Within the last couple of months, a local band reformed with various new members, including myself, and my guitar player from my last project. New bands are like new relationships, they are always great at the beginning before the shine starts to tarnish.
As said, my friend, and former guitar player (we'll call him Bill) started with the new beginning of this group. While I have always enjoyed playing with Bill, sometimes new members don't fit the slot very well, which was the case here. The lead singer and drummer have many years working together, and have great 2 part harmony vocals. When a new member (Bill) joins, of course he always tries to make 3 out of 2, and crushes the vocal sound, and quality. Reliability has never been Bill's strong suit either.
We got together this past Monday @ 1:00. This had been the plan for several days, and every member was well aware of it. At 12:30, Bill calls asking questions he already knew the answers to. "Are we getting together today?" "What time?". Of course, he was out of town, and did not make it. We went on as a three piece with practice, and in a lot of areas.....it sounded better.
We decided to follow up practice with another one, which was on Tuesday. There was a previous member to this band, that the drummer has been pushing to bring back into the picture, so we called him and had him come over to try things out, and see how they went. We will call him Ted. The practice with Ted went okay, but he was somewhat unprepared, and his gear was crapola. A $100 Ibanez guitar, and a Peavey combo that is being borrowed from our singer, who also does some guitar duties in the band. We left the practice, and booked a freebie gig/practice at a local club for wednesday (last night). Keep in mind, at this point still no decision has been made on who the permanent member will be.
When I get home from work Wednesday, I have a nasty message from my friend Bill. It went something like this. "Thanks a lot for kicking me out and not even telling me, then going around talking **** about me behind my back" yada yada.
Confused, I give Bill a call to see what the deal was, I was pretty surprised seeing how as far as I knew, no real decision had been made......which is why he hadn't been informed at that point. Turns out, the new prospect, Ted had gone out the night before, and said a lot of things to Bill's friends, on why he is kicked out in favor of Ted. According to Ted, we got rid of Bill, because he can't learn his parts, holds us back. Ted also said that his wife is now going to be handling all the booking/managing of the band, which is news to me. Okay, so I am HOT about all of this, Ted IMO had no right to assume he was already a cornerpost in the band, much less have the nerve to speak badly about Bill like he did.
I called the singer up, and let him know the low down, he is also a friend of Bill's. He too was not happy.....we decided to have a bit of a band meeting after our gig/practice we were having that night. On one of the breaks, the drummer, Ted, and myself went out to get some air. Right out in front of the club, on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance, Ted Pulls out a joint and lights it up. The drummer and I give each other a funny look when he (drumemr) says "I gotta go get something to drink". I replied back with "yeah, and I need to not go to jail", and went inside. I informed the singer of the deal, and he said "well, that just got a whole lot easier".
After we were done, of course ted was a slacker, picked up his borrowed combo amp and left us to tear down and load up everything else. So, we didn't get to include him on it. We sat out front telling the drummer where we stand, and after this weekends gigs, we are oficially going to be a power trio. IMO, it sounded the best, and if three guys can cover it, and all get along and have fun, why mess it up with another guy, who is apparently a little short on common sense.
Oh yeah, while we were outside talking, we managed to get one of the club patrons to show us her boobs, so at least the night wasn't a total wash.
