Before my current band, my old drummer and I were trying to start up a band to play some gigs over Spring Break in our town. We are a big party town that week by the way. So that March we put out an ad for a singer and or guitarist. We had some strange luck:

Applicant #1-
This guy was dressed in a pair of nuthugger, Wrangler cowboy jeans, a leather jacket, and a cowboy hat. Oh yeah, boots too. He was carrying a 12 pack of Budweiser. He asked if we wanted some beer. Then he said that he only had 3 left and that he had drank the rest on the way over. We started getting ready to jam. He busts out with some Tim McGraw. I told him to hold on and can that **** real fast. I told him this is a rock band. He then started playing Jailhouse Rock by Elvis, while thristing his hips. He was canned.

Applicant #2-
This woman comes over claiming to be a music profesor from some college up north. She is a 300 pound lesbian (no offense to any 300 pound lesbians out there). She told us her name was Queen of The Netherlands. She wouldn't have been better off in a viking hat and shield. We booted her operatic ass out.

Applicant #3-
This guy was a great guitarist. After we nailed our set down he told us that he was too nervous to play live.

The idea was killed.

i remember going to an audition once about 6 or 7 years ago. the guy had heard about me from some friends, and he got in touch with me. i told him what i played, instrument wise, and the kind of music that i played, and he said "that's great, we want to be a progressive-style band".

so i go with my unlined fretless 7 string bass, and they look at me like i'm a nut. i play with the drummer, he had the time keeping ability of your average guitarist ;), but we struggle through some jams and then they want to jam on their songs. well, i play along - it was like the usual 80's new-wavey pop (translation - music the lead singer hoped would lead to copious amounts of teen-age poontang inspite of a spreading bald spot - yeah right) and then they tell me they'll let me know, although they imply that i need to play a "real" bass (something by fender no doubt :rolleyes: ). i say that's cool, don't worry about it, i don't think the "music" (such as it was) was for me. we say goodbye and i figured that was that.

then they call me back :rolleyes: it ended up being bad - i had to tell them slowly - "read my lips - you guys suck".

then again, they've since put out a couple of indie cds, so maybe i missed my big chance :rolleyes:

the woes of drummers
i was in a blues/r&b band
we adidtioned the first drummer who was great, if we were a rush cover band. kind of hard to play funky broadway or stormy monday with so much activity going on behind ya.
or next audition was the prize, he set up his drums and i couldn't tell if they were heavy or he just had a hard time standing. we played 2 songs not to bad, he said "i have to run out to my car for a second" and it all became clear.
in his hand was a fifth on peppermint schnapps with about half of it gone. so we shrug it off and keep playing but the drums keep stopping, so finaly i turn around and the drums keep stopping because he has to have another sip.
so finally the guitar player get pissed and says gee i am going to take a break does anyone want to joing me up stairs?
i just sat there ignoring the drummer and playing scales, then about 5 minutes later he i hear snoring, so i look over and there he is head on the snare, arms on the cymbals
every couple of minutes he would snore a little louder and push his feet a little further behind him. and yes you can probally perdict what finally happened, he fell over the drum set, he looked pretty funny drunk, and sprawled over his drums set looking very surprised,
and yes we hired him. . . just kidding

I can top all that, hands down.

We had a guitar, drums, and bass, kind of jazz/soul jam band thing going on for awhile. I placed an ad for a singer. This girl calls us, we talk on the phone, she says she comes from a musical family, both parents are musicians, she's sang lead in her high school musicals, "back when she was in high school", and also plays guitar and some keyboards. I tell her that we don't have any material for her to sing, that we would encourage her to bring her own stuff, and we'll also try to create as we jam. She said that that was no problem, she had plenty of stuff to bring.

She shows up wearing this porn star shirt (far from), and I'm quickly realizing that when she said "back in high school", she meant LAST WEEK. No problem, we decide to give her a chance. We tell her we'll start out with something easy to warm up to, how about "Autumn Leaves."

"What's that?" is her response.

We ask if she has anything with her that we can play. She says no. We ask what kind of music she wants. She says she doesn't know. We ask what she listens to, she says everything. We ask what popular vocalist she compares herself to, she doesn't listen to the radio. We ask if she knows any covers, we'll wing it. She says, "Eight Days a Week." YES! Progress. We play it. She remains silent throughout.

Here's the gem. We decide on a chordal structure, and start improvising a jam, as we encourage her to write off the cuff lyrics, we don't care what they sound like, we just want her to sing...anything! She writes about 3 lines of fluff that Britney Spears would reject. So, our drummer, writes some lyrics that fit the rhythm, and we encourage her to improvise. She stares and them blankly until we finish the song. We ask her what was wrong, if she liked it or not, or what. Here's the kicker.

