About 1979 - 1982 while in high school I had my own band called Renegade. A few originals with a lot of covers. Played guitar in this band but also played bass for a couple of different friends that had bands. Mostly rock and metal and a few gigs playing for a country band. 1985 - 1988 Played in a couple of bands that never got as far as getting names. One fell apart after months of rehearsals and one gig where half the band got trashed. The downside to trying to have a band made up of friends who hadn't played in a "working" band before. Then went on to form a band called "The Jake Isles Blues Band" which was kind of a rock edged blues band. The name came as a drunken rehearsal when me and the lead guitar player noticed our singer had us doing a lot of old J. Geils Band covers. As the lead player was a little drunk he angrily said we should just call the band Jake Isles or at least that was what it sounded like with the slurring. I worked (didn't seem like work though) in Maine and New Hampshire for several years in this band and recorded some originals with songs kind of all over the place. Played rhythm for a while in this configuration then ended up playing bass most of the time in this band until varying degrees of interest broke us up. At this point I got rid of almost all my gear I think I had 8 electrics (7 solid bodies and 1 hollow body) , 2 basses, and 2 acoustics and just kept 1 acoustic guitar. In 1989 I bought a Jackson bass (so much for getting rid of everything) and mainly just jammed with people occasionally filling in for some friends or playing for a few songs at their gigs if they wanted a hand. This went on for several years. Then about 1995 I got rid of the new gear I had once again accumulated and once again was back to the single acoustic and found my self playing for my brother in law in his gospel band for several years as a bassist with some guitar duties where fingerpicking was needed. What seemed strange to me was the gospel band had more gigs than any other band I had been in with us playing somewhere pretty much every weekend and usually a couple of weekday gigs every other week or so. Since about 1998 I've been bandless and tried to avoid it due to my work schedule and the fact that if I'm in a band I WANT to play live for people. Just playing with some friends is great but the rush from playing in front of an audience is crazy and once you've done it it's hard to resist. So for now; much like steroma posted above; rocksmith is my band. I wish I was as good as the rest of my band!! :grin:
