Worst. Audition. Ever.
This past Sunday I had an audition. It wasn't me auditioning for a band, per se, but me going and meeting up with a guy to see if we liked each other's stuffs. We met via craigslist, of course, where talented but incredibly flaky musicians are outnumbered only by idiotic, talentless, flaky musicians.
It began auspiciously enough. I answered his ad looking for a bassist, and the influences he listed were consistent with my own: Britpop, some darker, heavier stuff, and some lighter, fluffier, poppier stuff. We exchanged emails, and set up a time to meet at his studio in S.F. He said he'd call the day before to confirm. He didn't.
Typical flaky musician, I'm thinking. I call him the morning of the audition.
"Oh, hey," he says. "I was gonna call you yesterday."
"Yeah, you were."
Pause.
"So ... are we still on?" I ask.
"I guess so, yeah," he says.
Oh, Jesus, I think. This is going pear-shaped already.
He says we're still on for noon. I ask him for directions, which surprises him. He thought he'd already given me directions. He hadn't. I am to call him when I arrive, and he'll let me in.
I get to the rehearsal space a couple of minutes after the appointed hour. I'm obsessively punctual, but after dealing with musicians for this long, I'm finally starting to learn my lesson. Time is relative to them. So I get there and call his cell. He says he'll be out in a minute to let me in. I wait five. My cell phone rings.
"Hey, I'm out here and I don't see you," he says. "Where are you?"
I'm standing directly below the giant sign featuring the street address. I describe it to him.
"Oh, you went over there? The entrance is around back."
"And how the fuck was I to know that?" I wonder. "You gave me directions to this exact street address!" I barely restrain myself from saying. I'm a damn good bass player, but I'm not a fucking psychic. I pack my shit back in the car and drive around back.
He's waiting for me at the entrance. No "sorry, dude, my bad" or anything for not giving me the proper coordinates. This isn't a dealbreaker, but the sum total of his stupidity (or lack of consideration or common sense or whatever you wanna call it) is reaching a critical mass.
We get inside, and I plug in my bass and effects pedals. He makes a snide remark about my awesome battery of effects. This loses him even more points. I tune up. He doesn't. More points lost.
He starts playing me his "songs," which are less songs and more just random chord progressions played louder and softer in lieu of actual changes or parts or structure. He's a mediocre guitarist at best, and an even less gifted songwriter. He's well into negative pointland now.
After he regales me with a few of his songs, he asks me what I think. And that's when something odd happens: I tell him the truth.
See, normally I would say, "Oh yeah, this is cool, sure, fine," knowing full well that this bears no resemblance to a band I'd want to be a part of. I'd lie (because it would be easier, in the moment, than telling the truth) and then never, ever call the guy again. Typical guy, right? We never call.
But I didn't lie. In fact, I was brutally honest. I told the kid I wasn't feeling it, that the songs were rudimentary, didn't have enough melody or enough dynamics for me, and that I wasn't the guy for this project. He seemed surprisingly unfazed by this. I packed up my stuff, said goodbye, and got the hell out. The whole thing cost me a couple of hours of my life, but I learned something. Honesty actually is the best policy. Who knew? ßßß
Done, and Done
Here's a news flash: I have nothing to say.
I think all my words are spent. I think perhaps I have a quota of words over which I cannot type, and, sadly, I have spent them all already, either on my work writing or my play writing or my rampant instant messaging or email writing in response to ads on craigslist for bands or gear I don't need. And so I am bereft of words.
I do have a sort of audition tonight, a "jam session" as the kids call it. I'll be renewing my acquaintance with one Ryan Henry of the Hills Have Eyes and his roots-rocky singer-songwritery material. Very much looking forward to that. I have no expectations of what will happen, which means I can't get disappointed.
And on that note, I believe today's verbal allotment is truly up. ßßß
You Can't All Be Great Lays!
I'm finally emerging from the freelance ditch I dug for myself. Right now I'm working on some stuff for a former employer, namely some choice Best of the Bay entries. It's pretty sweet, cuz it's hella fun (unlike my usual freelance assignments, which are anything but fun) and cuz people will actually be read it (unlike this site, which is fun to write for but read by precious few). And cuz I'm getting paid. Which is nice.
Writing is a weird activity. I always assumed that it was something everyone could do, like breathing or walking; I mean, I sat in school and watched them do it. They put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and words appeared. Which is what I did. I had no clue at all that it was a skill. It was just something I did. Like breathing or walking.
As it happens, not everyone can do it. Pick a weblog at random, or read an email from a coworker, and that fact will become painfully obvious. But everyone thinks they can do it. Why else would there be half a million weblogs out there? And as soon as you tell someone you're a writer, they're compelled to tell you about the great book idea they have. That doesn't happen when I tell someone I'm a musician. I almost never hear "Oh, really? Hey, well check out this great refrain I came up with the other day," or "Oh yeah, I've got this great idea for a song cycle. I'll play it for you sometime." Maybe it's something in the nature of writing; maybe its very solitariness makes it easy to claim you do it without actually doing it. That and the fact that most people can, in fact, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and form words. It's just that most people don't form words worth reading.
