So a friend of mine who is a BL contacted me earlier in the week to do a cover gig at a beach bar. This BL will throw together a band on the fly to do simple reggae standards. I am typically his bassist, but the line up is always rotating amongst players in the area. When I got to the bar I asked him who the drummer was going to be for the night. He informs me it's X who we are both familiar with and have worked with. We are also both aware and have agreed that he is a horrible drummer. We start the first song of the night and it is almost immediately a total travesty. As the night goes on things don't get any better. At one point the BL turns to the drummer and asks that we pick up the song to a double time. The drummer then precedes to do a triplet "Dancehall style" reggae rhythm which essentially crashes the song into a ditch - we barely recover. The whole night is like this.
This whole thing made my blood boil for a few reasons. First of all his awful performance made the rest of us look terrible in return. I can only do so much to keep a train wreck rolling. Two songs tonight had to be stopped arbitrarily because he got so lost that he could no longer find the beat. Often times I get gigs with new BLs by meeting them and networking at gigs I'm doing for other BLs. If there was a potential BL looking for a bassist, I doubt he would have hired me based on the sh*t show I was involved with tonight.
The other thing that pisses me right the **** off is that there are practiced, talented, ambitious drummers in our area who have put time in to hone their craft and they are dying for work while this guy is taking gigs and totally cavalier about how terrible he is. It's almost a joke to him... I've talked to him in the past about his horrible performance, specifically not holding tempos during fills, and his response was to the affect of "Yeah, I don't bother trying to hold down the tempo in drum fills" ...!
Another point of contention is that this BL and I have talked and both agreed that this drummer is no where near talented enough to do these shows, yet here we are again.
Would I be out of line to let this BL know that I refuse to work with the drummer again? Would I be out of line to cancel a gig at short notice if I find out this drummer is booked again? I do 2-3 nights a month with this BL which is significantly more than any other, so I'm weary about being ham fisted with the way I handle this. I cannot go through another gig like tonight, though.
This whole thing made my blood boil for a few reasons. First of all his awful performance made the rest of us look terrible in return. I can only do so much to keep a train wreck rolling. Two songs tonight had to be stopped arbitrarily because he got so lost that he could no longer find the beat. Often times I get gigs with new BLs by meeting them and networking at gigs I'm doing for other BLs. If there was a potential BL looking for a bassist, I doubt he would have hired me based on the sh*t show I was involved with tonight.
The other thing that pisses me right the **** off is that there are practiced, talented, ambitious drummers in our area who have put time in to hone their craft and they are dying for work while this guy is taking gigs and totally cavalier about how terrible he is. It's almost a joke to him... I've talked to him in the past about his horrible performance, specifically not holding tempos during fills, and his response was to the affect of "Yeah, I don't bother trying to hold down the tempo in drum fills" ...!
Another point of contention is that this BL and I have talked and both agreed that this drummer is no where near talented enough to do these shows, yet here we are again.
Would I be out of line to let this BL know that I refuse to work with the drummer again? Would I be out of line to cancel a gig at short notice if I find out this drummer is booked again? I do 2-3 nights a month with this BL which is significantly more than any other, so I'm weary about being ham fisted with the way I handle this. I cannot go through another gig like tonight, though.
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