible guitar player, yet refuses to take advice from me (even though i was already a grade 8 guitarist six years ago. litterally, before he had ever touched a guitar.)

Also, every time i mention twin bass drums, or a big drum kit, he's down my throat, along with the bassist who just licks his ass, sayin it's just pretentious, there is no point in it and he 'won't allow it'!!

I mean it's near enough every drummer's dream at at least one point in their life to have a massive expensive drum kit. Why must he destroy my dreams??
 
im really starting to get annoyed his obbsession with jack white is going to far. first he buys all his stuff makes us do jw covers and now demands i sell my sabians and buy paiste 2002 guess why because he uses them he recons they sound so perfect! arrg it so annoying what can i do to quit with all this! i refuse to sell my SABIANS!!!!

rant over

Did he also suggest buying the same mics, pre-amps, cables, compressor, noise gate, EQ and mastering equipment that Jack uses? After all, those things have just as much to do with how his cymbals sound as the cymbals themselves. And what happens when Jack's good buddy who works for Paiste quits and goes to work for Meinl instead? Are you going to have to switch cymbals then (cuz I'll bet JW will)? And then again when Zildjian decides to throw a pile of cash and weekly sexual favors at him?

Use what you want. You're good friends so you should be able to tell him to take a flying -BLEEP- without ruining the relationship.
 
im really starting to get annoyed his obbsession with jack white is going to far. first he buys all his stuff makes us do jw covers and now demands i sell my sabians and buy paiste 2002 guess why because he uses them he recons they sound so perfect! arrg it so annoying what can i do to quit with all this! i refuse to sell my SABIANS!!!!

rant over

Tell him if we wants you to use Paiste 2002's so much, then HE can buy them for you, and that you'll gladly play them if he does!

I must be really lucky, because the guitarists in my bands are very cool, with no egos, and they don't tell me how to play, or what to play. We all vote on material, and we get along very well.
I wouldn't put up with any of the crap you other guys (and gals) put up with. I'd just be like: "I'm outta here".
 
I've met the type of guitarist that drive drummers crazy but I've been lucky enough to play with very laid back personalities with a quiet passion for music and who have always been team players. Maybe the overbearing types don't gravitate to bands with women in them? Just guessing ...

wish that were the case but my wife is lead vocalist....
he puts the bipolar in "bipolar barbie". Seriously i dont know what to do with this guy. Let me tell you a little story, this may be a bit long winded and i might be totally unreasonable but here goes

when it comes to my band, I take things seriously, maybe more than I should.

Since I started the band I've had a plan and the first thing on that plan is to be better than the average local cover band, put on a show and not just stare at the floor and play covers. I want people to walk away and say "wow, that was a great show" which mean interacting with the audience and actually entertain them.

Now I'm not saying an all out kiss or alice cooper type theatrical production but keep people involved.

So the rest of the plan was/is to play popular, danceable music from a variety of genres. Mainly rock but also some new country/rock, swing, reggae and punk. I'm talkin the mainstream stuff here, swing (brian setzer, stray cats, voodoo daddy) punk (ramones) you get the idea. Also the songs we play cater to womens tastes, stuff they like to dance too.

Things have been going along pretty well with that plan in mind, but we needed a guitarist after getting rid of the last guy who was an alcoholic, never learned the material and thought practice was a place to bring his friends and party.

So after about 10 auditions we found one . he's a good musician but he makes me crazy. He's our age (mid 30's) but totally hyper and ADD, the guy noodles nonstop. Well be having practice and you cant hold a conversation between songs cause he wont stop screwin around with the guitar.

Now, we already had a list of songs to work on and they may not be the most exciting songs but they are popular and thats why they're on the list.
when i first talked to this guitarist on the phone I thought "wow,finally, this is the guy we've been looking for" he said "oh yeh, I can sing and I'll play pretty much anything" But now things seem to have changed.

when I run down the song list, he says "but why do we have to play that song? why not another song by that group?" everything is like a battle with him now. When I mention another song say Beastie Boys - Fight for your right. He says "Whos gonna sing it, thats like mostly all rap and i'm not doin rap and proceeds to do his hip hop impression"

I gave him our song list before he ever tried out, it's not like I'm throwing out this big surprise. He mentions songs he thinks we should do, Blue Oyster Cult - Burnin for you, Dire Straits - Sultans of swing and honestly I dont like either of those tunes and they really dont fit with our "Party Band" atmosphere.

