[Jeffrey]

Make sure you keep up to date with the information posted here. A subscription is recommended.

CGR understandably attracts a large number of musicians with projects, and we're excited to have a place where we can discover each other's creative endeavours.

Feel free to start a thread (ONE ONLY, all extraneous threads will be closed, deleted or merged at the mod's disceretion) about your band, solo project, Soundclick page, etc. Don't forget the obvious tidbits! Tell us where you're from, what styles you play, and where we can get ahold of your music (website or otherwise).

Let's keep this thread free of cheap posting! I'd hate to see great information on cool bands lost in a sea of unnecessary posts!

And since this forum will attract a good number of first-timers letting us know about their bands, let me be the first to welcome those folks to CGR and encourage them to stick around! CGR has a lot to offer!

[Opie]

Make sure you keep up to date with the information posted here. A subscription is recommended.

We've had a few complaints about the lack of interest in certain materials lately, so addressing that:

The point of this forum is to shamelessly pump your band...to get hype going because let's admit it...Not too many people are going to do it for you...If noone comments on your material wait a while and come back and bump your thread and see if anyone is interested then...As a mod in this forum I'll make a concious effort to make sure that none of the music posted here is unheard but I can't promise that for everyone else...

So shamelessly plug for your band! Heck, I do! But don't complain! Let's make this an enjoyable forum!

[the flamingo]

What this forum is NOT for:
- Trying to find members for your band
- Looking for bands to join

Here's why: It goes in the regional forums. Yes, it might not get as much traffic, but if you think about it, people on CGR come from all over the world. What are the chances that someone in your area will find your post in CGR Members' Bands and decide to meet up with you? The chances are very slim. The regional forums are narrowed down by region, so there's much more of a chance that you would find someone close to you. I've also noticed that a lot of you that post these don't even mention the state--people don't have ESP, and if you don't have it in your location, how is anyone supposed to know for sure?

Also, if you are looking to join a band... doesn't it just makes more sense that you would look in regional? Because you don't want to know about a band you could join on the other end of the country, it doesn't help you any.

- Telling us that you have a band with no physical evidence

Here's why: It's great you have a band, really, but what are we supposed to talk about if you have no music, no website, and in the very early stages of having a band? There's really not much to go off of at this point. Please, if you don't have anything to listen to, don't bother. That is the point of this forum--hearing the different bands here on CGR.

- Asking for critiques on lyrics/recordings

Here's why: This is not the place for it! If you want people to read your lyrics and tell you what you should change or their opinion, it goes in the Songwriting forum. If you want people to critique your recording, there is also a Recording forum in the same category as the Songwriting forum.

- Band Name Threads

Here's why: It ties into telling us you have a band with no physical evidence. This forum is for the bands of CGR members. If you're looking for a name for your band, posting a thread in this forum is useless. Most people don't seriously contribute names because it's a silly thing to ask of people. If you want to get a band name, come up with it yourself or ask your friends. For your convience I've made a single, official band name thread for you all to post ideas and discuss them in, but please. If you post any other band name threads, I'm just going to delete them, because merging a bunch of people asking for requests is kinda awkward for a thread's movement.

- Posting multiple threads about your band

Here's why: Inevietably, threads will die after people stop posting in them, so if you post updates about your music, what's going on in your band and shows, they will quickly filter to the bottom of the barrell where nobody will read them. However, if you keep updating the same thread, those who are interested in your band will keep up with it and have access to all of the information you and others post about your band.

- Posting standalone threads about shows your band is playing

Here's why: Our first reaction will to send it to the appropriate regional forum, so if you want it to stay in CGRMB, do us a favor and post it in your thread. The reason why is that there are all sorts of people that post in the CGRMB forum that come from all sorts of places, so what is the chance that you'll be able to get people to come to your show in the amount of time that your single post would stay afloat? Simply put, CGRMB is not well suited as an advertising tool to get people to your shows. My suggestion would be to include your location in the thread name so if people are looking for bands in a certain location, they could easily find them. If you'd like to change the name of your thread, pm one of the mods and we'd be happy to change it for you.

