Going Old School because Craigslist Sucks!

[spookstrickland]

My old drummer and I were talking the other day about how a few years ago you could score good gear, meet cool musicians and even get laid off craigslist.  Now because of the trolls and flaggers I see guys posting paragraph long disclaimers and please don't flag me kind of stuff on adds for bands and even shit for sale.  What the fuck is wrong with these assholes they have driven all the good musicians and a lot of good gear clear off craigslist.  Myspace sucks and facebook is a steaming pile of shit for trying to put bands together as well.

yest you can still find some good deals and what not but as a whole things have really gone down the fucking shitter.  Used to be when I put up and add looking for a drummer I would get 10 or 12 responses with 2 or 3 really good prospects now I get one or two and usually some idiots that have never played live before and or FNG's

I'm going to go Old school and start hanging up fliers at the local colleges, music stores and places like that.  Maybe some other jaded pissed off old fart will see it and want to jam.

[giantchris]

On an off note I've been playing bass now for 8 years and after years of trying to convince my friends (who do play) to do a band I finally decided to go try to play with strangers over craigslist this year.  What a complete and utter waste of my time that was.  Got some flakes, some we will be THE NEXT BIG THING people, and my favorite was a listed stoner/doom band that really was a generic thrash band.  Or the "progressive" band that wanted me to only play root notes the entire time (wtf?) which was incidentally a power trio ().  I also want to point out that having to setup my bass for every single audition got really annoying. 

After my craigslist experience I just decided to play more guitar and write everything myself.  I'll just play live shows with myself and whichever one of my friends I can nag to show up and have a laptop fill out the rest.  Don't really care its not like anybody is going to buy anything I write anyways I just enjoy playing and want to play out.

[ROWDYBEER]

I have been extremely lucky with craigslist. Although it took about a year to find a drummer that actually had a kit and could play it. I think a very specific post is the key and patience. But yeah craigslist brings the suck sometimes.

[VOLVO)))]

I've had nothing but bad luck with people off craigslist. NOBODY seemingly owns their own gear. I post an ad, saying that I'm looking for a bassist and a drummer, I have a steady jam space and I'm ready to play any type of metal (minus bullshit deathcore and bullshit metalcore.) I post influences like Dismember, Amputated, CBT, etc. I get about 15 emails from guys saying "I'M A SCREAMER I WAS IN AS ASHES RISE FALLS PHOENIX,"
and kids like "Hey can i use one of ur amps cuz i have a marshall mg and it's not loud enough plx plx I wanna be in a band rly bad, ok?"

[eyeprod]

ha, the cl where I'm living now totally blows. pretty much nothing but "form a band" website ads in the musician section. I did meet a nerdy drummer guy through that method, but nothing worth focusing on. the instrument section is all shit gear, priced like they paid way too much at some lame local music store. pretty sad.  $2200 for a krank head and 4x12, the deals are flowing!

meeting people the old fashioned way has been marginally successful. I met an old guitar teacher of mine. he's cool, but not really into what I like to play. met some other people and a functionally incompetent sound guy by playing the open mics. I'm on the radar now, but who knows what will come out of it. it's easy to slay at open mics. that sound guy just pissed me off tho. Turned down my mic so I couldn't even hear it, while I was playing. "you're just noisy" he said. yeah dipshit, well you played your shitty 80's hair rock mix at full volume, but when the bands come on you turn it down to pussy level and all I can hear is drums blasting in my ear. I need to hear my guitar, asshole.

[Danny G]

CL in Austin has been a mixed bag.

Plenty of douchebaggery, even had a guy respond to one of my bassist looking ads with a post about it. Tried to PM the guy and call on his bullshit but guess what?!? it was an invalid email address! What a pussy.

On the flip side I've scored my 70's SVT, Isovent cab, and some other good gear on CL. Also put my band Ironclad together using it and MySpace (years ago, mind you). You just have to be REAL specific in your ads and weed out as many people as possible OVER THE PHONE. Huge time saver, heh. That, and the more ads you read the easier it becomes to know which ones are worth responding to.

I'm about to post some ads looking for session work, will report back any interesting experiences, heh.

[Chovie D]

Like Danny G , Ive had mixed experiences on CL. lotta great gigs and jobs have come from it for me. I just turn my bullshit detector to high senisitvity and cut em loose at the first wiff. Ive done the old school flyer thing too and guess what? You get even crazier and flakier people than you do on CL...and they have your fucking phone number!!
Its more about YOUR ability to deal with these people than it is about the means by which you meet them.

Ive never had to find musicans in a small community tho. I would imgaine that would be quite a different thing.

To me, it seems like the best musical partnerships come from intimate lifelong family/work/friendships. Jagger/Richards...D. Boon and Mike Watt, half the subpop roster working at Muzak. You cant plan for those or place an ad for those tho. My best musical partnership was with a  best friend who didnt play at all at first. One day he traded a bag of shrooms for a bass and we spent the next ten years in band together. you and Rev Chainsaw need to reconcile.

[dogfood]

Really Danny?   y'know you live in Austin...Texas...the oft called live music capital of the world.  Hell, I even look in the Austin CL and I'm in DFW with 6 million human cockroaches.  For as big as Austin is the CL is doing just fine.  DFW on the other hand...Musicians all want to be in a country, cover, or wanna be Pantera band.  If they say black death metal they mean sounds just like pantera.  And, on the musical instruments side everyone is trying to sell that piece of shit combo pack they got from Guitar Center.  Still I look.

[Metal and Beer]

I've had good luck selling shit on there but yeah you're gonna get some dillrods, just like any other place with a cross-section of sweet, sweet humans   

[spookstrickland]

It's just crazy too, with people posting ad's that tell more about the gear they play than the fact they can actually play.  I posted and ad and I said:  I don't care what you play, tone is in the hands.  Eddy Van Halen rocks a Peavey and Matt Pike Dooms on a First Act.  I got a huge whining email from some douche about how great peaveys are.  I was not putting them down only saying that I'm not going discount anyone for not playing a 6000 dollar guitar and amp.

There are even people making demands that you only play through a "Tube Stack" fuck when did people get so high and mighty.  They don't deserve to play with anyone great.  Shit you know if Eddie or Matt were not rock stars and totally broke they could make a solid state rig sound like the thunder of the gods.

[bass sic]

The worst part is contacting a CL person and talking for awhile. Getting your hopes up because they said they've been playing this or that long and they cant find anyone good enough to jam with. You drag all your shit over to their "studio", which is actually their grandmas basement and discover that they cant play shit. Its just more heart break than pissed off.

[Danny G]

When putting Ironclad together I had people get flustered at my very specific gear and experience-related questions, specifically for the bass players.

After seeing so many bassists use sub-par gear (with horrible tone) and stand staring at their feet playing root notes, I knew exactly what I did NOT want in a bassist. Especially when my bass rig was better than theirs (played guitar for Ironclad, and NO you can't use my shit). But fuck it. If you want to take what comes your way, lower your standards. If you want players of a higher caliber, you'll piss off the ones that aren't. Not that I cared. I landed one of the best bassists in town who went on to tour with MOD for a year after Ironclad initially packed it in, mainly because Billy Milano saw him playing with Ironclad.

As for singers, don't even get me started. My best advice is get them to sing over the fucking PHONE. Huge time-saver there. If they're too self-conscious to sing over the phone, they're not going to uncork once you get them to your jam room, let alone onstage.

Ads are one avenue, but still one of the best ways to meet players is to go to shows and network. Plus, you just SAW THEM PLAY!!!