My family's guided a lot of teeth, for sure. Maybe during the summer, we could hook up for a row and a glass ... wine for me. You're not too far. If I'm lucky, I could maybe hunt down the freekin' late 70s wood snare ... finally.

That wood snare could be here; after all, we've found a 1960 'burst in an attic...

I'll try this again ...

Perhaps it has to do with the inner connection between you and the frontman? I'm sensing there is a less than stellar meld there. Are you not gelling with his leadership? Or is it his lack of leadership? That can be a snag, for sure. I left a fairly successful group because of a similar thing. We were all professionals, but not all were committed to timelines developed. One wouldn't show up on time, another would cancel. It's not worth the headaches, to me. If you two are friends, have you discussed these barriers?

The frontman isn't a leader, but the rhythm guitarist who writes most of the songs assumes leadership, though he always says that we're "equal partners". The band leader is truly a genius (and I mean this in every sense of the word), but he also caves to whim quite easily. That's the problem with being a genius and a great player- you think too damned much!!!! He will say he's happy with a song, then weeks later will totally change the arrangement!!!

I love this guy like a brother, which is what make it hard for me to chuck it, as we have collaborated on songs together for the last six years!!! We speak of the barriers, but then I have to remind him of our conversations at rehearsal.

Oddly enough, my playing was starting to suffer because I felt like I was spinning my wheels. But after having a few hours today that were wife and work-free, I was able to hear a bit of magic from my sticks!!! I actually didn't work on stuff that may or may not be on the short play list. And the "King" and I did have an okay discussion earlier this week. I just hope that he doesn't forget what we had discussed...

Yeah- this was a better approach... Thanks, Rogersling.

The $inger/rhythm guitarist in the band I'm in suffers from a very similar, shall we say affliction. Nothing is ever perfect and songs get changed, he bullheads practice etc. And much like you and the king, me and this guy go WAY back. We went high school and college together, he is like a brother too me.

Whenever we have band issues and our king gets a little ummm difficult, me, the bassist and the lead guitarist will just start jamming. And eventually our king joins along, we jam for a minute or 10. Then practice resumes and everyone is closer and playing together better, parts in songs get worked out more as a unit etc.

So I guess my advice would be almost the opposite of Purdie's... Don't look at practice as some huge regimental thing. The king will want to control the regiment.

From my place, the best part of playing drums is creating in the moment. Maybe shift your own gears a bit and take his changes as challenges to the creative spirit. It's a blast to do that live. We used to say (it's written in the sleeve of our last cd) that we played rock with jazz sensibilities. We kept everything in the moment. It challenged our skills and kept our focus razor sharp. Just a thought. Perhaps his ever changing arrangements stem from his lack of spontaneous improvisational creation.

p.s. cleaned up the stuff above for readers sake.

Sure this isn't a story from a parallel universe?

Could we be talking in this universe if it was? woooooooaaaahhh LOL

Vintagedrumforum.com IS the conduit for these two universes to meet!!!!

I'll be convinced if... you and your fellow bandmates ate sushi tonight

If not it is just a crazy coincidence hahaa.

But yes that jamming thing works for us, and honestly we play our WORST whenever we force ourselves practice a set-list over and over again. Maybe we don't pay attention to our playing when we do, I don't know haha.

EG. We played a show last year, and a person in the crowd yelled out a track for us to play. It was never on the list, never practiced for the show. Guess which song we played the best? Something about being loose and off the cuff