Am I wrong here!

Borderline. Either way, he should have told you Tuesday or Wednesday.

You wasted two weeks preparing for an audition that never happened. They found someone. Had you auditioned you'd have wasted more time.

If the new guy doesn't work out and he contacts you again, I'd set up an audition and not show up if given the chance, no text, no nothing. Screw 'em.

That may be childish and unprofessional, but so what.

 

Pretty dopey they didn't have a decision about the Tuesday guy by Wednesday but whatcha gonna do? Kinda nutty to expect an audition after that b/s. I would have shrugged it off with "Ok, good luck!" and left it to if they came back to me to make myself no longer available.

 

Way to burn your bridges.

After sending that note, what do you think your chances are that they will ever call you? This sort of thing happens. I got my current gig like this. We really hit it off well and they offered me the position and cancelled a couple of auditions that they had set up.

 

Borderline, agreed. At the very least, it's impulsive. I once did this to someone, however, didn't get them to learn the songs, but managed to telephone him... Needless to say he was very enthusiastic when I said 'if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, would you be happy if I called you back'?

I think it's all about treating people with respect. End to the story is that guitarist I chose turned out to be unreliable and dropped out of the band 6 months later after a lot of investment and too much compromise.

My lesson: never, and i mean, NEVER be impulsive about auditions again. Take your time to get to know people.

 

Grab a BLT and try to be a bit more tolerant. That's how it goes sometimes... Good point above on "burning bridges" - yes, it could have been handled better, but you weren't owed an audition because you prepared. It's nobody's fault that Jaco Pastorius played before you, right?

 

You were wrong, not to them, but to yourself. You've burned that bridge, and probably any chance of them passing your number along when their buddy's band is looking for a bass player. Or if the other guy turns out to be a meth head in a week.

A better response would have been something like "Well, I'm disappointed I didn't get the chance to audition, but I'm glad you guys found a good fit. Keep me in mind if he doesn't work out".

 

Bridges
Bridges to nowhere are worthless. But the dude might call him back. Who wants to be called back by someone who treats you with disrespect?

Owed an audition
There was a verbal contract regarding the audtition. Nothing tangible, an audition, a chance; but, it was there, and the OP invested time in preparation, and never got what he prepared for.

Did the BL offer the OP compensation for his time? Of course not. He's a busy man with things to do, he has a band to run. He's so busy he gangtexted a bunch of cancellations, because his time is valuable and he has no regard for others' time.

I repeat, screw 'em.

Imo, it's more about treating people with respect, as someone else mentioned.

 

What would you do if he called you again?

 

That's just the way some bands handle openings. The band's trying to fill the spot with someone who can cover it. Once they find someone who fits and has the skills, they're done. And since it was a CL advert, the odds of them finding a winner in the next five people to audition would have seemed low.

Granted, it's too bad they didn't get to hear you, but once they have a good fit you can see why they might prefer not to spend 10+ hours auditioning another five players from Craigslist. That's why there's value in auditioning ASAP. Auditioning w/ 5 songs tomorrow > auditioning w/ 12 songs in 2 weeks. (The whole 12 songs thing suggests that they might not have a lot of experience auditioning players, but maybe that's just their somewhat odd preference.)

It also would have been nice if the band had contacted you on Tuesday, but sometimes band members don't get a chance to speak frankly right after the audition and it might take a day or two for them to come to a decision. Or there might be no good reason, and they're just flakes. You could get angry, but you'll run into so many flaky musicians that it's better for your health in the long run if you just realize their behavior isn't a personal attack on you.

 

Yeah, that's a bummer. And who knows...they might be missing out by not having you in the band but that's the biz as they say. My current band auditioned 5 bass players total. They really thought about going with one of the guys before me but decided to do all the auditions. I ended up getting the spot and they were glad they did all the auditions. I would have been bummed if they would have cancelled mine, but I would have understood too.

 

Really it kind of depends on what the scene's like where you live, and what you're looking to get out of playing.

If it's not a tight knit musical community (i.e. people talk), then it's not that important. If you're just looking to play a couple weekends a month, it's not that important.

If it's a "working pro" town like where I live, reputation is everything. Most gigs will come from referrals, and you don't want to piss off someone who's well connected, because then they bad mouth you to a few people, the hens start gossiping, and suddenly half the town thinks "unprofessional" when they hear your name. Right now there's a drummer in town who can't get a gig because he said something cocky on Facebook, someone called him on it, and drama ensued. Boom. Unemployed.

 

I feel for ya! Keep plugging away!

 

No, you're not. When we were holding auditions we flat out told everyone that we would have you out, regardless if we felt we'd found the person for the job just moments, hours or days before. That's the honest thing to do, and everyone we said that too was completely cool with that. As I said at the time if we've gotten this far, meaning calls, texts and a try out list of tunes, we MUST see it through, after all how will we, and you, the auditionee, know for sure unless you see everyone and they see you?
Play hard play fair and no one gets hurt, savvy?

 

Auditions are pure hell IMO and this happens. If a band has a fit and like the player they can and will pick them and cancel the rest. This has happened in more than one band I have been in.