Spudman
December 4th, 2008, 10:41 AM
After dealing with "Mr. I'm Too Lazy To Learn My Parts" bass player, the drummer and I are in Heaven.
Some of you might not remember my other posts about the guy that just couldn't, wouldn't and made excuses to not get it together. It was a seriously stupid deal where the bass player took absolutely no steps toward learning or rehearsing his parts. Almost 6 months later he cannot remember keys, writes nothing down, and cannot remember changes. I gave him every opportunity to get it together. He never did.
Our drummer recently introduced me to the nicest guy who started playing with his church band. Gary had recently come out of retirement after being on the road for years and started getting back in shape by playing at church just 3 weeks ago. We had him over 2 weeks ago to try him out. He was rusty but willing and easy to get along with and eager to play again. I told him he had the job and I would get the material onto a CD and give it to him. Only thing is we needed to find a real place to rehearse.
Over 2 weeks passed and I had no contact with him and we had no place to rehearse either. At the end of that first tryout I gave him my master song list with all the keys. In spite of not getting material from me he downloaded and learned almost everything on the list and made notes and a note guide sheet for comments as we rehearsed the material.
We got together last night and everything flowed very nicely. There were a few minor corrections but it was largely a breeze. We are booked for New Years and the club that hired us has a secured, locked, access limited, heated, soundproofed and well lit rehearsal space in their basement they are letting us use in exchange for a couple of gratuitous gigs. So basically a rent free rock and roll vault.:AOK: We'll be getting together late morning through early afternoon for the next 2 weeks to get the material tight. I'm sure we'll be adding new material as well not only because of the new member addition but the addition of a Digitech Vocalist Live4 has made us sound much fuller than a typical 3 piece. We haven't contacted the keyboard player yet and may just do the New Year gig as a trio.
I already tried the guys on a song from one of my way old sets and they totally copped the groove so I'm very optimistic at this point.
Some of you might not remember my other posts about the guy that just couldn't, wouldn't and made excuses to not get it together. It was a seriously stupid deal where the bass player took absolutely no steps toward learning or rehearsing his parts. Almost 6 months later he cannot remember keys, writes nothing down, and cannot remember changes. I gave him every opportunity to get it together. He never did.
Our drummer recently introduced me to the nicest guy who started playing with his church band. Gary had recently come out of retirement after being on the road for years and started getting back in shape by playing at church just 3 weeks ago. We had him over 2 weeks ago to try him out. He was rusty but willing and easy to get along with and eager to play again. I told him he had the job and I would get the material onto a CD and give it to him. Only thing is we needed to find a real place to rehearse.
Over 2 weeks passed and I had no contact with him and we had no place to rehearse either. At the end of that first tryout I gave him my master song list with all the keys. In spite of not getting material from me he downloaded and learned almost everything on the list and made notes and a note guide sheet for comments as we rehearsed the material.
We got together last night and everything flowed very nicely. There were a few minor corrections but it was largely a breeze. We are booked for New Years and the club that hired us has a secured, locked, access limited, heated, soundproofed and well lit rehearsal space in their basement they are letting us use in exchange for a couple of gratuitous gigs. So basically a rent free rock and roll vault.:AOK: We'll be getting together late morning through early afternoon for the next 2 weeks to get the material tight. I'm sure we'll be adding new material as well not only because of the new member addition but the addition of a Digitech Vocalist Live4 has made us sound much fuller than a typical 3 piece. We haven't contacted the keyboard player yet and may just do the New Year gig as a trio.
I already tried the guys on a song from one of my way old sets and they totally copped the groove so I'm very optimistic at this point.