Starting pay $34K+ per year plus benefits!

USAF Heritage of America Band annouces an audition for string/electric bass on Sep. 21st. For more information email band.auditions@langley.af.mil

Boy, spammers are bad enough, but Air Force recruiters have no class at all...

How so? He posted this as a legit ad in the regular part of the forum and it was removed. We even had a thread discussing it and speculating on why it was removed. It was mentioned in that thread that this would be more appropriately placed in the Classifieds forum...and here it is.

It seems to be a legitimate enough ad for the position.

I'm with Davio.
I don't see anything wrong with that ad.
They are not getting people to enlist in the band and then sending them to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The audition isn't easy.

I know a lot of people who have served in Army bands and never heard anything bad about it.

+1, I was in bands with a horn player and a guitarist who served, at different times, and my former luthier used to play horn with them as well. All of them said it was a very positive experience, musically.

Yes, the prior post was removed from the regular part of the forum before I got to it.

I indicated that it might be a better fit here. Now it's here.

This seems okay to me since it's advertising for what appears to be a legitimate gig.

However, I'm always more appreciative when folks who post here also participate in the forum discussions. I wonder if AF Bass Gig will show up as a discussant in our threads. I doubt it, but would welcome being proved wrong.

Peace.
--SW

Don't be so sure about that. I know of a few people that have enlisted (even before 9/11) and were promised a certain vocation, placed well on tests etc., only to be a regular grunt.
They are pretty desperate these days.

I too (shockingly) agree with davio.

I agree that this is the right place for the ad. I've seen the requirements for military musicians, and it isn't easy.

Hey Willie - you're a discussant.

Tom

This is a real job with benefits. How many that are professional bass players get benefits. I know people that have retired from military bands at at a young age and collecting their pensions and also are able to utilize the VA Medical Centers for continued health care. There is also a moderator of talkbass who has a military career who really enjoys it and is seeing a lot more of this world doing it.

Wally

I was in the Army Band and have quite a few friends that are still in. In fact, I almost went back in a few years ago. It can be a great gig.

As for the audition, I'm pretty sure the Air Force uses a tougher audition process than the Army, Navy or Marines. They don't send you to the Army/Navy School of music. Personally, I think it's a much better audition process and results in much better bands.

I was Air Force for four years, Navy for 2 1/2. I got nothing against the military. But it irritates me to see recruiters invading this site.

What they don't tell you is the Air Force Band is one of the hardest gigs in the world to get, promotion is the slowest of any AFSC(Air Force Service Code, basically the definition of an Air Force job) they have, and the easiest to get busted out of for real and imagined offenses.

But, the one thing is probably not a worry about the job is being posted to Afghanistan or Iraq for any sort of permanent party billet. You might tour the Middle East, but I think it's unlikely that Air Force personnel would be there, particularly Air Force Military Band people. Last I heard, the only bases the Air Force had in that part of the world were a couple mountaintop radar stations in Turkey somewhere, and because of budget cuts, new technology, etc. and so on, we may not even have them anymore.