So when I have an idea or something for the band I send an email to the guys and I sent one with a band business plan which the bassist really liked and the guitarist didnt really say anything but part of that plan said that said "**** is the originator of the band and the band leader however, playlist, gig and rehearsal schedules will be a democratic process, each band member will have a vote and majority rules."

So shortly after that at practice he is talking about a band he went to try out for as a bassist (he's an excellent bassist) but he really just wanted to try and pull their keyboard player for our band (I also wasnt cool with him pulling that) anyway he had asked a question to one of the band members and they said they didnt know, he would have to ask the bandleader since he runs the show. Apparently he had a big issue with this guy being the "band leader" and how that was just stupid and why does this guy have the final say.

Needless to say I took that personally, the reason I am the band leader is that I started the band, I put all the work into song lists, websites, myspace, facebook etc..the band has my name all over it, I've worked very hard on it and as such I am very picky about how things are handled.

So I do really stress that we need to be entertaining and that means movin around on stage and showmanship. Last practice we were workin on a cover of a cover, Bowling for Soup does a cover of Brittney Spears "Hit me Baby"
and we were working on that, all of a sudden this dude goes into headbangin overdrive, jumpin up and down and freakin out and when the song was done he screams "YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BRITTNEY IS SOOOOOOOO METAL!!!!!!!"
so I'm just lookin at him like what was that all about and he says "hey you said we gotta move around more"

Here is the last email I sent before all of this went down:
//
Hey Guys,

So heres some stuff I wanted to go over and get your thoughts on.

First of all, I'd really like to go down our song list and put everything we have right now to a vote.

Now as far as the band goes, You know when you have this idea in your head and you know exactly how you want it to go and you can pretty much see it in your mind?

Thats how it's been with the band. My vision is to have us play and really focus on entertaining the crowd, I mean not only by playing but visually, lots of interaction with the crowd, getting them really involved in the shows. theres too many s****y cover bands who just stand there and play, sometimes you have one where the singer might move around a little but for the most part the majority or bands around here are like watching paint dry. I dont know about you but I dont want us to be one of those bands

I think thats something we also have to work at along with learning the songs.I want people to see us and say WOW! that band was awesome! we gotta see them again!"

heres a list of things that I think we also need to keep in mind when it comes to gigs.

- stage presence, we need to just own the stage, move around on stage, look like we're having fun. people LISTEN to songs but they come to SEE a show
- interaction, keep the crowd involved, have em sing along, have some kind of contests like best air guitarist, wheel of WTF? (a wheel they can spin and win something, free drink, free shirt, etc) . loudest table, best chick dancer...just anything to keep people involved.
- The songs need to be upbeat, popular, danceable, aimed at chicks, which probably means stuff you really dont want to play but I'm pretty sure in no time we'll be at the point where we have to turn down gigs.
- tossing out free stuff, people love free stuff no matter what it is. Tshirts, Glow sticks, glow necklaces, beads, stickers,etc.
- Dress, we need to figure out out what to wear for gigs not just t-shirts and jeans. I guess thats going to really depend on the gig.

///

I had to add this to my band business plan
"When discussing potential gigs with clients members should not quote a price until the gig has been discussed between all band members and everyone has come to an agreement. "

that had to be added because the guitarist said he was talking to some guy at work who was thinking about having us play at a party at his place and wanted to know how much we charge, the guitarist tells the guy we'll probably do it for free just for exposure....*facepalm*


Then the other week at practice we had a little situation. our bassist was asking questions to the guitarist and he couldnt hear the bassist so my wife steps up to the mic and starts repeating what the bassist is saying...she was doing it as a joke and the guitarist started bickering with her, in a joking manner.

the bassist,my wife and I were all laughing about it. So the guitarist says "well some bitch keeps talking and i cant hear you" still thinking he's kidding, my wife says "well this bitch has the mic so you're SOL". it was funny and the bassist and i were laughing. Well after practice we get a phone call from the guitarist apologizing for calling my wife a bitch. I was like WTF? he was serious when he said all that? my wife says "apparently he was"

So you tell me am I being overbearing and unreasonable?