It's a lot like another theory of mine. The theory that nearly everyone thinks they're a good driver. Now you and I have been out on the highways and byways, and we know this is not the case. The roads are rife with horrible, horrible, drivers. Hell, I may even be one of 'em. But ask anyone if they're a good driver, and I guarantee that nine out of ten people will, à la Rain Man, tell you that yes, they are an excellent driver. But we know that this cannot be the case. Experience tells us that nine out of ten (other) drivers are godawful. So go figure.
Oh, I almost forgot the corollaries to this theory:
1. Everyone thinks they have a great sense of humor. We know this cannot be the case. Look no further than your primetime TV listings for refutation: "According to Jim"? "Most Outrageous Game Show Moments"? I don't fucking think so.
B. This is just a guess, but I'd wager that most people think they're really good in bed. In my (albeit limited) experience, I'm guessing that at least some of you are wrong there, too. Sorry. ßßß
If I Record It, Will You Come?
If you are a fan of the immediate gratification, as I am, for the love of God, do NOT embark on a career — or even a hobby — in recording. Oy, it's killing me. Ferreal.
Recording is almost the polar opposite of creating music. The writing, when it's going well, can seem effortless. Inspiration can strike anytime; in fact, I do my best lyric-writing when I first wake up in the morning, before my brain remembers to switch on its evil editing function that tells me everything I do sucks. When I'm on, random chord configurations become songs, and lovely vocal melodies insinuate themselves in my brain. It's an amazing feeling.
Recording, on the other hand, is grueling, stupefyingly tedious hard work. And it doesn't help when your stupid studio computer, which is still running Windows 98 (I know, I know, I've been meaning to upgrade, but ...), crashes every few minutes. But I've been working on some of these songs for going on three months now, and I still don't have anything to show for them. It's kinda like cooking for one: you can prepare the most elaborate, spectacular meal, but without anyone to share it with (and compliment you and tell you how fantastic you are), it's profoundly unsatisfying. OK, so maybe it's more like a tree falling silently in the forest. Pick your metaphor, whatever, I don't care. Bottom line? Recording is slow and stupid and frustrating. But it seems it's the only way to get from Point A (songs in head) to Point B (songs on radio).
So until they develop a way to surgically implant an S/PDIF IO in my neck so I can download the songs directly from my brain to the Internet, I guess I'm stuck with it. ßßß
Damn Your Eyes, Man!
I told you I'd keep you posted on the minutiae of my hypothyroidism, and I am making good on that promise. Got some lab results back yesterday, and my endocrinologist bumped up my Synthroid dosage by more than 25 percent. This is a little daunting for me, considering that I was once ridiculously hyperthyroid. Being wired all the time, 24 hours a day, was not at all fun, and it's sure as hell not anything I'm looking to repeat. So while I trust that raising the dosage is the right thing to do (and may even help me shed a couple of especially stubborn pounds), it is not without trepidation that I increase my intake.
I'm feeling a little more wired today than usual, but I'm so suggestible that it could be entirely psychosomatic. I won't really start worrying until I end up with thyroid ophthalmopathy. There are limits to what I'm willing to put up with, y'know? And looking like Marty Feldman is where I draw the line. ßßß
Bandless in the East Bay
Well, it seems we could stave it off no longer: the Scheme, the band that was meant to make me a Rock God and my name a household word, is no more.
I bailed out last week, and was followed shortly thereafter by a colleague. It was clear that it would not become the rock n' roll juggernaut we had hoped. Nope. After the debacle at South by Southwest, it continued to go south, even as we drove north and west. The label we were showcasing for passed on us (and, considering how we played, I can't say as I blame 'em), and we never really recovered from that. We continued to second-guess ourselves and each other until we pulled the plug.
It's pretty bizarre turning my back on something I invested so much time and energy in. Three nights a week, four hours each time, for the better part of two years. What's to show for it? A handful of sparsely attended gigs and some random demo's and rehearsal tapes. The world will never know our formidable rock prowess. It's a damn shame, too. We were a fucking great band.
Being in a band is a whole lot like being in a gang. There's the trench bonding (not to mention the trench foot, or the crotch rot, or the wet brain) that comes not only from a band's singleness of purpose, but also from synchronizing one's efforts, onstage and off. It's like sharing a brain. (And, if you've spent any amount of time at all around musicians, you may have wondered whether they were all sharing one brain anyway. But I digress.)
It's also a whole lot like being married, only to four other guys. It's a relationship that needs to be maintained and fostered and all that shit. If you don't work at it, it will inevitably careen off the rails. Much like this one did.
So now I'm on my own again, spending way too much time in my home studio trying to learn how to work Sound Forge and Acid, considering going back to school to learn "recording arts" (what a fucking joke that term is), and recording my self-indulgent solo jammies. So if you know anyone who needs a bassist/singer/keyboard player/thereminist, tell 'em to look me up. ßßß
Don't miss last month's brilliant insight.
