Would you ever take Depp as a great muscian? Or forever, a one time A list Hollywood Actor?

My wife would say Matthew McConaughey always plays himself. But I disagree in a way ...

He can play a ridiculous stoner, romcom man-child, adventurous action dude, smart and cunning lawyer, ... etc.

But I think he is still playing aspects of himself in all those roles - so in a way they are all him. Jeff Bridges is similar. Depth based on self maybe?

Yeah many of his roles are kind of the same person in a different situation, but he's definitely had some very different ones too. He was quite good in the first season of True Detective.
 
i agree with this. but often he'll bring up talk about live gigs, for example. he'll ask for advice, we give it and he'll say things akin to "it's not like that" or "i wouldn't do that" etc. the advice was very basic, standard things.

but he hasn't done any gigs yet. that itself isn't the problem, but shunning advice or saying it's wrong from a standpoint of never experiencing a gig is off-putting and frustrating to deal with. suggesting to do a quick open mic or something very simple, low pressure, we are told he's going to work over the next 5 years on 20 songs and start gigging after those 5 years.

earlier in the year, i was actually cheerleading for him to at least perform on twitch - which he did a few times - to get some kind of experience where you have to keep going like a gig, yet from the safety of home with all your stuff and no real pressure... it's a livestream do whatever you want. i answered many of his questions and provided helpful insight. answered direct messages for the gear needed for streaming etc. he was cooperative and the advice helped him successfully stream.

some time after that though, his responses on the public forum were frustrating as i described above, and many of his recent threads were "this or that: discuss" traps where he already had an opinion formed ahead of time and then dropped it in the middle of the discussion, making the former posts a waste of time.

there's a definite "you need to be a rockstar to be a musician" angle in his view of music, and that's hard to break through in simple discussion. it always wins out during discussion of normal people doing music.

i have no judgment on his playing and videos, but they do reveal facts about current skills. earlier in the year, he stated he wanted to start gigging and doing what he does in the videos. it's just the guitar part of popular songs with no backing tracks or singing. with distortion and effects. at the beginning, a few of us were trying to steer him in a better (our opinion i guess) direction posing the question would anyone hire that type of performance? it's not typical - which could be a plus - but a bar or restaurant with a mid-range-only instrument with distortion just playing the guitar parts out of time (rubato) may not be anyone's cup of tea for entertainment. again, my (and other's) opinions.

then some push back started regarding our thoughts on that type of performance, so many of us fell off and stopped helping. sorta let him do what he's gonna do.

that's where some of the sentiment from a few of us comes from, history from previous experiences and discussions.

this forum is a wealth of information with very experienced professionals. to ask a question then say no to the advice - when you haven't done the thing you're asking about ever - is frustrating to witness. then a bevy of gaslighting posts... frustrating.


i think most of us want him to succeed. 20 years playing guitar is a good amount of time to be successful in some way. 5 years to learn 20 songs seems like too much before even trying a gig to see if it's something you want to do.

i hope he starts his twitch stream up again and does a consistent 1 day a week or something similar. he already has 1021 followers there with just a handful of short streams. the potential is there. the work has to follow.

All valid points Chris and honestly you've been one of the kindest individuals to me with respect to your help over getting me up and running on twitch seven months ago. To be honest, I found while twitch streams were easy to do once a week, juggling them with my ailing mother (living in another city) whose come to the last year of her life, where I'm helping my sister as a caregiver for her once a week (my father died last year and that took a toll on me and my family and my musical production), was very difficult to do while learning new material simultaneously. This is why I took a break. I do have new material now, I want to focus on getting some recorded first before I head back to twitch. No point doing a concert every week with only a handful of the SAME songs. Once I have like 20-30 or more songs I don't have to keep doing more and more recordings. I can easily do them in different orders, concerts by artist names like U2, hendrix etc etc, concerts by subsets of the music, concerts by slow music or fast music, concerts using only certain guitars, concerts for different occasions etc.

And now that I have the FM9T arriving I'll be busy with a new learning curve and new beast to incorporate into my arsenal. I'll have to decide how I'm going to attach both my AX8 and FM9T to my computer at home simulataneously, while not going crazy pulling and attaching plugs every single day from the laptop and monitors, the FAS gears AX8, FM9T, and also my FRFR units. I have a feeling I can't attach both and get 100% usuage without a lot of cable switching. How do you manage?

