Thanks and I hope I passed the audition…

Last week was the culmination of a week’s hard work; auditioning for a local classic rock band. The fellow I spoke to was their guitarist.  He is also a lawyer and unapologetic guitar gear geek.  That kind of person can cause a lot of damage in terms of being a bad influence.  The irony is that this bad influence is usually me. I had about a week to learn the five songs requested of me, as well as any vocals I’d like to do.

I’m an inveterate procrastinator (or perhaps just lazy) and would normally wait til the day of the audition to learn the songs.  I wanted to turn over a new leaf so I made a point of learning what I could from the first night I had time.  Of course things don’t always work out the way one would prefer, sometimes due to the person trying to work them out (or not). What I did do was make sure to put the guitar into my hands every night, which is odd for me.  Yeah, I’ve been playing forever, but I’m not so good at continuity.  I wanted to show up knowing my tunes and looking like I actually know how to play the guitar.

I made notes and listened critically, which helps to locate parts you don’t always notice the first time or when you’re playing along with the song. As Thursday arrived, it was starting to look like my old practice: I still hadn’t fully learned two of the tunes.  Undeterred, I finished with plenty of time to go.  I pulled a small amount of gear together plus emergency kit, threw it in the car and left. I have driven past the rehearsal facility thousands of times and never knew it was there.  It is conveniently hidden in a small, conveniently hidden industrial park, around the back.  If it wasn’t lit I probably would still have missed it.  Apparently it’s pretty popular, at least judging by the number of cars in the lot.  It was also the only door lit up, making it easy enough for even musicians to find it.

I remember thinking it was weird walking into a place carrying all I brought in one trip.  I tend to take a small music store with me when I gig so it almost hurt to not take a second guitar.  I rationalized this by telling myself it was only a five song audition. I spoke to the nice lady behind the counter in an attempt to locate the room in which my audition was to take place.  This was made very difficult by the horrendous amount of noise emanating from at least one of the rooms.   Using hand signals, semaphore, and obscene gestures, she pointed me in the right direction. I put my gear in the room, shook hands, and waited outside for the previous guitarist’s audition to end. Just outside the room was a kitchenette-type area, where I busied myself in my Treo (pda phone).  The noise was distracting, if not downright dangerous.  It sounded a little bit like listening to two tape players on the same song but a half second apart.  Or perhaps two bands falling down the steps with their instruments, one band at a time.

If the cacophony outside the room was any indication, there was no reason on the planet for anybody with functioning hearing apparatus to be inside the room.  This may also apply to the actual musicians (and I use the term loosely).  It was so confused-sounding that I couldn’t tell what type of music it was supposed to be. While I was attempting to deny the aural events were actually occuring, the nice lady from the front, who turns out to be the owner, came by and introduced herself.   Very cool lady.  Probably very bored too.  Why else would she want to chat with a guitar player?   She agreed with my suspicions about two tape players being out of sync.  This was her loudest band ever.   Loudest band?  It sounded like two.  That was some talented band.

To be able to sound so loud, so indistinct, and make enough noise for two bands is a rare talent, even locally. Nice owner lady was doing something nice for herself; fleeing to the back office, where it was quiet enough to think.  And maybe breathe. I got to go in and set up my stuff shortly thereafter. The band looked kinda tired, which I suppose I’d look also if I had auditioned at least two other guitarists.  I saw the previous applicant taking his gear out and decided against making any cracks about his unmanly transistor Marshall amp. [no tubes, no tone] . The band with the aforementioned guitarist, sporting a Carr Mercury amp, a semi-hollow guitar with a gorgeous red maple top, and enough pedals on his board to launch the Space Shuttle.  There was a drummer, bassist, male singer, and a female singer.  You don’t see that much.  They obviously needed a keyboardist but were having trouble finding one. I set up and tuned up in record time.

There is something weird about me and tuners.  I can tune the guitar in my house and it will be perfect.  When I get to my destination, the guitar will be slightly out of tune but turns out to be all strings out of tune.  Like the thing retuned itself a half step higher in the car or on the way to the room. We launched into the first song (I neglected to bring any of my notes) and managed to start and finish at exactly the same point.  This is always a plus.  Another plus was that the levels were off and I couldn’t hear myself too well.  If I couldn’t hear myself well, they couldn’t hear me any better. I brought my Pro Junior, a fifteen watt amp that I like to crank up that sounds wonderful.  I was assured they don’t make a lot of noise and no one had huge amps. I turned up a bit and we went into the next song.

