Death of the Band

Today I made the decision to dissolve the band which I had started. The band had been an attempt to recreate the marvelous experience that I had with a Sam's Cross in Portland, Oregon. The music would be the same, the instruments similar, but within the understanding that a band is a construction made from the material of the people within it. I had hoped to gather together weekly with some nice people, play some music, and make some friends. After several months, most probably on St. Patrick's Day we could play our first show, and I could have that wonderful moment of making people happy by doing something I love.

So, what happened? Essentially what happened is that those who answered my ads could not sustain their interest or availability. A group of four of us had begun to play regularly on a Wednesday evening, and had got to the point where we could play a dozen songs, and were just beginning to be able to play two or three of them at a level that I would be happy for others to hear. Just at this point there started to be reasons for people to miss a practice, in fact a complete line-up has only been available once in the last two months. Then our whistle player announced she would be leaving town for several months in January (then December) for a job. Yesterday the guitar player decided that he didn't have the time for the band anymore.

A month ago I had put out an ad for more musicians, an attempt to fill out the sound of the band. A guy had answered, but he plays the guitar. In fact, only one person who did not play guitar or bass answered any of the ads. It seems as though music in Houston is formulaic, drums, bass and guitar, rock or country instruments. The chances of finding someone willing to learn something else, or playing something else with interest in this music seems slim. An Irish folk band with a bass and two guitars is not an Irish folk band.

The lack of knowledge of the music, the scarcity of musicians playing something not in the mainstream, the sheer distances that people have to drive in order to meet means the pickings are slim, and the rate at which people quit is high. Even in Portland I believe the band went through nearly twenty musicians before a steady group was formed. When faced with the choice of going through a series of people joining and quitting, playing the same songs with people learning them for the first time, for another year I decided that I simply wasn't adequately interested to do it.

Things might have been different if I had been making friends, but no great connection had been made. There hadn't been much discussion about anything other than the next song.

This doesn't mean that I am quitting music, I shall instead be concentrating on furthering my ability with the mandolin, pushing on through my book of Irish mandolin tunes, I'm about half way through. The plan is to be able to play all these tunes from memory, and then to take some lessons on theory and improvisation. Through this plan, at some point in the next two or three years I would hope to be someone who can walk into a pub and play a few tunes with irish folk musicians without embarrassment.

Perhaps next year I will try again with a band, but the way I feel at the moment I am emphasizing the temporary nature of my time in Texas. I have dreams and visions of living near a college town in the Carolinas sitting on a porch and playing wonderful folk music with good people.