"It's okay. I'm just not good at figuring out how to sing them. (SHE TOLD US THAT'S WHAT SHE DID!). Can I take it home and show my Dad?!"

3 jaws literally dropped to the floor. You could have heard a fly fart. It was dead silent. We thanked her for her time, shook her hand, and said goodbye.

To everybody on this thread,Did you see the movie: Single White Female? I hope you guys haven't tried the personal ads.

I kinda liked Gruffpuffy's story about the drunken drummer. Any stories dealing with drugs and alcohol are great.

My first band, as a teenager, 80's prog metal, looking for a second guitarist.

Applicant #1 - Rich 13 year old kid with Jackson Rhoads guitar and Laney full stack(our lead guitarist played through a 20 watt combo). Real snob, wanted to do originals but had never written anything, hand him charts for some of our originals, tell him to listen and then jump in when he's ready, he listens through 3 of our songs, we ask him if he's ready, and he says 'You guys are too heavy.' HE later joined a Poison cover band.

Applicant #2 - 30 year old prima donna who has this big background in theory and also supposedly has perfect pitch:rolleyes:. He has a Brian May Guild, all he can do is talk about what a great guitar it is, and he knows 1 lick(apparently anyway) - the intro riff to Spirit of Radio. Every song we play, he listens for about 4 bars(chart in front of him as well) and then cranks the amp and starts playing the Spirit of Radio riff.

Same band, 6 months later, looking for a singer. A guy that I worked with said 'Oh. I can sing. I like Stryper and Dokken.' The few covers we did were Stryper songs and 1 Dokken song. We invite him over, start into 'Free' by Stryper, verse starts, and he starts singing the lyrics with the most drawly, southern hick accent you have ever heard.

The only 'singers' in my entire grade...and probably school take voice training lessons. Or something like that. Anyway, the first singer we had (and also the guy that wanted to get the band together) had the right kind of voice for stuff like Savage Garden covers, but that wasn't exactly the kinda stuff we were gonna be playing. We did Zombie & That Thing You Do, and as the crowd requested, an encore performance of Good Riddance.
Zombie sounded kinda weird, and the rest of us sorta decided from that point on that we didn't really want him as a singer...even though technically it was his band in the respect that he wanted to form it.
Anyhoo, the only other singer now is a new student, and his voice is more...I dunno, like Pavarotti (egad! Something I'm not sure if I spelled correctly! :p).
We're still going with us all sharing lead vocals except for me with permanent backing vocals, until we can find someone else who can sing for us. But only because we've had to sacrifice some of the guitar parts in some songs because one of the guitarists couldn't sing & play the entire song at the same time.

That entire post made sense, right?

About 5 years ago, I'm living in Orlando, FL (and now I am again :D), I get a call from this girl who heard about me from a friend of hers at a music store. She goes on and on about how good she (singer/guitarist) and this drummer she's playing with are, how they're ready to hit the clubs with a minimum of rehearsal, they've got 100+ tunes ready to go, just need a bassist. I'm thinking, "Cool, just what I'm looking for, a band that's ready to go right away", because I'm gigless and jobless at the time.

So I get directions to where they rehearse, it's all the way on the other side of O'do (if you don't know O'do, it's BIG in size, sorta like Los Angeles, all spread out), an hour or so away. Ask them for a short list of tunes they're doing, and she starts reading off tunes. I know about half of the first 20 she reads off, so I say " Ok, that's cool, I know I can play about 10 tunes right away, so we'll have an idea if it's gonna fly by then, right?".

That evening, jump in the car and drive over. Get to the address, and it's a run down dump of a house...great...sigh. They pop out of the front door, all helpful, grab my rig and drag it in....to a bedroom. Complete with bed, full drumset, and guitar rig. Oh boy. Well, I made the trip, and you can't judge a book by it's cover, so, let's roll.

Unfortunately, LURCH was more like it! :rolleyes: The drummer didn't even have the time sense of the average guitarist (take THAT JT! :p), and the guitarist/singer.....well......wasn't really EITHER. We attempted to stumble through "Plush" by STP, the drummer changing the tempo every half bar, and the guitarist/singer playing all the wrong chords while singing the wrong words out of tune. I just played straight through, right notes and in time, and let them try to keep up. It was PAINFUL.

Tune ends, they're yelling "Yeah!!! That was great!!! Let's do another one!!", as I'm unplugging my bass and starting to pack up. They notice that I'm not only not excited and smiling, but I'm putting my bass back into the case, and get a bit upset (understandably, but...:rolleyes: ).

