When are you too old to start a band?

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dubsymmetry
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Post by dubsymmetry » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:33 am

kdarr wrote: Ever seen NoMeansNo live? They are still touring, still punk as fuck, and all way past fourty - gray hair, beer guts and all - and they DESTROY. One of the most high-energy shows I have ever seen.
[<|>]
"old is the new young!" - no means no
and they blew away every other band that evening when I had the pleasure to be in one of these bands at that festival last summer and I was only 26! see, I?m still nervous!

Alex Netick
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Post by Alex Netick » Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:20 am

I'm 39, turning 40 in a couple of months -- and the whole making-it thing headache is not part of what I do, and I don't care. I'll be playing the same shit when I'm 60 or 70. To be honest, I'm looking forward to turning 40, and 50 and so forth, because getting old is actually pretty cool in some ways, even though it kind of sucks in others. I know a couple of people who made it pretty huge in the music business, and I don't envy them.

kdarr wrote:I used to be so worried about not "making it" before I got "too old" when I was in my twenties.

Now I'm 31, and I haven't "made it," I probably never will, and frankly I don't give a shit. Music is fun, dammit! I don't need an excuse or some BS rockstar fairytale motivation - I do it because I love it, and it's what I do best.

That Bob Pollard quote is perfect. It's so embarrassing when you see these supposedly over-the-hill guys trying to pander to "the kids" because they still want to be rich and famous and think there's some sort of expiration date on talent. It's ugly and cynical and it makes me ill. Why can't they just be real and play for the love of playing?

Ever seen NoMeansNo live? They are still touring, still punk as fuck, and all way past fourty - gray hair, beer guts and all - and they DESTROY. One of the most high-energy shows I have ever seen.

The longer you do something, the better you get at it - what could possibly be bad about that?

[<|>]

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;ivlunsdystf
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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:54 am

Alex Netick wrote:To be honest, I'm looking forward to turning 40, and 50 and so forth, because getting old is actually pretty cool in some ways, even though it kind of sucks in others.
Me too. I'm not so excited to lose short-term memory capabilities and acquire creaky joints and stuff, but the whole experience/trip of growing old is something I really look forward to. It's just another stage of life, and has its ups and downs like all the others. "To everything there is a season..."

In terms of the history of our species, we are (relatively speaking) currently living (on average) much longer than our ancestors ever did. Our minds and bodies evolved under conditions of hunting/gathering/light farming at a time when life expectancy was probably an average of 38 or 42 or something like that. Back then, the rare individual who could actually live to 50 or 60 would have automatically become an elder to all the others.

Unfortunately for the contemporary 'elders', there are various problems preventing their age/wisdom from seeming valuable to the rest of us: 1. There are so many of them now compared to how it must have been in the Upper Paleolithic; 2. Our media conglomerates define the experience of aging for us and assign a great deal of fear to old age and idealize the teen years (although the current crop of baby boomers will help redefine meaningful existence in old age); 3. The world that today's septuagenarians grew up in, to say nothing of the centenarians, is completely different from today's world so their experiences seem significantly less valuable to us than the experiences of elders would have seemed to young people 500 years ago (or longer) when societies were preindustrial and much more static.

An ugly sight: old people trying to turn back the clock. What an insult to the elders who seek to age gracefully and use their twilight years for their intended purpose. As with most things, the key trick is to ignore the mass media version of aging and look for more intelligent takes on the topic.

Alex Netick
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Post by Alex Netick » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:09 pm

I don't know. I think it's kind of a stupid question. You're never too old, unless you were pretty fucking lame to begin with, and even then it wasn't your age.

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jmiller
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Post by jmiller » Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:53 am

burn wrote:First album from Serge Gainsbourg in 1958: he was 30 years old.
That would put him at what, 43 when Histoire de Melody Nelson came out- and that is the baddest mutherfuckin' album EVER. Putting out a record like that at the age of 43 is pretty badass.

Nick Cave is still going.