I have also tried to contact several companies for doing an open mic but no one replied back to me. That was about 5 days ago. I tried some music stores that have them where there is little pressure to get started. I will follow up some more. I can always use my AX8 for gigging and my FM9T for the studio. If I don't wish to delay my twitch stream much longer I can stick to using the AX8 there, as my skills with the FM9T improve over the next year or two.

I guess not all people can progress at the same speed and it's due to life factors, not just their talents. I talk more about this in my upcoming interview this November with the Press/Media. You can keep a lookout for the article on my website if you want to read my thoughts. It's going live later this month. I think by mid/late November 2023.
 
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Anyways this thread is not about me it's about Depp as a musician vs an actor. Carry on......
 
Well Bono was on The Simpsons so… :)

Speaking of Bono I’d love to see a certain person run for a major political position and Bono and Johnny do a duet of Heroes loaded with pelvic thrusts and crotch grabs and enjoy some popcorn as a decent chunk of the mindless masses rejoice.
 
All valid points Chris and honestly you've been one of the kindest individuals to me with respect to your help over getting me up and running on twitch seven months ago. To be honest, I found while twitch streams were easy to do once a week, juggling them with my ailing mother (living in another city) whose come to the last year of her life, where I'm helping my sister as a caregiver for her once a week (my father died last year and that took a toll on me and my family and my musical production), was very difficult to do while learning new material simultaneously. This is why I took a break. I do have new material now, I want to focus on getting some recorded first before I head back to twitch. No point doing a concert every week with only a handful of the SAME songs. Once I have like 20-30 or more songs I don't have to keep doing more and more recordings. I can easily do them in different orders, concerts by artist names like U2, hendrix etc etc, concerts by subsets of the music, concerts by slow music or fast music, concerts using only certain guitars, concerts for different occasions etc.

And now that I have the FM9T arriving I'll be busy with a new learning curve and new beast to incorporate into my arsenal. I'll have to decide how I'm going to attach both my AX8 and FM9T to my computer at home simulataneously, while not going crazy pulling and attaching plugs every single day from the laptop and monitors, the FAS gears AX8, FM9T, and also my FRFR units. I have a feeling I can't attach both and get 100% usuage without a lot of cable switching. How do you manage?

I have also tried to contact several companies for doing an open mic but no one replied back to me. That was about 5 days ago. I tried some music stores that have them where there is little pressure to get started. I will follow up some more. I can always use my AX8 for gigging and my FM9T for the studio. If I don't wish to delay my twitch stream much longer I can stick to using the AX8 there, as my skills with the FM9T improve over the next year or two.

I guess not all people can progress at the same speed and it's due to life factors, not just their talents. I talk more about this in my upcoming interview this November with the Press/Media. You can keep a lookout for the article on my website if you want to read my thoughts. It's going live later this month. I think by mid/late November 2023.

Sorry to hear about your Mother and Father Adrian. I lost both of my parents before the pandemic. That is always a rough thing to go through and no matter what we are never prepared for it. Happy memories with them are what got me through.
 
I was thinking about some other actor/musicians (I know there are probably hundreds more) -
John C Reilly, Steve Martin, Jason Schwartzman, Micheal Cera..

I think only Schwartzman's band Phantom Planet is an instance where I heard of the musc, but didn't know they had an actor in the band. The rest I'd probably go see if they played near me due to the star power.

That said, it doesn't surprise me that actors/actresses can at least get up to "passable" musical talent. Typically the people that "make it" have a combination of luck, skill, and obsessive behavior or drive to get famous. They just apply those traits to music and exploit the connections they already have. I guess (like in the case of Keanu) who is exploiting who?
 
Whether I like it or not, I respect anyone whose willing to try a new skill. I have been guilty on the past of judging others due to my own insecurities or jealousy. I learned that I was only cheating myself of self growth.

Now, it just makes me happy seeing others support each other. We're a very small community in the industry. If he helps us bring more eyes and interest, win win for us!
 
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