Pasta wrote:

steve wrote:Dude you can do it forever, just don't think of it as a job.

Music is like playing tennis or skiing or painting or getting blowjobs or anything else people do for its own sake: If you get something out of it, you keep at it because it is its own reward. The common thread among all these fulfilling pastimes is that very few people can expect do them professionally.

If you're only willing to play music if it has the potential to become a career, then you probably don't like it enough to want to do it for a career.

Damn you Steve Albini! I will make a career out of giving blowjobs! Your Midwestern heterosexuality will not stop me.

FYP

Never too old. Ive played in bands forever. Ive only toured or recorded and made money with other people's bands. I'm 29 now and haven't had my own band (well almost) since I was 17 and I started one last month. We should be playing soon and hopefully touring also.

Rob Wright started playing bass when he was 25.

I think about punk or "punk" as being an older (older than me) person's music at this point anyway. Any aggressive music that has really done it for me in the last several years has been made by people well older than me.

I hope Buzzo never stops playing. Jeez.

i wouldn't worry about the career part. Just get enough money (from playing or a day job) to keep playing. Just do and play what you want b/c you'll be dead before you know it.

The nice thing about playing when you're a older is that you're pretty much guaranteed that everyone you play with has gone through any issues they have regarding their perceptions of success.

I'm 33. I average one show a month with the bands I'm in. We have no delusions of conquering the world or quitting our jobs. Actually, our jobs afford us to buy and maintain reliable, quality equipment. Wrapping broken sticks in duct tape, boiling bass strings and being moved to near tears by a broken kick head was no fun. We play whatever we want as we know how our bills will be paid.

We get to meet and spend time with like-minded folks that we likely would not see nearly as often otherwise. I look forward to hanging out with my bandmates and I laugh more than should be allowed by law.

EDIT: All the above means I consider myself extremely succuessful.
Stop when you no longer enjoy it.

If you think you are to old you are... you should just sell all your gear at a cheep price to someone here, and be done with it, there are too many bands anyway... see "too many bands" thread.

You can do what half of Madison's over 30 crowd does and play in multiple cover bands, some with heavy irony, to make ends meet.

Then if you still have time left after attempting to make the clueless masses happy, you can play your own stuff.

Howlin' Wolf did not record a note before the age of 40. guy had plenty of toothpaste left in the tube so to speak.

Music is art. Artists make art because they have to.
Music is joy. A real or 'serious' musician finds his greatest joy through making music. Not selling music, making music. The act of creating and playing it. As a musician, to aspire to anything other than that simple joy is completely ridiculous.

Dickheads make art only because they think they can sell it. Only a dickhead would worry about whether or not they are too old to be making their art. Only a dickhead would ever consider giving up expressing himself. Only someone who didn't love music would think about whether or not they were too old, or they did not dress right or look right or whatever. A real 'serious' musician just does it. He cannot be stopped from doing it.

Too old to be playing music? Too old to be a 'serious' musician? What the hell is wrong with you? What the fuck does that even mean?
What a stupid ass, sad mindset to go through life with.

If you are not making music for the sheer joy of making music, just stop.
Please. Nothing good comes of that.

Marsupialized wrote:Music is art. Artists make art because they have to.
Music is joy. A real or 'serious' musician finds his greatest joy through making music. Not selling music, making music. The act of creating and playing it. As a musician, to aspire to anything other than that simple joy is completely ridiculous.

Dickheads make art only because they think they can sell it. Only a dickhead would worry about whether or not they are too old to be making their art. Only a dickhead would ever consider giving up expressing himself. Only someone who didn't love music would think about whether or not they were too old, or they did not dress right or look right or whatever. A real 'serious' musician just does it. He cannot be stopped from doing it.

Too old to be playing music? Too old to be a 'serious' musician? What the hell is wrong with you? What the fuck does that even mean?
What a stupid ass, sad mindset to go through life with.

If you are not making music for the sheer joy of making music, just stop.
Please. Nothing good comes of that.

what he said.

Johnny 13 wrote:

Pasta wrote:
Damn you Steve Albini! I will make a career out of getting blowjobs! Your Midwestern practicality will not stop me.

The competition is fierce. Just look at the cost of mustache rides. Nobody has been able to raise prices for those in 40 years!

samuel pack elliot was forty during the filming of Mask.


and there is a related thread, but it's hard to find.




there's no reason to ever stop playing if you love it.


but you have to love it.