jamming past your prime?

I've been really trying hard to get with people to start playing in a live, original project. As a guitarist. Just have the itch, and the wife is supportive. It's been a long time, I did use to play out a lot.
 
So, I've been doing Craigslist ads, met and jammed with few people, most are in their 20's. I'm 40, look younger (people tell me).
 
It's funny though, a lot of ads, people will actually say no one past a certain age. Kind of makes me feel old, I guess I am.  Thing is, I'm pretty immature, and I feel I can hang with anyone. So I'm tempted to lie about my age.
So far, the people I have jammed with aren't at my level. So it's been dissapointing anway. They say Craigslist isn't the best place to meet people. But I am going to jam with an original alt-country band, and they sound pretty good. We'll see how it goes.
 
Anyone have thoughts on playing out at a certain age? Is it neccessary to jam with people your own age?

OK, seriously.

Music 'should' transcend age. But when I was about 18 I jammed with the future drummer of Ambrosia (Burleigh Drummond). We were in a band for about three weeks. He was almost out of college. He was beyond my skill level at the time. Not sure I've caught up with him yet but I keep trying.

I'm not big on lying (it can come to no good in the end). Be yourself, let them be them and when you find the right people it will be fantabulous.

Finding people to jam and play with has been hard at any age. Most that I met were not very serious. So I mostly joined established bands.

The one band I was in that we did form from scratch so to speak, the 3 of us had played in a 5 piece group previously before it imploded.  Me and the drummer are about the same age, the bass player was 11 yrs older but looked like he was much much older than that. He lived on Marlboro cigarettes and Mountain Dew soda.... I kid you not, that was what he had all the time..with the occasional McDonalds cheeseburger because he didn't have too many teeth left at that time.   The expression "Rode hard and put up wet" comes to mind. In a music store a sales guy asked me if my "grandfather" was our bass player when he saw Glen take a bass off the wall and go to plug it in....   ha  ha... grandfather..... we had a good laugh over that. He never drank alcohol or smoked weed, but in a later band, he developed a nasty nose habit that landed him in prison for selling to some narcs.

Playing with a bunch of kids..... if you are older, I don't care how immature you claim to be.... there will only be so much teenage crap and drama that you will be able to tolerate. 

A buddy of mine.... in his 40's just hooked up with a band all at or above his age group.... established and looking a bass player.  I was offered a guitar gig recently as well in a country band... but I don't feel like beating it down the road again. Jam...yes...gigging..no.

They might be mentioning age just so everyone feels connected to their choice of music genres.

I'm 56, for now. I haven't gigged since I was a youthful 51. It just seems like a lot of trouble to set up a bunch of expensive equipment to play for four hours, break down, get to bed late and STILL have to keep up with domestic chores. Having said that: I won't stop playing until they put me 6 ft under, and when I retire I plan to put together an oldtimers rock/blues band. You're NEVER too old. Buddy Guy is over 70. B B King is 112 or so.

It's been a little over a decade since I last performed live.  My last gig was playing at a college for a friend's project.  The fact that I was older than their parents was odd, but not a significant factor. 

Actually, I started going bald at 19.  During the reign of the hair bands, I auditioned a few times only to be told that no one would want a bald guy on stage.  It would be ruin the band's "look". 

That was a nice way of saying, "Your visiage is so unbelievably ghastly, so utterly repulsive, so horrifically vile, so amazingly putrid, so revoltingly heinous, so disgustingly loathsome, and so horrendously repugnant that the only possible response to seeing your wretched head would be to vomit uncontrollably, possibly until passing out in a coma, and thus finding, if only for a little while, the sweet release of unconsciousness.  Oh, and we liked what you played in the bridge on that last song.  Do you think you could teach it to our real drummer?" 

I was talking with a teenage relative a few years ago and she mentioned a band she liked.  I talked with her about some of their songs (I had actually heard them before).  I asked her what she liked about this band.  She said, "Well, in this video, the guitarist wore this cool shirt and his hair was wavy and in this other video, the girl had on this purple top that had this design on it and blah blah blah..."

I asked, "What about their music?"

She said, "Oh, it's okay."

I then gave up on her generation. 

"Well, in this video, the guitarist wore this cool shirt and his hair was wavy

I think that's why Bapu has this bromance thing for me


(shakes head)


strange man that there Bapu

I've found that the biggest obstacle with age is the different values.
The only musicians I find that play at my calibre (read EGO!!! lol) have career aspirations in the industry.  I gave up the aspirations and don't want to deal with all the PR, networking and negotiations.  I won't tour because I won't give up the day job with a salary and benefits.  I just want to rehearse, get up and play locally! 
Everyone else I meet without career aspirations isn't good enough for my tastes.

Plus, as I get older I'm getting more obnoxious.  Kids these days can't handle me. 

Everyone else I meet without career aspirations isn't good enough for my tastes.

Now I know I really suck............


I have none of those problems............

guitardog247



It's curious though, what kids like. My son is 8 and is into music now. We don't have cable TV, and he's not allowed to watch many shows. Of course we have internet. So he knows about Pandora, and will find bands that way. He seems to like stuff that is "energetic", whether it's rock or black eyed peas type of pop. But he listens to the music, and points out riffs and guitar playing that he likes. He definitely leans toward hard rock, and finds acoustic music boring......

Similar story here - my son discovered Journey when he was 6 or 7 and likes them so much I think he knows their songs better than I do.  It's neat to see his enthusiasm.

Bitflipper, you're right as usual.
I honestly haven't looked that hard for like-minded musicians, preferring to wait for the odd offers to fall in my lap.