jsut pulled hte plug on the bnad

[BeenDown139]

well it was fun for a while.  about 5 weeks to be exact.  the story arc goes something like this: dude answers my ad looking for a bass player becauase he's got committed gigs and he's pulling a band together.  so i pull out all the stops learn 13 pretty tough songs sweat out 4 really intense rehersals to play a set at basically a public band audition on the thursday the 24th at a venue in east denver. 

on wednesday the 23rd at 5pm, i'm literally hitting the stop button on the recorder videoing myself playing the whole set to make sure my chops are gonna be up to snuff when i get a text that the drummer got migranes and can't do the show.  so we're basically a no-show for our first gig in front of god and everybody.

5 days of complete silence on the band text thread waiting for status update. starting to get irate.  so today i send out a wtf text.  is we is or is we ain't?  turns out the drummer's gotta take a 6-week lay-in.  everybody else is gonna go back to their other bands in the meantime.  maybe we'll take this up again later.

so i said "see ya!".  i'm actually pretty steamed about it.  i've never bailed on a show.  never.  if we gotta go on without a drummer or one of the guit@r players, i can cover the bottom.  done it before.  i'll do it again.  in the meantime, about 4 other bands anwered my ad wanting to audition me, i turned them all down out of an apparent misplaced sense of comittment to this band.

so another failure to launch.  at least we got this one on the pad this time.  freaking musicians!

[pauldo]

Sorry to hear that. 

You being upset shows your passion for your art.  Don’t let this little set back throw you off the rails. 

[cozmik_cowboy]

I hate when that happens.

In '86, I got a call from the bassist in a band I'd done stage & monitors for; he was in a new band and the soundman (my former roommate & FOH for the former outfit) had to bail - did I want the gig?  Yeah, sure (I was out of the biz as a full-time thing by then).

They were a cover band.  The guitarist who put it together had insisted on a year of 5-day/week, 6-hr/day practice before they played out; they were tight.

Six months into it he gets a call from JBL (he was also an audio engineer); did he want to CA and male $75K per annum?

And that was the end of that band.

Peter (who at least had a straight gig, too, and thus was not as screwed as the talent)

[BeenDown139]

well it wasn't a total washout.  there's almost always an upside.  almost:

* got all the loose hardware shook outta the MKDeluxe.
* got a pretty cool high-volume, low-mass, jacked-up-artwork grille stage amp outta the deal.
* found out that "sweet emotion" sounds really good played on a fretless set up with flatwounds.
* found out that i acutally can play a flea bass line and pull it off (mostly).
*found out that despite my advanced old age and rapidily deteriorating body, i can still pound it out with a room fulla 40-year olds and walk out upright.

still kinda stings, though. i guess being the only committed guy in the room and the last one to know it put a little salt in it.

gonna pick myself up, dust myself off, put on a good stiff old fashined sunday-go-to-meeting buzz, meditate in the hot tub while it rains (again and again) and hit the bricks tomorrow.  wasn't the end of the world.

[JimmyJ]

Bummer.

But something better will come up and soon you'll be thinkin': "boy am I glad that first thing didn't go anywhere". 

Hang in there and keep playing every day to keep your chops up.  Then you'll be ready when some lucky band needs help in the low-end department.

Jimmy J

[lbpesq]

Bands are a lot like relationships, but with 4 or 5 people.   Problems are not uncommon.   But when you find the right one, it’s wonderful.  Keep looking, you’ll find something that works for you.  At least you aren’t a six-stringer competing against a million other guitarists.  Good bass players are more in demand.  And I still love your psychedelic speaker grills.

Bill, tgo

[rv_bass]

Their loss for sure, carry on, something better is waiting to be found…

[cozmik_cowboy]

Bands are a lot like relationships, but with 4 or 5 people.   Problems are not uncommon.   [snip]  And I still love your psychedelic speaker grills.

Bill, tgo

In my experience, it is a rare band indeed that doesn't have at least one member of the band inflicted with cranial rectitis - and the few that don't usually have at least one crew member who is.  A bass player who hired me to do sound for 3 bands (2 of which were so cursed) said of recording alone on his Porta-Studio: "The bad part is that there are no other musicians around.  The good part is that there are no other musicians around." 


And I still love the grills, too.


Peter

[gtrguy]

Why does it always seem that those band members who are the most picky and expect the most from others are often the first to bail.