I attempt to politely explain to them that it's nothing personal, but I just don't think they're "ready for prime time", and that I can't see myself devoting the necessary time and effort to their project at this point in my life. I REALLY tried not to come off as an arrogant ass, but they were especially snotty about it :(. Followed me out to my car, giving me crap about how they were going to be rich and famous while I was gonna be delivering pizzas.

Punchline: About a year later, I was hanging with a friend at a small recording studio, doing some tracks, we decided to order a pizza......hehehehe.....and you guessed it, the girl delivers the pizza!!! :D I made SURE to give her a BIG tip!!! I didn't have to say anything, the look in her eyes was enough, she knew....but after she was gone, I told my friend the story, and he didn't stop laughing all night.

yikes, gard. :eek: oh well, she was just delivering pizzas between tours, right?

Another story I forgot to tell you was a time when I was the appilcant. This is not unlike the story of Gard. I went over to this dude's house who was supposedly a singer and a guitar player. Well, the jackass sits there for about an hour talking about how confident he is in his playing and that he knows hes going to come across as cocky when we start playing. He tells us about all the people who think he is so great and how he deals with being praised all the time. I'm sitting here wishing this son of a bitch would just shut the hell up. He goes on and on and on about all the people who want to record him solo and whatnot. The other guitar player exscused himself to the phone and proceded to make a drug deal. I kid you not. The drummer is sitting over there half asleep. Then he starts rambling on about him being in some honor band in middle school. This is getting totally ridiculous at this point. Anyway, we go on to play a few covers, and to no ones supirse I hope, they sucked.

And that reminds me of one too.. I hadn't been thinking about times that I was the auditioner..
I had played a couple of times with this guitarist/singer, he was marginal at best but I had nothing else to do. (This was about 7 or 8 years ago so I wasn't exactly the duck's nuts either.) Anyway, one day he calls me and says "Hey, go to this guy's house with me.. he's a guitar player and says he has some songs." I figure, OK, why not? So we go, and it's in a REALLY run-down part of town. The house looks like it's about to fall apart. We knock, and the door opens by itself, falling off one hinge in the process. This guy appears, smells like he hasn't showered, oh, EVER, dressed from head to toe in black, and chains. There is garbage all over the floor, and scattered among it is various parts of plastic baby dolls. Anarchy posters all over the walls.
He's nice enough, gives us a beer, plugs in this awful looking guitar and starts wailing while playing the most god-awful stuff I could imagine. I try to follow along but I can't even tell what key he's in. I look at the other guy and he actually seems into it!
After about 15 minutes of this, we left.

About 15 yrs ago I was in this country/top 40 band and the female vocalist left so we auditioned for a replacement. This very nice looking girl shows up, has a decent voice but she's kind of shy and timid. We were gigging regularly and didn't really have time to help her develope a stage presence so the band decided to keep looking. I volunteered to break the bad new to her. I said "Lets go grab a drink and talk." I told her "We'd hire you, but I really like you and I'm afraid that might cause problems in the band." We dated for about 6 months. I left that band a week later to join the house band at a nice club and set her up with another group that I knew (and she actually became a very good front person). You know, I'll have to look her up and see how she's doing.

We had a really good girl singer up front, but she split for Phoenix for a good job as a technical writer. About six months earlier, some friends of mine were having lunch over at Islands, and during a conversation with the waitress, she mentioned that she loved to sing. My friends mentioned that they had a friend with a band (me), and got her phone number. When they gave me her number, I said, "Uh, cool. But we already got a singer." So I put the number next to my sink.

So our singer splits. I remember the number and give the new girl a call. She's real eager to come and audition, so I gave her a couple songs to know when she shows up. Oh, by the way, she's 20. We're 40ish and 50ish. So she comes to rehearsal with her boyfriend. Now, she's never been in a band before, but she was the prima donna singer in high school. Also, she had won a contest for memorizing 100 songs. So we do the first song. WHOA! She's good. REAL good. A little nervous, but excellent pitch, control and feel. So we invite her to join and she says OK.

Now, when she shows up the next week, the boyfriend's not with her, but she says, "He said you guys aren't bad, for a bunch of older men." She won't be forgetting that soon.

OK, she's been with us for almost a year now. She shows up early. Helps set up. Stays late. Helps tear down. Has not been a bitch one single time. Likes us. Never uses cheat sheets. Sings backups. Since then, she's started dating a guy who lives in the neighborhood where we practice. He helps set up and tear down.