- Spam

Here's why: If you join CGR with no intention to become a member then you are only taking advantage of our resources. It's not that we do not want to welcome new people into our network, it's just that we don't want a bunch of random people spamming our forums to solict visits to their website/music page. What looks suspicious to us is if you have only one post and if people reply to your thread and you do not respond after a fair amount of time. Threads such as these may find themselves closed. If you don't want this to happen to you, check out some other threads in the forum and make your presence known or PM one of the mods and let us know that even though you don't have any more posts, you would like to become a contributing member of CGR. If you believe we closed your thread in error take it up with one of the mods and we will happily re-open it. Just understand that the line between spam and newbies can be quite a blur when only one or two posts are involved (especially if the same post is cross posted in other forums).

This may change/be added onto as I and the other mods see fit.

Thanks for your interest in CGR Members' Bands, but hopefully if we better define what this forum is for we won't have to move as many threads.

What this forum IS for:
- Telling us about your band

Here's why: So we can listen to your music and maybe give you feedback and fans!

- Promoting a service to help said bands

Here's why: If people are making threads talking about how they'd like to interview bands for a magazine or put them on an internet radio station--that's all more ways to get your band out there. If it becomes too much, perhaps we could create a sub forum for all those inquires but as for now it is fine.

- Talking about CGR Member's Bands!

Here's why: So, one of the band members has posted their music and a little bit about themselves... now you need to respond! Let them know what you think! This is the perfect place to do it, it's why it was created .

[fiveminuteplan]

I've been posting in this forum for a long time now, since its inception. I've posted in alot of threads and read almost all of them, and I'm starting to see an alarming trend crop up. There is alot of pride and bickering getting involved in thread after thread on here. There's also alot of people just taking things too seriously. Honestly, when they started this forum, it was always in the back of my mind that this could\would happen.

I've been in a band long enough, played enough shows, and been to enough battle of the bands competitions to know that all musicians have a natural inclination to think that they're better than everyone else on the planet, rightly or wrongly. I could say hey, we're all Christians here and should rise above that; and that's definitely a reason to stop. But, I'm not going to say that, I'm going to say that we should stop because it's just stupid. So what if someone says something negative about your music? I really don't see what difference it makes. So many people have said so many negative things about my abilities in music that I couldn't tell you all of them. So many people have told me that I suck as a singer and that I should give up, but that doesn't mean anything to me anymore. Here's a review that someone wrote about our CD once:

Yeah, I should have made this a while ago to warn you all to not buy this album. Ignore the cheap price tag. This just wasn't worth it at all. I hope this band realized they sucked and broke up already.

The problem with this forum, as opposed to somewhere like Garageband.com is that when someone reviews your music, you have the ability to go right back and review theirs. This can tilt your perception of their songs, if they gave you some negative comments. You'll go into their music intentionally looking for problems. You'll have the tendency to be like "Psh, this isn't that good, I'm better than this. I don't know what this guy\girl is talking about."

My advice to everyone is to just not take ourselves so seriously anymore. If someone critiques your music and you don't like it, don't write a five page retort as to why they're wrong. They're not wrong, music is subject to the whims of opinion. Please don't mention their music in your thread either, I can't stress that enough. That's crossing the line. One person in particular did it today, but it could have been anyone. I knew it was going to happen eventually though.

So everyone, please chill. I don't want to see this forum closed.

[the flamingo]

I completely agree. Stickied.

[Mr.Zachcore]

Also, remember that when someone critiques you, it is not an attack on your person. There is no need for what has been happening lately and it all seems extrememly childish.

There is a lot of good that can be had in theis forum if it is used correctly, let's aim that way.

[ResonatorSphinx]

I think it just a matter of time before human nature to be absolute jerks came into power. Thanks for catching it and trying to fix it. Though I haven't here as long as the moderators have, i don't want to see anything bad happen to this place either cause it's been very good to me. Thanks again and God bless.

[the flamingo]

Attention, attention! From hereforth all band name suggestion threads shall be merged into the Official Band Name Thread.

[the flamingo]

I'm getting sick of people not listening, so from now on, if you people don't follow the simple rules we have outlined, your threads will get closed and deleted. Also, I'm not going to merge band name threads anymore. From now on they are just going to be deleted. It's a hassle to constantly merge threads. If you aren't going to do things right the first time, then you will learn quickly :P