Sub rotation doesn't want to end!

I got a weekly gig for 12 Saturdays at a bar next to a fancy hotel - July through September, which means vacation season. It looks like it'll be week 7 before we play with the same lineup twice in a row. Hopefully. Maybe.

Week 1 guitarist/signer announces he doesn't want to play there. So, week 2 we get a sub guitarist who should be available until week 9 but doesn't really want to play with us long-term. Weeks 3-7 our lead singer is in Cuba, so week 3 is the sub guitarist and sub singer. Then our cajonist heads somewhere in the Balkans weeks 4-5. Week 4 (today) was me, sub guitarist, sub singer and sub cajonist.

Then after the gig the sub singer tells me she forgot that she'll be gone next Saturday. That's not cool. She offered to get us another sub, since she gives voice lessons and knows plenty of singers, but I really don't want to teach another singer all these songs, so I just told her to instead set me up on a date with one of her students who's supposedly a lousy singer but is gorgeous. So, week 5 we'll probably just do songs the sub guitarist can sing... not sure yet. Week 6 our regular cajonist and the sub singer are back, so it'll be the week 3 lineup again.

Finally, in week 7 we should have the same lineup as in week 6, barring unforeseen whatever. Then 8 and 9 should be the week 2 lineup again, and 10-12 our sub guitarist will be in Italy so we'll need to do something else... might get the sub singer to play keys (and try to talk her into joining us permanently) and let our singer play guitar on half the songs or whatever.

I guess this is not that unusual for cover bands, but 2/3 of our songs are in languages few people in this country speak, and we already had to temporarily drop everything in Portuguese except "Ai se eu te pego"... that makes getting subs more annoying.

But maybe the real question is, why always me playing every week while everybody else gets to rotate in and out?



Well, I do occasionally have that same hairstyle, so maybe that's why always me.

 

Ha, sort of. I refuse to take vacation time in August because all the important people in my day job are gone now, so I get some peace and quiet.

 

Yeah, a cajon is that wooden box thing... seems much more common in Poland than in the US. With this band we either do cajon and DB or electronic drums and BG, depending on how dance-oriented the gig is.

It does seem to be just the way working bands operate sometimes, especially during summer vacation. But getting a 12-week run and not being able to field the same lineup twice in a row until week 7 is kinda funny.

No complete trainwrecks yet, but I did end up having to pretty much sing lead on one song and play DB arco at the same time last week because the singer didn't quite know it yet.

 

Well, our regular singer should be back from Cuba tomorrow. Hopefully she won't be too jetlagged on Saturday.

So, yeah, it's not really getting any less crazy yet, is it?

 

Update: regular singer came back last night, woke up around 4 PM today, didn't realize it was Saturday until I asked her if she's singing today, and she said she could do it if she really had to, but would rather not if the sub can make it.