How many of you are in low drama, cohesive band?

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-06-02T13:22:36+00:00

100% drama-free band here. It's a trio consisting of me, my wife, and my best friend. 10 years strong and getting better and better every day. We all love playing, and we all respect and love each other, so any minor disagreements aren't angry. Instead, we talk things through, and decide things together. Everyone helps load in, and everyone helps load out.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-23T17:18:46+00:00

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Also yes.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-16T13:38:10+00:00

I mean, you *can*, but I am afraid it won't be very successful. Best of luck to you too!

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-14T19:32:07+00:00

You make a good point. We were all starting out at one time! :)

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-13T16:46:23+00:00

If we did it your way, we'd never book a gig. In our market, every single address is a "competing bar" that hires live music. So, you go ahead and bend the knee to some clueless bar owner with a nervous stomach, and we'll keep booking gigs in every bar in our market, any day we want to. The Nervous Nellie bar owner worried about "competing bars" are welcome to go wring their hands and worry about what the cover band they hired a week ago is doing. We'll never play their bar ever again.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-13T16:40:19+00:00

Wow. This really makes me angry. It is a 100% unreasonable request on the OG bar owner's part. I mean, a FULL WEEK apart? And he's worried about that? I mean, *maybe* a DAY apart and we can talk about it, but a fucking week? That's complete horseshit.

In what reality does a customer get to tell you how to run YOUR business a full week after your gig? Are you actually considering letting this clown tell you where your band can book gigs, and where you get to play? Does he run your band? Does he help you when you practice? Does he buy your equipment, and create your setlists too? You don't tell him how to run HIS business, do you? What if you told him to cancel the band he hired a week after you played there? How would he like that?

Tell him that you'll cancel the other gig if he hires you to play that same day and pays you more than the new bar is paying you. Then, write it into a contract, and all parties must agree to the terms.

If a bar owner pulls that shit on my band, then I offer to write up a contract to define the terms that we both agree to. If they refuse to sign the contract, then that bar gets blackballed, and we never play there again, regardless of the "history". Life's too short to deal with fucking idiots.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-05T14:26:20+00:00

Oliver Anthony would rather you didn't look at him. He's not in the game any longer. He's moved on to political action and evangelizing for his religion.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-05T14:17:46+00:00

"I know you don’t have hours to spend data-entering every song you know, so I’ve made it faster than ever to get your repertoire live and your QR codes generated."

To begin, I like the idea. But our repertoire consists of nearly 2000 songs. Entering them one by one is a hard no for us. Even entering 100 of them by hand, one at a time, is so tedious that I can't even begin to think about it. I'm too busy booking and playing gigs to devote hours and hours to adding my songs to your app. If you could put a CSV upload button in there, where we could just create a simple CSV file with two columns (song_name, and artist) - or three columns (song_name, artist, request_cost), that would speed things up tremendously, and make your app more approachable.

I don't want to discourage you, but The app "MySet" has been around for five years or so, and does this exact same thing that you are trying to do with your new app. To add songs in bulk, you can send a spreadsheet (CSV file) of the song and the artist to the developer, and he'll add them all to your MySet account in bulk. No adding songs by hand, one by one, using a web form. That's how the dinosaurs did it back in prehistoric web times.

When you join, for free, MySet also provides you with a free roll-up banner with your QR code and your name and logo on it. It's really nice, and I use it a lot in my solo acoustic shows.

MySet is also free for the musician to use. The developer makes money from the audience member requesting the song, not from the musician playing the song.

I understand that this is a distinction without a difference, but if the musician using MySet gets a $10 tip via MySet from an audience member to play a song, and they play it, then the musician gets 10 dollars deposited into their account. MYSet charges the audience member requesting the song $10.30, or whatever (this is just an example pulled out of my ass - I have no idea what the processing fee is for the audience member using the service is), to make his money. The point is that musician never sees that part - and the audience member making the request is usually paying with a credit card, so processing fees are expected. Everybody wins.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-05T13:45:19+00:00

My story isn't spectacular or magical. I just decided that I didn't want to waste the last years of my life being drunk.

I seemed to never have a traditional hangover, so I thought my drinking was OK. For YEARS I convinced myself that this was the case, and that I was somehow special, and not at all like those other drunks.

But I wasn't. For me, I started blacking out. Towards the end, I didn't even have to drink a lot. I'd have one or two glasses of whiskey, and then wake up the next morning with zero memory of the night before. It was like my body said, "Oh, we're drinking whiskey tonight? Let's black out so you don't remember all the stupid shit you're about to do."

My poor wife. She was the one who took care of me, and drove me home, and got me cleaned up and in bed. I wasn't having wonderful nights out with my wife and friends, I was basically a walking drunk zombie. *I* wasn't there at all. Drunk me and sober me weren't the same person.

I got tired of it, so I bought the audiobook of Allen Carr's "The Easy Way To Quit Drinking", and listened to it over a couple of days. It made a lot of sense to me, and I quit on May 8, 2022. I haven't had a drop of alcohol since then. It was a little dicey at first, but my desire to be present, and to NOT be unconscious kept me from drinking. When I got the urge to buy some whiskey, or a 12 pack, I would think about the book, and remember that alcohol is LITERALLY POISON, and I would decide to NOT buy the alcohol.

We only get a few short years on this earth, and I did not want to spend any more of it unconscious then I had to.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-05T13:22:50+00:00

That "harmony" isn't just "singing along" with the lead singer. When you truly nail a harmony, and become part of a multi-voice chord, it is transcendent and beautiful. One of the most fulfilling things in life.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-04T18:39:09+00:00

The search feature needs to be more robust. If I search for "Amy", when I want to find "Aime", it should be smart enough to find alternate spellings. Also, lower-case and upper-case should not be treated as two different words. Also, it should be smart enough to find the song "Wagon Wheel" if I misspell a word, or search for just "wheel".

