There's an even bigger problem where I'm at. Bands only seem to be looking for drummers and singers. They usually already have guitarists. It's like trying to find a girl at a sausage fest. It doesn't matter how good you are either, bands don't seem to care.

Down here in Houston everybody is wanting to play Red Dirt country, which is essentially a twangier version of that crappy pop country that's played on the radio. I can play country all day long if it's the old 50's - 70's country,

It's a lot of really bad cover bands wanting to relive the 80's, and that's just not my thing. Sure, I've spent a lot of time trying to sound like the guitarist that I'm covering, but that was only to increase my pallet of sounds.

Because my music tastes are so broad, I have developed an odd style that doesn't belong to a single genre, and I think it would be a crime to waste that in a cover band.

I'm not against playing other people's songs, but most cover bands just play what was top 40, years ago. I'm a b-sides man, with a love of folk songs, jazz standards, blues standards, country standards, and anything else that excites me musically. I don't feel that I am a good songwriter, which seems to be all an artist is judged on these days, but I come up with some interesting melodies and different ideas. I think it is sad that musicians have to be songwriters anymore. Sinatra, Elvis, Crosby, and many others didn't write their own music, but they were highly respected.

It seems like after Bob Dylan, everybody had to be a songwriter.