The last year has been interesting for me musically. I’ve taken on new challenges, stepped well outside my comfort zone, and made some good progress. Here’s a relatively quick recap of what happened.
In the above-the-stage pit for “Carrie: The Musical”; 2018.
Early last year I started corresponding with a guy who was putting a band together. After about a month the emails stopped. I figured that he had lost interest. NBD.
In the spring I saw that a nearby-ish band was looking for a bass player. I drive an hour to catch them play in West Chester, PA and they were fucking great. Between sets I talked with a few of the folks in the band and they were all nice, fun people. Best of all, their song list read like the greatest hits of my youth. But not simply “greatest hits” either; there were some deep cuts in there as well as forgotten classics.
My audition a few weeks later went pretty well, I thought. I was given five songs to learn, and I mostly nailed them. I floundered a bit when it came to singing leads, but even so it still went well.
Then I got the news that they went with someone else. I was crushed. Truly crushed. It seemed like a perfect fit! The guitarist explained the reasoning behind their decision and I got it. It made sense. It sucked, but it made sense.
A few weeks later I subbed for the bass player in a country band. That was an enormous challenge because I’m not a country music fan. I don’t know the repertoire! But I am a decent musician, so I knew how to go at it. I learned about 45 songs in two weeks’ time and got through the gig in fine shape without a single rehearsal. It was a lot of fun, too, which frankly surprised me.
A couple of months passed and I still couldn’t hook up with another band. Then the guy I had emailed months earlier reached out again. He put a band together and we started rehearsing. It was kinda rough, and we weren’t all that good, but [a] it was fun, and [B] it gave me the opportunity to sing more leads.
Then that guy included me in an email that he sent to someone else. It was some of the most shockingly vile, racist stuff you’d ever want to read. I already knew that he was extremely right-wing, but that’s just political ideology. I can handle that. This was something more and infinitely worse. I don’t want to be around that kind of person, and I sure as fuck don’t ever want to even be associated with someone like that. The next day I went to the rehearsal spot, picked up my amp, and emailed my resignation. I wasn’t crushed this time; just disappointed.
Meanwhile I was still with Big Red Knob, but we only played two gigs that year, which is far less than I wanted to play. It’s a good number for the other guys in the band and I respect that. For me, though, it’s not nearly enough. So I went back to looking for a band that needed a bass player.
In December it finally happened: I found a working band that needed a bass player. The snag was that it’s a country band. Lucky for me I had one night’s experience in a country band, and it was a totally fun night. I knew I could learn the music and I knew I wanted to play more, so I jumped at it. I had all of two days to learn three songs for my audition. By the end of it the other band members looked at each other, seemed happy about what I did, and offered me the gig—which I happily accepted. Yay!
That’s where things are with me right now. I’m a member of Cotton Mouth, busier than I’ve ever been before, and having a blast. I played the last three weekends with them, I have one weekend off, then I play a Friday night gig with Big Red Knob.
Being in a country band is a left turn I hadn’t anticipated, but I’m really enjoying it. I’m also singing fully one-third of the songs and providing harmonies for some others, so it’s still a huge challenge for me as a player. I’ll try to do a better job of keeping you posted about upcoming gigs.
