How he handled it is separate than his priority, and many are slamming his "what" and not his "how."
I think the majority of time a conversation clears up much more than our "psychic" ability to "know" and although I may have done things differently, given the information at hand, he may have had these conversations several times before with his mates and thus his chosen solution was to handle it that way.
I simply didn't/don't have enough information to form an opinion on the "how".
The conversation was brief occurred via text when I was out of state. There was no previous mention of any issue regarding rehearsals.
Here's the second text, sent shortly after the one in my original post [edited only to protect the innocent]:
"When we first asked you to come on board, we made it really clear that we liked to get together every Monday. You also joined under the belief that [Other Band] was winding down. Since you've joined the band and got you up to speed, we've barely gotten together once a month and you've got a boat load of [Other Band] dates, and the later is good for [Other Band] .... Don't get me wrong. But this isn't what we signed up for. So I'm gonna start splitting gigs and rehearsals so that you don't have to rehearse as mush as we want to and we have someone else to cover gigs you can't do. I think that's only fair to everyone involved. So the April 8 I'm giving to Mike since he's available to rehearse this week and next. We should get together when you get back. Call me tomorrow"
I knew I would have no time to call so I sent a long, non-angry email, mentioned in my original post. No response so far.
It was never clear that we would rehearse every Monday. If that had been clear I would have politely declined the offer to join, as I had done with a previous offer from another band that wanted to rehearse twice a week until forever.
Other Band (not the real name, of course) was indeed winding down last year due to the bandleader's health. At the end of the year his health improved and he wanted to try for another year. I'm not going to leave the guy hanging. He's not young, a great guy, and I have been the only constant in the four years since I've joined. Everybody else comes and goes. Other Band bandleader books gigs. None have interfered with This Band booking.
If I weren't also in Other Band I would certainly be hunting for a second band. One gig a month isn't enough for me. (This is where my love of playing kicks in).
Here is the actual number of rehearsals by month since I joined This Band in late June 2015:
Jul - 3
Aug - 3
Sep - 1
Oct - 3
Nov - 1
Dec - 2 (I was away on vacation one Monday)
Jan - 3 (I may have canceled the 4th)
Feb - 2
Mar - 0 (I was on vacation two Mondays, had tickets for the Who on another and was nursing my dying cat for the third)
In this time we played just eight (8) gigs. My old band would do that in a month. They played two or three before my first gig in August with a sub as I had commitments to fulfill. They have not subbed for me since my first gig.
Looking at my calendar, I
may have canceled one rehearsal to have dinner with my daughter the night before she moved permanently out of state, though I think our keyboardist did the actual canceling. More on that later. My vacations would have prevented three other rehearsals. I see nothing out of line here. Certainly nothing to indicate I am not reliable.
Our keyboardist sometimes works late and has canceled several rehearsals - probably more than everyone else combined, though I don't have exact numbers. Part of my response to Bandleader was to ask him if he's replacing the keyboardist, too. (For the record, I have no issue with Keyboardist canceling. Life happens).
I'm not interested in a platoon situation on bass, as if I'm a rookie shortstop competing for my job. Other Band is already like that - three rotating drummers and frequent subs on guitar, vocals and sometimes keys (and it's my job to keep everybody together on stage).
