Closing the book on another band...
Last night I parted ways with the new band I joined a couple of months ago. I told them that I just couldn't be relied upon to make it to our twice-monthly practices because I might have to run off to do temp work. Yeah, it was a half-truth. I did, in fact, miss Sunday's practice due in part to filling in as Kosher Supervisor at Little Israel in the morning. But I had a few other issues, too.
There were some conflicts with my religious beliefs going on. Right now, during a time of year known as The Counting of the Omer, we're supposed to be partly in a state of mourning. One of the things you avoid while mourning is live music. It's permissible to play if there's gigs and money involved, but this band had no gigs in sight at all, so I had to come up with a plausible excuse to explain missing practice. I would have been straightforward about the religious issue, but it would have been an insult to them because they probably don't understand how not ready for the stage they are. Better not to insult them.
The other issue was one of competence. I'm not used to being the best musician in the band, but in this case, I was. I'm not trying to sound arrogant, I just was. The drummer was fine and we got along well. The rhythm guitarist was poor and his lead vocals were awful (In deference to him, he knew this and they were actively recruiting vocalists). The lead guitarist was insufferable. He had at least ten really expensive guitars and a really expensive amp that plugged right into a laptop computer which fed him instructions for playing each cover tune note for note and he still couldn't do it right. What made it worse was his insistence on blaming others for his mistakes. When he blamed me, I very graciously explained to him what he had done wrong and how to fix it, going as far as to play the exact guitar part on my bass and he still couldn't get it. The straw that broke the camel's back was when he tried to blame his feedback problem on the drums. The drummer and I laughed in his face and suggested he check the positioning of the leaf-blower in the back of the garage while he was at it. He was clearly having feedback issues because he didn't know how to position or adjust his amp. Sad.
The last practice I attended was spent trying to record us playing "American Girl" by Tom Petty. Not only was there no point to us recording, but the whole session was marred by the leader's inability to use or set up the recording equipment. He finally sent us an MP3 the day after the practice and said in his email it was "surprisingly good." It was so painful to listen to that I feared Tom Petty would call me up and ask me never to play his song again.
Bottom line is that I feel relieved that I'm no longer with the band and I'm also relieved that I was able to bow out gracefully and remain friends with the members. They are very nice guys and I wish them well.
In the meantime, I can focus on the reunion gig for Moonshine Revival, which is official! We're getting paid pretty decent money for it, too. Consider me pumped. My Moonshine Revival bandmates are all-time favorites in my book and I can't wait to make music with them again!
There were some conflicts with my religious beliefs going on. Right now, during a time of year known as The Counting of the Omer, we're supposed to be partly in a state of mourning. One of the things you avoid while mourning is live music. It's permissible to play if there's gigs and money involved, but this band had no gigs in sight at all, so I had to come up with a plausible excuse to explain missing practice. I would have been straightforward about the religious issue, but it would have been an insult to them because they probably don't understand how not ready for the stage they are. Better not to insult them.
The other issue was one of competence. I'm not used to being the best musician in the band, but in this case, I was. I'm not trying to sound arrogant, I just was. The drummer was fine and we got along well. The rhythm guitarist was poor and his lead vocals were awful (In deference to him, he knew this and they were actively recruiting vocalists). The lead guitarist was insufferable. He had at least ten really expensive guitars and a really expensive amp that plugged right into a laptop computer which fed him instructions for playing each cover tune note for note and he still couldn't do it right. What made it worse was his insistence on blaming others for his mistakes. When he blamed me, I very graciously explained to him what he had done wrong and how to fix it, going as far as to play the exact guitar part on my bass and he still couldn't get it. The straw that broke the camel's back was when he tried to blame his feedback problem on the drums. The drummer and I laughed in his face and suggested he check the positioning of the leaf-blower in the back of the garage while he was at it. He was clearly having feedback issues because he didn't know how to position or adjust his amp. Sad.
The last practice I attended was spent trying to record us playing "American Girl" by Tom Petty. Not only was there no point to us recording, but the whole session was marred by the leader's inability to use or set up the recording equipment. He finally sent us an MP3 the day after the practice and said in his email it was "surprisingly good." It was so painful to listen to that I feared Tom Petty would call me up and ask me never to play his song again.
Bottom line is that I feel relieved that I'm no longer with the band and I'm also relieved that I was able to bow out gracefully and remain friends with the members. They are very nice guys and I wish them well.
In the meantime, I can focus on the reunion gig for Moonshine Revival, which is official! We're getting paid pretty decent money for it, too. Consider me pumped. My Moonshine Revival bandmates are all-time favorites in my book and I can't wait to make music with them again!