I know, you're saying, "WAKE UP! You're dreaming, you pinhead." But no, it's all true. Our band has had over 10 different girl singers over the years, and she is by far the best of the bunch. So the bottom line is, they don't all suck.

Wow?!

here is another
the woes of singers
i could fill three pages with this one, even more that i could fill them with drummer and guitarist stories. singers are easy, with all the karaoke machines out there one ounce of drunken praise sends them our way with stardom in their eyes.
but the winner goes to this guy:
calls about an add we have for a blues based singer
we set up a time and date, he calls 2 days later to say he doesn't have a car, could we pick him up at the train.
no problem. the night we pick him up it is pouring out and he is standing outside leaning on the train station house that would keep him dry. i guess he felt his long trench coat was enough. we can see how this is going to go when we see him looking like a wet rat. we get back to our practice spot, let him dry up a little while we talk about the songs we do, we agree to start with back door man. we play it for a minute he never sings, we stop ask him what the problem is and he says he can't sing it without the guitar player playing the original guitar part note for note, we explain that we do the original version not the doors version.
his reply "do you guys know bohemian rhapsody"
it might be one of those you had to be there stories but every time he gets me my coffee at dunkin donuts i giggle

My band always talks about their former bass player and the stories make me laugh my ass off hard. They said for the few weeks he played with them, he would never reveal either his last name nor where he lived. He said he was hiding from the law for asaulting an officer. That tickles me pink for some reason.

gruffpup -

I try to eliminate jokers like that on the phone. Usually, I need to talk to the auditionee or auditioner for a half hour or so on the phone. I can get a good idea as to whether they're going to fit by then. I don't like to waste time with clowns and wanna-be's.

One of the bands that I am semi-involved with (meaning that I know everyone in it and help with set-up/tear-down at concerts) recently had their singer leave. ?He simply wanted to focus more on his job/girlfriend and not on the band. Hey, it's cool. We understand. A month later, the school's annual Battle of the Bands is going to be held. They need a singer. Another guy by the name of Jerry, who is as involved with the band as I am, says sure, he can sing for them. They already have their set list for the night up, and are past the point of practiceing together (I have never seen a band that has that much talent for sensing each others flow and beat. MAN, are they good.) So this means that Jerry never really practices with them. They are playing all covers, mostly Metallica-type stuff. Well, they get there, ready to do their thing, whne Jerry arrives. In black and chains. Well, it's his image, so it really doesn't matter.

This is the clincher. They start in on Paranoid, and instead of the higher-pitched Ozzy voice that most people angle for, he goes into this GWAR type deep growl, swallowing the mic. They are all looking at him like he has gone psycho, but keep playing. He is like that through out the entire show. Riuns their chances for the studio time, and kind of ticks off the band and some people in the audience. They really never forgave Jerry.

Rock on
Eric

hey Eric i have seen GWAR many times and not once did oderus swallow the mic.

funny how people call it a show that you will never forget but i keep going back

put some more stories up, im enjoying these thoroughly.

We had this guy come over to audition one time. He actually became a close friend of mine after a while. Anyway, he was pretty drunk when he showed up and on top of that he proceeded to pull out a joint and light it up by the open window. When it came time to jam, he was royally messed up. He also had 2 hearing aids that were not working properly. So not only was he drunk and high, he also couldn't hear anything we said. He walks over to plug his guitar in and kicks the leg of the computer table in. So, the computer and printer slide onto the ground. The guy turns around to pick it up and knocks over his beer onto the floor. He turns back around to ge the beer and knocks over the drummers high hat and snare. Keep in mind he had his guitar strapped on at this time. He was a mess. Just got a DUI 2 days ago actually.

One of the bands I play in part time plays dub bass/acid jazz at rave gigs. The band name is The Chicks See D**ks, (we're all guys and obscenity laws are tough in this part of the country). Some lady, (as we later learned), was in a restaurant and heard someone at the next table talking about us playing locally. Well, she thought they were talking about an all female band you, no doubt, have heard of in the U.S. with a very similar name. She got up from her table and got info. on how to contact us from the person to whom she was listening. When she called, the promoter who puts these raves on told her we wouldn't audition for her upcoming opportunity but that she could come and hear us. Well, she came to a rave where there were 1000+ people and it turns out she thought she was making a major score by getting The Dixie Chicks for her Junior League dance.