before all of this I spoke to the bassist about maybe getting rid of the guitarist and his reaction was "I dont know what you're expecting, you really arent going to find any guitarist that wants to play that stuff, most only want to play rock and stuff with lots of guitar licks"

after I told the bassist that the guitarist was serious when he was saying all that stuff to my wife the bassist was pretty pissed and said "that is so out of line, he has no right to act like that and it pisses me off"

also, we now have a rhythm guitarist that we really like but how we ended up with him is that the lead guitarist had mentioned something about having another guitarist to fill in the gaps where the solos are. That was all fine, he also mentioned that he might know a guy but the guy is real hard to get ahold of. So thats the last we hear of it for a few weeks, suddenly one day the guitarist shows up with this new guy and suddenly he's in the band. it worked out because we all really like the new guitarist but the way it happened was not cool, at this point the lead guitarist had only been in the band a few weeks. I couldnt imagine being the new band member and just going out on my own and finding another band member without first really discussing it with the rest of the band
 
Ah, messy. Let's look at the positives first:

1) When he said "bitch" it obviously wasn't ugly enough for everyone to know he was serious, and

2) He apologised without being prompted.

He's obviously an impulsive personality. He might actually be ADD. I am and I wasn't diagnosed until after 40. It does mean doing and saying a lot of things that you later regret. Maybe try giving him lots of coffee? It may seem counter-intuitive but if he's ADD it will settle him down.

It does sound like, the way things stand, he's not an ideal fit for the band. "Musical differences" seems to be rearing its ugly head and it looks like he wants to stretch out a bit. Is there enough common ground for an acceptable compromise?

Guitar music that women like? How about something like Jimi Hendrix's Fire? One of my old bands covered that one and,while it's pretty old, it's a rage to play for both guitar and drums, and it pulls people onto the floor.

Maybe if he has just one or two songs to help him get his ya yas out he'll behave himself? But if he wants more rights without putting in the work, then that friction will remain. You do the work and you're obviously willing to let your band members express themselves to the point where it fits the band's brief.
 
Tell him if we wants you to use Paiste 2002's so much, then HE can buy them for you, and that you'll gladly play them if he does!

I must be really lucky, because the guitarists in my bands are very cool, with no egos, and they don't tell me how to play, or what to play. We all vote on material, and we get along very well.
I wouldn't put up with any of the crap you other guys (and gals) put up with. I'd just be like: "I'm outta here".


ha year i did do that he said no :p so thats up to him but i toned him down last night hes more onto my thinking of the A custom crashes :)

i dont want to quit my band its great fun hes a really good muscian we did do a cover of fire by hendrix he even did a teeth solo i laughed at him but thats just me we all vote on covers etc all contribute to songs ive only written one and that was c r a p but thats because i literraslly picked up a guitar looked at some chords and tried to put em together :p

i would read through FBs post but its far too long and ive just got up
 
Did he also suggest buying the same mics, pre-amps, cables, compressor, noise gate, EQ and mastering equipment that Jack uses? After all, those things have just as much to do with how his cymbals sound as the cymbals themselves. And what happens when Jack's good buddy who works for Paiste quits and goes to work for Meinl instead? Are you going to have to switch cymbals then (cuz I'll bet JW will)? And then again when Zildjian decides to throw a pile of cash and weekly sexual favors at him?

Use what you want. You're good friends so you should be able to tell him to take a flying -BLEEP- without ruining the relationship.

aah but jack white does not edit anything really in his stuff hes not thought of all that stuff but he brought the vocal mic he uses but ill keep the rest strickly shhhhhhhh.
 
Tell him if we wants you to use Paiste 2002's so much, then HE can buy them for you, and that you'll gladly play them if he does!

I must be really lucky, because the guitarists in my bands are very cool, with no egos, and they don't tell me how to play, or what to play. We all vote on material, and we get along very well.
I wouldn't put up with any of the crap you other guys (and gals) put up with. I'd just be like: "I'm outta here".

Now I'm really lucky. My guitarist is my son and if he doesn't listen to me I'll just kick the shit out of him!
 
Now I'm really lucky. My guitarist is my son and if he doesn't listen to me I'll just kick the shit out of him!

XD thats awesome did you think ahead :p
 
I'm lucky enough to play with two guitarists who are great and have a similar personality to me. One of them is ridiculous technically, writes loads of stuff and is so modest he tried to convince the rest of us that we wrote it, lol
 
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