smurfco
Meatus McPrepuce
So I met up with these guys last night in a town that's about a half hour's train ride north of me. As many of you know, I'm partially blind and have very little peripheral vision. On the way to the train, with my Ric bass strapped to my back, I walked full speed into a fucking fire hydrant I didn't see and hit it ankle first. Holy fuck, did that hurt. I had to sit down on the sidewalk for a couple of minutes before I could even walk again. It still hurts.
Had I known what was in store for me with this band, I probably would have just called it a night at this point and gone back home. But I didn't know then what I am so painfully aware of now, and I trudged on and boarded the train. Usually the trains up here are pretty decent but I guess I was on a streak of bad luck because the one I was on stunk like a rancid butthole and was filled with degenerates and scumbags. I kept a very close eye on my Ric.
So I show up at their rehearsal space, and - like the other band I tried out with a few weeks ago - everyone was really nice. That's why I'm making this as anonymous as possible; I don't mean to rip on these guys because they were very gracious and welcoming and all of that stuff.
But Jesus tapdancing Christ on a hotplate, what a nightmare.
First off, since I can't drive, a few days before we met up I e-mailed and said "I do have a bass amp, and I could bring it with me on a hand truck on the train, but it'd really help me out if there's already one at the space I could borrow. If not I'll bring mine, but I figured I'd ask." They said "Yeah, we've got one, you're free to use it!" Cool, that helps.
So I get there and I'm like "where should I set up?" The guy points to the corner and is like "over there by the bass rig." That's when I notice my rig for the night. It's one of these:
I guess I look at it kind of cross-eyed because the guitarist is like "hey don't worry, we can take the headphone out and run it through the PA!"
...which is one of these:
Now I'm not one to begrudge anyone on gear, but their guitarist was playing through a Fender Deville 4x10 and their drummer was playing a real kit (i.e. not electric) so there was no way I was going to be able to hear myself, let alone sound any good. But whatever, I can deal with that. It's just bass after all.
So we're just about done setting up and the singer walks in. He looks like a cross between Howie Mandel and sickle cell anemia. He prances around the rehearsal space (which is basically a rec room at a Boys and Girls Club) the entire time we play, performing to some unknown audience that only he can see. None of this would have mattered much, of course, if he could sing. But he couldn't. At all. He didn't play an instrument, either - he was just "the singer". Now I do not know who along the lines told this guy he should be a lead singer in a band, but whoever it was should be in jail.
The drummer wasn't bad but he played very lazy beats and didn't really know the songs. Same for the guitarist - decent but not great, but didn't really know the songs. He was like "we do everything in fours and eights" meaning if there's a solo you keep counting to eight until it's time for the solo to end. Instead of, you know, actually knowing when the solo should start and end.
So we play "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for about an hour and a half. Or it felt like that at least. They were like "we kind of put a wild twist on this, it's not really Dylan and it's not really GNR." It also wasn't really any good, especially since they never once went to the Am chord (the entire song is not C, G, F). We went through similar interpretations of Brown Eyed Girl, Keep On Rockin' In The Free World, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, and others.
Now the part that blows my mind is that these guys, unless they were just totally full of shit, which wasn't the vibe I got - these guys had been playing out every other weekend before their old bassist quit or died of shame or whatever. I know I sound like a huge egocentric prick here, but... these guys should not be playing in public. I'm not Jaco Pastorius or anything but at least I can learn a goddamn song correctly and play it from start to finish. Is that so much to ask of a band?
Anyways the evening finishes up and I say I have a couple other irons in the fire, and that I'm not sure how easy it'd be for me to get to and from their town on a regular basis (practice finished at 11, I wasn't home until 12:15, and it was a school night). And again, they were all very nice dudes. But come the fuck on, where are all the actual decent bands / musicians around here? I thought my cover band in Atlanta was bad but we were eons better than this!
Rant over.
Had I known what was in store for me with this band, I probably would have just called it a night at this point and gone back home. But I didn't know then what I am so painfully aware of now, and I trudged on and boarded the train. Usually the trains up here are pretty decent but I guess I was on a streak of bad luck because the one I was on stunk like a rancid butthole and was filled with degenerates and scumbags. I kept a very close eye on my Ric.
So I show up at their rehearsal space, and - like the other band I tried out with a few weeks ago - everyone was really nice. That's why I'm making this as anonymous as possible; I don't mean to rip on these guys because they were very gracious and welcoming and all of that stuff.
But Jesus tapdancing Christ on a hotplate, what a nightmare.
First off, since I can't drive, a few days before we met up I e-mailed and said "I do have a bass amp, and I could bring it with me on a hand truck on the train, but it'd really help me out if there's already one at the space I could borrow. If not I'll bring mine, but I figured I'd ask." They said "Yeah, we've got one, you're free to use it!" Cool, that helps.
So I get there and I'm like "where should I set up?" The guy points to the corner and is like "over there by the bass rig." That's when I notice my rig for the night. It's one of these:
I guess I look at it kind of cross-eyed because the guitarist is like "hey don't worry, we can take the headphone out and run it through the PA!"
...which is one of these:
Now I'm not one to begrudge anyone on gear, but their guitarist was playing through a Fender Deville 4x10 and their drummer was playing a real kit (i.e. not electric) so there was no way I was going to be able to hear myself, let alone sound any good. But whatever, I can deal with that. It's just bass after all.
So we're just about done setting up and the singer walks in. He looks like a cross between Howie Mandel and sickle cell anemia. He prances around the rehearsal space (which is basically a rec room at a Boys and Girls Club) the entire time we play, performing to some unknown audience that only he can see. None of this would have mattered much, of course, if he could sing. But he couldn't. At all. He didn't play an instrument, either - he was just "the singer". Now I do not know who along the lines told this guy he should be a lead singer in a band, but whoever it was should be in jail.
The drummer wasn't bad but he played very lazy beats and didn't really know the songs. Same for the guitarist - decent but not great, but didn't really know the songs. He was like "we do everything in fours and eights" meaning if there's a solo you keep counting to eight until it's time for the solo to end. Instead of, you know, actually knowing when the solo should start and end.
So we play "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for about an hour and a half. Or it felt like that at least. They were like "we kind of put a wild twist on this, it's not really Dylan and it's not really GNR." It also wasn't really any good, especially since they never once went to the Am chord (the entire song is not C, G, F). We went through similar interpretations of Brown Eyed Girl, Keep On Rockin' In The Free World, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, and others.
Now the part that blows my mind is that these guys, unless they were just totally full of shit, which wasn't the vibe I got - these guys had been playing out every other weekend before their old bassist quit or died of shame or whatever. I know I sound like a huge egocentric prick here, but... these guys should not be playing in public. I'm not Jaco Pastorius or anything but at least I can learn a goddamn song correctly and play it from start to finish. Is that so much to ask of a band?
Anyways the evening finishes up and I say I have a couple other irons in the fire, and that I'm not sure how easy it'd be for me to get to and from their town on a regular basis (practice finished at 11, I wasn't home until 12:15, and it was a school night). And again, they were all very nice dudes. But come the fuck on, where are all the actual decent bands / musicians around here? I thought my cover band in Atlanta was bad but we were eons better than this!
Rant over.