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darjama
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Post by darjama » Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:18 am

This thread is a tonic to me. I've been feeling a shift into dad mode since my son was born 3 weeks ago. Hard to make time to get into my basement studio, let alone to my band's rehearsals. And have you tried playing guitar while wearing a baby bjorn? It's not easy. I'll have to give my upright bass a shot, that might work :)

Fieryjack
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Post by Fieryjack » Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:22 am

Paul Dufour, drummer of the Libertines, was 54 when he joined the band. Also the drummer of the One Ones was pretty old when he joined I think.

I think Keith Richards has proven to us all that if you have a shred left of your mortal self, you can still play-right?

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Nick Sevilla
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Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:05 pm

Fieryjack wrote:Paul Dufour, drummer of the Libertines, was 54 when he joined the band. Also the drummer of the One Ones was pretty old when he joined I think.

I think Keith Richards has proven to us all that if you have a shred left of your mortal self, you can still play-right?
long live the keef!!!!!!!!

alarmo
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Post by alarmo » Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:22 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:everyone who's had a way better time in their 30s than they did in their 20s raise their hands.

Big +1.

I didn't know what the heck I was doing in my 20s, or just barely. I like to think that now I know enough to <i>decide when to</i> be dangerous - and I get way better gigs, too.

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jv
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Post by jv » Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:39 am

Jet Black, the drummer of the Stranglers will be 70 this year. Which means he was almost 40 when their first album came out. And he's still playing with them, which makes me feel not-so-old (I'll be 49 in a couple months).

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Post by madvek » Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:11 pm

I spent my twenties in original/alternative rock and blues bands, had some good regional success. In my thirties I figured it was time to grow up, get a real job, have a family etc. or end up a casualty of "The life" as many friends did. I've been back writing and recording on my own for the past 6 years. and have just started to put a band together to flesh my material out both in the studio and live. I turned 50 a few weeks ago, at midnight I was on stage jamming with some friends (mostly 20's-40's) at a local pub. Couldn't think of anywhere I would rather be. 8)

Not for nothin, (as Little Stevie would say), IMHO I can still rip it up with anyone regardless of age on anything from Chicago blues to Clash style punk... :biggergrin:

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audionaut
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Post by audionaut » Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:15 pm

Now I know why it's called T.O.M.B. - any one of you old coots could drop dead at any moment.

Just kidding... If I had the time I'd love to get out there and play. I don't even care where. I'm proud to say the last club I played was that Manhattan craphole- CBGB's, but that was about six years ago. Other than a couple of Karaoke nights and filling in for other musicians, I haven't actually been a member of a band for like 14 years. I guess I still feel like I'm somewhat "in the loop" because I work on music every day, but now that I'm actually doing the math, there are like 4 guitar cases in my basement that I haven't even cracked open in over 4 years. Pathetic.

Alex Netick
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Post by Alex Netick » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:50 pm

That's what I consider "making it" in the music business -- just enjoying playing, regardless of your age. I see a couple of rockstars every once in a while who live around the Bay Area, and, to me, they look like pretty sad characters, regardless of their McMansions and their SUVs (or maybe because of them, I don't know).
madvek wrote:I spent my twenties in original/alternative rock and blues bands, had some good regional success. In my thirties I figured it was time to grow up, get a real job, have a family etc. or end up a casualty of "The life" as many friends did. I've been back writing and recording on my own for the past 6 years. and have just started to put a band together to flesh my material out both in the studio and live. I turned 50 a few weeks ago, at midnight I was on stage jamming with some friends (mostly 20's-40's) at a local pub. Couldn't think of anywhere I would rather be. 8)

Not for nothin, (as Little Stevie would say), IMHO I can still rip it up with anyone regardless of age on anything from Chicago blues to Clash style punk... :biggergrin:

dynomike
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Post by dynomike » Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:32 am

When are you too old?

...

...

NOW

Sorry everyone! The ship has sailed!
Making Efforts and Forging Ahead Courageously! Keeping Honest and Making Innovations Perpetually!

RefD
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Post by RefD » Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:13 pm

dynomike wrote:When are you too old?

...

...

NOW

Sorry everyone! The ship has sailed!
speak for yourself.
?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

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