[Edited by rickbass1 on 11-27-2000 at 02:50 PM]

rb1

why not call yourselves "the chicksie dix".

written it doesn't look so bad and sort of mask its true id, spoken it conveys exactly what yall want.

tell me more about this band (either hear or via my email). i am intrigued by this thought of dub bass/acid jazz rave band. do you have a web site, and possibly mp3's. later

Originally posted by pierce
rb1

why not call yourselves "the chicksie dix".
tell me more about this band (either hear or via my email). i am intrigued by this thought of dub bass/acid jazz rave band. do you have a web site, and possibly mp3's. later

Pierce - First, your questions: We leave the name as it stands even though we could get into a little legal snarl if we had posters put on utility poles and some citizen joe got their panties in a knot over it. One reason is that the name has "brand value" in the rave community in this area, particularly in some midwest college towns. Secondly, the name has an "outlaw" or "subversive" appeal to the target audience. Raves in this area are usually spread by word of mouth. We haven't done handbills for a while. Otherwise, the odds are too high that cops will show up at the rave party. When the heat gets a whiff of one going on, they frisk people as they come in and eyeball them as they leave to see if they're wanged-out or amped on Ecstasy or what-have-you. Booze isn't a problem at all, (unlike the dance clubs where I play with another band), since most of the audience is drinking hyper-caffeine stuff like Kranko or vitamin cocktails. So the underground vibe of the name is a plus.

We don't have any mp3's available and I don't have a website, (I've seen too many personal websites and thought, "You ain't exactly fascinating. Who gives an excretement ?!?!"). However, if you go to http://www.e-sound.at music automatically starts playing which is identical to some of the goa ambient and drum n' bass stuff we play, except I use heavy reverb on that particular line. Or, look up Bill Laswell at http://www.music.lycos.com. We do some of his stuff and they have mp3 downloads available for a lot of his music. Laswell is the bassist who got me interested in this stuff in the first place. Bass Player has written him up, too.

As for the band and the types of music we do, such as goa ambient, psy-trance, drum n' bass, acid jazz (which is really a dirty word among the true believers since it's actually the name of a record label), and trip hop (which is the latest term they hate), from a bassist point of view it's sort of funk+disco+space music. If you crossed Parliament Funkadelic with early Pink Floyd, which is how I think of it, you've pretty well got it, or James Brown on PCP. The guitar is mainly jazz and funk chords, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, NO power chords, played in upper registers over a melodic bassline played fingerstyle, often with heavy effects, especially fuzz bass and echo or reverb. Slapping/popping/picking are turnoffs; "The sound is awesome, no crackling, no popping, no static, I love it," - "Electronic Control System" by EBN. The keyboards and synthesizers go about anywhere they want but need to restrain themselves from overplaying. Some of the bass registers they can reach are pretty awesome. As for stage presence, appearing "heavy," sullen, or studly is very thermal, uncool. Mainly, just have a good time and show it, shake your roogalator a little. I mainly like playing it for three reasons;

1. The money is decent, base pay + draw against the door, which is often 600-1,500 people @ $7-$10 a head. (2000-4000 is common in KC, St. Louis, and Manhattan, KS, which are day trips from this area).
2. The focus of the listeners is on the music, (besides how they look), not the lyrics or how close your covers are to the original versions. Since dancing is the norm as opposed to watching the band play, the bass and percussion are really the stars.
3. The freedom is immense. Very clean, very high volume is a requirement though. Being experimental is cherished as long as it's done with a musical design/intent instead of merely trying to see how weird you can sound. Ya can't groove to Kraftwerk.

You're in/near Dallas. You should check one out. They're usually way out in the sticks where there aren't any curfews or neighbors. Just ask the guy at the music store checkout with the Wookie, RAM Raiders, and Dub Assassin CD's in his hand.

[Edited by rickbass1 on 11-28-2000 at 03:17 PM]

rb1

i must admit, i always thought the bass on this type of music was the keyboard variety. i dig it though. im going to have to do some more research into it. thanks for the info.

Ok Not Exactly an Audition Story but one that sticks with me to this day.
We're playing in this small town about 2 hours from home and we've played there alot and have come to know the bar staff really well.
The DJ says he plays in a band and noticed that we did The Eagles "Take It Easy"
"How about letting me come up and sing it?"
So we figured Ok good DJ doesn't sound to far fetched that he could be a singer.
Keep in mind this is a Live gig
OH MY GOD !!!
Doesn't even come in to the song in the right place
and I've never met anyone who was Tone Deaf Until this guy starts singing.
So we all look at each other and try are hardest to get this over with.
After we're done he says " That was Great lets do another one"
Uh Sorry NO! GO SIT DOWN .
So let this be a lesson to any of you.
Let the Drunks and Posers stay in the Crowd.