Starting an 80s Band after 50

in #music5 years ago (edited)

Now that I have passed the half century mark, I find myself paying more attention to the proverbial bucket list. My dad was a Bluegrass guitar/banjo picker who encouraged me to play at an early age. Here is a picture of us in the early 1980s.

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[Circa 1981]

Two years later, I entered college and discovered culture shock. Although I was a business major, I took as many music classes as I could for electives, and got a small scholarship to play drums. In the music college, I discovered this area called "The Green Room" that had people very much different from me, but lots of fun nonetheless.

The party was on and it lasted for the rest of the decade!

I joined a new wave band called Future Image and had the time of my life! I will never forget the night my dad snuck up on us at a gig uptown and discovered we were all wearing makeup. LOL He knew it was part of the show, but I don't think he saw that coming. Also, I was growing a tiny pony tail, which was a trend back then, but he snipped it off while I was sleeping. Anyway.,..

Fast forward 33 years or so and here I am starting an 80s band. Technically I am the bass player, but have done the majority of vocals thusfar and have been focusing on that. We have two guitarist, but many tunes in our repertoire only require one; therefore, one of them can play bass on things I need to focus on the vocal. Actually, the youngest guitarist sings way better than me, but at this point he is not familiar with the tunes. Three bandmates were not born yet in the 80s!

I met the drummer, Floyd Durand, in my 2nd high school in senior year. At that time in the 80s, a movie called Porkys was popular where I discovered the art of "mooning". While still at Catholic school as a snare drummer in the marching band, I demonstrated my mooning skills on the 50 yard line to a rival school. This was not well received, but it made me famous before the new wave band did :) LOL

About three years ago, we started a band called the Liberators and we had a good run. It was the drummer and me, and two young guys on guitar and piano. We have been kicking around the idea of getting it back together, and when I explained that I wanted to do 80s music, they all thought it would be a fun change of pace as we were doing 60s and 70s.

Floyd runs an open mic night on Thursdays, and a guitarist, Sean Arriyaga, overheard our conversation and asked to participate. It was a welcomed addition because he pays a lot of attention to detail and has a nice practice room over his garage with all the gear set up.

The young piano player, Jason Percle, also had an original band with a fantastic drummer, Matt Keagan, who happens to be very good on vibraphone. (We do a side gig called "Jazz for Jesus", but I am not sure if we have an actual band name.) Eventually, Matt will be on vibes or mariba to cover extra keyboard parts and or do other percussions.

Here is a picture of The Liberators last year on April 21, 2018 at Gattuso's in Gretna, LA.

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[Jason Percle-Keys, TJ Sutton-Guitar, Floyd Durand-Drums, and Nathan Gurley-Bass]

The new band is called The M80s NOLA and will also include Sean Arryaga on guitar/bass and Matt Keagan on vibraphone. There is already excitement built up and we are having so much fun! For me, it's like I entered a time machine!

Stay tuned,

NathanG
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Hello and welcome to the world of Steem. I can see your a musician, and it's good that your reaching out and commenting on other's posts. There is a large music community and I'll try and give you a start.

Wow thanks! I do not know much about this, but I'm slowly learning. I appreciate your help!

There's a lot to learn and if you get a bad start it can really put you off. Have a read of these, I wrote them around 3 months ago and they are still valid now.

Look around, follow people, comment and make connections. @steevc is a musician and one of the first people I connected with here. There are many more too if that's your interest.

https://steemit.com/steem/@slobberchops/some-newbie-tips-for-well-newbies

https://steemit.com/steem/@slobberchops/some-more-newbie-tips-for-well-newbies

Thank you @slobberchops! I am reading your first newbie post and trying to sign up for tasteem. Looks like I got in, but had a bit of difficulty with all these giant pass codes. I'm wondering if I set up a simple password when I first started? Oh well, I have the long ones save a few places. I will look at your other post soon and follow your suggestions in the first one. Thank you for your good information.

There are no simple passwords, they all have to be long and complex as they are the keys to your account. There are no admins to reset them if you lose them so look after them.

I have mine on a .txt file on a USB stick that I connect to my computer only if necessary. Don't leave them on your computer or anywhere on the internet.

If you post a tasteem review, make sure you use their dApp as tasteem.io and not Steemit to post it, and check all the rules. If don't follow them, they wont give you the big vote.

Welcome to Steem! I see my friend @slobberchops has already been in touch. As he says the open mic contest by @luzcypher is a great place to find musicians and I mentioned more on this post

https://steemit.com/steem/@steevc/follow-friday-musos-on-steem

There's lots of great music from the 80s. I organise a pub music session and we get music from all eras there. I'm sure you have a lot of fun with your band. I'm also in my 50s and making more music than ever.

I'll see you around. Rock on!

Yes, @steevc, I remember @slobberchops mentioning you. Nice to meet you! I will check out your post.

Welcome to STEEM! Nice post! Hope you continue posting!

Nice to see someone of a similar age starting on the bucket list. Gotta get on that myself :-)

I may or may not be in around the NOLA area quite frequently ;-) I and my family love live music and love 80's music. Be sure and let me know if ya'll are gonna be playing in the area anytime and we might try and get there.

Been to Gretna Heritage festival before and had a great time. The 2019 lineup looks pretty awesome and I may go again! Maybe ya'll can play there one day!

Well @steemstreems, there is a chance the new 80s band will play on the Gattuso's stage at Gretna Heritage Fest, but it is not confirmed and we still need more material. Most of us in the M80sNOLA band will play with an original Americana type act called "The Old Bar Stools".

When I get that time and date, I'll let you know.
oldbarstools.png

Thanks! Much appreciated! May very well go as that festival was surprisingly good and right near home.

Batten down the hatches for Barry :-) Hope you and all of yours are safe and without flooding!

Hey Nathan, welcome to the Steemery.

Thank you, @hockney, I appreciate your welcome!

Welcome to our community!

Thanks @illuminati-inc! Now I have to learn about how this voting works. Actually, I was just reading about it, but still need clarification as to when and when not.

vote content you like, and keep the number of 100% votes to maximum 11 per 24 hours. you can vote more per 24hrs, but your vote power will regenerate 20% of all your vote power per day, which is 11 100% votes. when casting 10% vote power votes, you can vote 110 times per 24 hrs. when having relatively low rep, than there is a bandwidth limit on the number of votes per day though; this to prevent accounts to vote in the dust zone (ie very small votes to gazillion posts). also, when voting with a very low value, those votes may not be counted in for steem and steem power distribution, ie the vote may not be counted, ie no value. not sure what level this is, but was reading somewhere this could be like 0,01$ or smaller, maybe a lot smaller than the 1ct... need to read up on that again.

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Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!

The 80’s was a great period for music, I might have only been 5 when it started but it really left a lasting impression on my musical tastes.

Steem has an awesome musical community, between @dtube and @dsound you can share your music and we have incredible musicians you can discuss your passions with.

I’m really pleased @slobberchops shared your post with me, I’m not a musician but if you need any help getting going on here with either post promotion or delegation to help you progress let me know.