My first surf band experience was through Craigslist. A guy advertised that he wanted to form a surf band, had lots of gear and a place to practice and was really into the ventures. So I made the trip over to his place.

He was right, he had lots of gear, in fact, he had almost 20 guitars. Thing is, most of them were budget guitars, and his "good guitars" were still under the $1K mark. I'm not being snobby here, but just using simple math, 6 budget guitars would buy a really good guitar. To continue... we had prearranged to play a few surf songs, some standards and some songs I was working on when I first took up surf music - Nebulas, Satan's Pilgrims to name a couple.

I could tell right away that he didn't like the reverbed sound. It quickly became apparent that he was a Ventures purist. When it was his turn to play, he plugged into a big Yamaha solid state something or other. Dry as a bone, with the treble boosted. On top of that, he had his $300 strat on bridge pickup only. Let's just say he did a great job of clearing the wax out of my ears After a few songs, I tried as delicately as I could to ask him to turn down the treble a few notches. His response "Dude! That's MY sound!!!" and was really put off by that.

Needless to say, we parted never to meet again. But I keep my eyes on Craigslist just for fun, and I do see him post occasionally, still looking for players. However I'll always be grateful, because anytime anyone criticizes my guitar tone, I just say "Dude! That's MY sound!!!" hahaha

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I am now playing trumpet with Prince Buster tribute band 'Balzac'

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

I advertised looking for a bassist....what I got was 5 guys who played guitar but would be willing to try bass, maybe.I wanted someone who was happy playing bass as their primary instrument...
I once had a drummer who was a very good guitarist as well...the problem was that he was better than our other guitarist and maybe better than me.I told him that we really needed a drummer and had enough guitars...of course a year later he formed his own band playing guitar and I was looking for another drummer.Lesson learned....
once (and only once) I answered an ad looking for a guitarist...I jammed with a couple guys younger than me doing songs by artists we supposedly both claimed as an influence.I actually knew how to play the guys's songs though and spent the next few hours teaching these guys a few songs...not really what I was looking for.I greatly prefer to deal with local guys who Ive already known through other bands...I know what I'm getting and they already know what I can do.

In addition to the clowns I mentioned in the "Thinking of selling my gear and getting out" thread, I also met three other musicians who I thought would pan out but didn't. They advertised for a surf lead guitarist. When I got to the studio, none of them could play. The drummer couldn't do anything but a simple snare and cymbal beat; the bass player was a nice kid(the band was his idea) but didn't know spit. The second guitarist came with a strat with distortion pickups and light gauge strings. When I pointed out the need for heavier strings for the accompaniment guitar, I got "... but that'll hurt my fingers". No one had any "sense of reverb". I showed them some stuff - which they all forgot by the next practice. So much for dedication.

Then there's the clowns with LGSS - Lone Guitar Slinger Syndrome. They feel their lead guitar is the second coming of Dick Dale and who needs rhythm or accompaniment. They invariably really suck.

Another CL I answered was advertised as surf/rockabilly - but was really blues based (boring) with the Stevie Ray Vaughn hats and dopey vocals.
Other than that., It was all good fun.

tubesNtweed wrote:

My surf band audition years ago involved 2 hearses, a satantic pig head wall display with horns, multiple pentagram posters and wavy swords throughout the "house" or dungeon as I'd call it. Thought I was going to end up in a couple GLAD trash bags in a pit in the backyard, or sacrificed to the surf gods while burned at the stake of my own guitar! Lol. At least there was dog hair clumps everywhere and a coffin as a coffee table, very welcoming. Then there was the guy with 25 birds living in his kitchen, poop on the floor and electrical wiring that wasn't grounded. And insisted he would do whatever it takes to join our band because he is lonely. Fun times!

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For better or worse Craigslist has replaced the venerable music store cork board as the go to place for musicians seeking musicians. My experiences are the similar, some really bad "players", some really insane people and a few bits of good. In the end it's the same as it's ever been, you have to hang in there. I have done much better thru recommendations from musicians I knew and going to jams, festivals and other musical get togethers.

It's almost a rite of passage to go through that sort of thing. I went through quite a bit of that before the pieces finally fell in place. Keep trying...

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I am now playing trumpet with Prince Buster tribute band 'Balzac'

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

Not a CL story, but...

Way back in the before time, a friend's band was semi-amicably falling apart (no one could stand the bass player's wife, eventually including the bass player). So my friend and one other bandmate were shopping for players. I went along for the ride. There was some other band looking to ditch a couple of their guys. Naturally, the guys being ditched were much better than the guys trying to ditch them.

It was one of the few times I played in a group. The 2 ditchers were still toking up when the rest wanted to play, so I stepped up to the rhodes.

Finding band members on Craigslist requires a good deal of filtering before any actual auditioning. I learned the hard way many years ago that everybody and their mother thinks they're a drummer. If you've seen an episode of Idol, you've seen the same phenomena with singers. I had a series of drummers come to a studio for auditions and was amazed that so many would show up barely able to play a standard rock beat. And where guitarists are concerned, if they're familiar with Wipe Out, they think surf is a breeze. Very few of the guitarists you find on Craigslist will have anything but a distortion based system with either a Marshall or some other high gain amp. You really have to talk to them about what gear they have and just how familiar they are with instrumental surf music. I had one get angry on the horn when I asked if he had a Fender amp or any non-distortion type of gear. He said in a huff, "Well, it sounds like you have an attitude about it (click)." And of course we do have a certain attitude about it. -Marty

"Hello Girls!"

Interesting topic. I've had almost entirely positive experiences with Craigslist, both buying/selling (though I have run across a couple fairly obvious scam attempts), and meeting musicians. I'm still fairly new to the area (LA/OC), have met a lot of nice people, made some friends and joined a startup band that isn't perfect, but got me playing again, and recently had an opportunity to audition for one of my favorite bands. I didn't know who the band was when I responded, assumed it was a startup situation or whatever, but the description fit what I was looking for, and was very surprised when they contacted me and told me who they were.

I won't go into much more detail (or who the band was), but what a cool experience for someone who's still very new to the scene to have that opportunity to sit down and jam with some of your musical heroes for an hour. It's possible I was kind of "that Craigslist guy" to them, but I sure hope not, and did make an effort to learn their songs and not embarrass myself. They made me feel welcome and comfortable, a real pleasure, so at least I have that experience going forward.

Also got a great deal on a Music Man amp recently and really enjoyed meeting and talking to the guy I bought it from, a former Nashville Studio owner. I'll likely get in touch with him again in the future, seemed like a good guy.

CL has been hit or miss for me. We auditioned a drummer for a rock band I was in a few years ago. The guy played one volume, SUPER LOUD! we asked him to tone it down a bit, he got miffed. We emailed back and forth and eventually argued enough that we gave up on him.

For another band we auditioned a percussionist who was awesome and a great guy! Still work with him!

I think like anything else, it's hit or miss. As far as buying and selling gear, I used to do it, now it's too scary. Maybe meet in a public place, but mostly I just avoid it. Too many creeps...