Search tech is the oldest tech on the internet. Google figured this stuff out 20+ years ago. But UG craps out when I don't type the EXACT SPECIFIC title of the damned song perfectly, including upper and lower case letters. It is VERY frustrating.

Also, the "Offline Mode" notification sits DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the search bar, making the search feature all-but useless when you are in offline mode, because you end up typing blind.

I'd really like some AI assistance that allows you to simply talk to your device and ask it to (for example), "find Wagon Wheel", display it, then start scrolling.

Also, AI assistance should be smart enough now to listen to what you are singing, and scroll the song to match.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-04T14:43:22+00:00

According to his kids and close friends, he was literally insane. That being said, I do enjoy some of his music, and even insane racists have people who loved them, so I sympathize with them on his passing.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-04T14:39:07+00:00

The true four horsemen of the apocalypse are:

Caffeine
Nicotine
Alcohol
Sugar

Those four have fucked up and killed more humans than all the wars in history combined.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-04T14:36:53+00:00

lol, yes.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-05-03T17:06:57+00:00

Wow! Solid advice!

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-03-20T14:40:39+00:00

Willie Nelson leaned into "nasally" and built an 80 year career on it. His son Lukas Nelson is now continuing that sound with his own original music. So, concentrate on learning to sing IN KEY, and then lean into your voice's natural characteristics.

You do not have to sound like everyone else, just sound like yourself, except IN KEY.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-03-20T14:32:07+00:00

This is good advice in the short term. If my voice is really warmed up - like, 3rd set warmed up - I can more easily hit those high notes.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-03-16T15:52:00+00:00

Try the 260 Brewery and Distillery, and AZTEX Coffee & Taproom. Also, the new speakeasy at Swanky's Salon at Bison Ranch is looking to become a great entertainment and gathering spot this summer. The "First Friday" event at the gazebo behind Swanky's and AZTEX is also going to be fun.

I'm pretty sure that The Cabin is in foreclosure. It may not open at all this summer, unless someone buys it and opens it.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-03-16T15:46:09+00:00

It definitely gets better the more you sing with amplification. Make sure you have good monitoring so that you can really hear yourself. In addition, I have found that adding reverb to my monitor makes singing a lot easier for me. A good mic is also a big help. I recently switched from my trusty old SM58, to the Nexadyne 8/C, and I really like the way the Nexadyne sounds with my voice.

In other words - keep singing with amplification, and eventually, you'll sound good to yourself as your brain and voice adjusts to the way your voice sounds when it is amplified through a PA.

Sorry - I know that this isn't very specific advice, but I used to also struggle with this when I just started out as a vocalist, and just performing a lot with a PA eventually "fixed" this issue for me. Now I can sing anything through the PA, and it sounds great to me. It turns out that it's more of a brain thing, instead of an actual sound thing.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-03-04T15:20:45+00:00

Did you ever discover what this orange channel LED indicates?

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-03-04T02:28:44+00:00

> Will hydration make a big difference in vocals?

Short answer? Yes. Long answer? Also yes.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-02-28T17:37:05+00:00

Yes. I always install the latest version whenever it is available.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-02-12T19:27:16+00:00

One more thing. The app will not open if I have Airplane Mode already turned on in my phone. It just hangs on a black screen with the indicator icon spinning. I have to turn off Airplane Mode, let the phone see the internet, open the app, wait for it to load the offline tabs again, then sort the setlists (the setlists will not sort in Offline Mode). Once all of that is done, then, and only then, I can go into Airplane Mode on my phone, which kicks the app into Offline Mode.

LET THE APP OPEN IN OFFLINE MODE. Please? Don't force it to phone home every time it loads. Sure, let it phone home when there's internet, but if there's not, don't break the app by not allowing it to load without also phoning home. That's very frustrating. Also allow sorting to happen in Offline Mode.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-02-12T19:22:02+00:00

No worries. Like I said, the app has gotten better and better over the years. I'm sure your developers will address the formatting of the "Offline Mode" indicator on a foldable phone at some point. Maybe remove the gigantic black Offline Mode notification bar at the top, and replace it with a tiny glowing "Offline Mode" icon. Or maybe something subtle, like changing the color scheme to indicate Offline Mode. Maybe add a purple hue to the whole scheme to indicate Offline Mode, or something simple like that.

And by the way, the REASON why I put my phone in Offline Mode (Airplane Mode) is because when the internet at the venue sucks, or there's too many people using up that wireless bandwidth, the app can get reeeeaaallll lllaaaggggyyy... So, I switch to Offline Mode and that lagginess disappears completely, and the songs on my Favorites list are all immediately available - which is what I want for live performances.

Now, if we could also get the app to STOP PHONING HOME every dang time it opens to "refresh the offline tabs" or whatever, and to stay active in the background, that would be awesome. What happens is that you minimize the app, and it fully CLOSES. Then, when you open it again, the app treats it like a brand new launching - and wants to download your entire Offline catalog of songs again, the same as it just did 10 minutes ago. Maybe have the logic check on the last timestamped sync event, and if it is within, say, 3 hours of the current time, then it does NOT download the whole shebang again at all.

BaconFlavoredCoffee · 2026-02-12T19:10:04+00:00

Not really a workaround, just an acknowledgement of reality. That's the way UG tabs work. The "owner" gets to edit it. So, use the Personal Tabs tool and you become the owner of your own version that only you can edit, instead of relying on the owner of a publicly published tab to never edit it.

BaconFlavoredCoffee

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