It became obvious to me that not only had I left my notes home, I was also playing with someone else’s fingers!  Don’t you hate it when that happens? You have been playing for longer than some of your coworkers have been alive, you learn your tunes, then when you get to the gig, your fingers refuse to perform correctly.  That’s when you’re using someone else’s fingers. Apparently that wasn’t all….  these Fingers of Unknown Origin not only forgot how to play the lead to the song, they also broke a string.  Fortunately it didn’t throw the rest of the strings out of tune too badly so I finished in true Keith Richards fashion, with five strings.  BOING. I made a pretty damn fast string change, smiling at remembering to bring my wire cutter (or else it would take ten minutes to wind the string).

As I wound away, the singers were talking about some favorite ancient Peter Frampton tunes.  When I got tuned, I figured what the hell and played the first few chords of Baby I Love Your Way.  The singers were fond of the idea but the guitarist was not.  He immediately asked, in a rather loud way, if we were ready to continue.  I had a feeling that was coming for some reason (I snickered internally). The fellow said he absolutely hated to do this to another guitarist but would I please turn up. He had never had to utter that phrase before in his life so I can understand his confusion. For the non-guitarists in the crowd, that was very funny and I’ll explain why.

Guitar players are typically full of ego, hence full of volume.  They typically have to be asked to turn down.  Repeatedly.  Asking a guitar player to turn up is like asking a politician to stop telling the truth and start lying. I played in this one group years ago.  I should have known it was going to be a real experience when the pre-existing guitarist kept trying to prove his amp was louder than mine.  Every time I could hear my amp, he turned up louder.  Once I figured out the game, I began to amuse myself at his expense.  At one point I simply couldn’t hear myself at all, so I walked over to the amp and turned the volume all the way down.   This was in mid-song, so I turned back around and put on the show of my life.  I was leaping around and putting everything I had into playing.  When we finished the tune, the other guy made a point of complimenting me on really getting into the music.  He meant it.  Never mind that my amp was turned all the way down.

It got funnier a few seconds later when the drummer figured out what was going on.  We’d catch each other’s eye and wink or smile, waiting for the next opportunity to take Mr. Ego down a notch or so. Of course it didn’t take long. Apparently sensing that I could somehow hear my own amp, he turned his up again.  Thinking quickly, I started playing the song a half step down.  Do you know what it sounds like when you hit a few keys next to each other on a piano?  That’s what it sounded like.  But Mr. Ego was playing so loudly that he almost couldn’t hear me. Fortunately he could hear me enough to realize that something was terribly wrong.  It was all the drummer could do to remain playing and seated.

Mr. Ego started looking around, trying to figure out what was wrong.  I just smiled and continued looking like I was playing my heart out.  He turned around and started checking his equipment and trying to retune his guitar.  We continued looking nonplussed, despite the urge to roll around the floor with tears coming out of our eyes. I finished the song on the right chord so the other fellow would see that everything was fine.  He just stood there looking confused for a while, not mentioning anything.  You could see the idea entering his ears, knocking on his brain for attention, and watch as he vainly tried to work out what was wrong.  After he left that night, the drummer and I took that opportunity to roll around the floor with tears coming out of our eyes.

Meanwhile back at the audition, I turned the amp up and played the remaining tunes.  The band was well-rehearsed.  The singers worked together very well, as did the rhythm section.  The other guitarist knew his parts.  If I had brought my own fingers, I would have been most impressive. Knowing they were beat, I packed up quickly.  They told me they really enjoyed what they did hear from me: it was a shame I wasn’t louder.    I was leaping about quite a bit, as I tend to do while playing, so I wondered if that contributed any (in this case I hoped not). I was back in my car in a flash, consuming the gallon of water I remembered to bring for afterward.  They assured me I’d hear from the guitarist shortly and said it was a pleasure.

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Flash forward to this morning.  I was thinking up rude things to blog about when the phone rang.  It was the guitar fellow, apologizing for not talking to me right afterward and not getting back to me quickly enough. Make no mistake, I liked these guys.  They looked fun and grounded.  They sounded good.  But I try not to get too excited or more nervous than normal.

I was really curious as to whether they liked me or not but I figured I could wait as long as it took for them to get back to me. I had no idea which way he was going by the initial verbiage.  He reiterated some of the things he told be before the audition and we continued to talk.  It started to sound like I got the gig.  He asked me if I was sure this was a good fit for me and was I ok with an occasional freebie, etc.  Of course I was… I just wanna play and be pushed by people who are hopefully better musicians than I am. The response to their ad for a guitarist was pretty good and he told me that they could definitely go ahead and continue auditioning but he was going to ask the band if they would like to stop here (presumably with me) or continue seeing what’s out there (nothing personal, of course).  He indicated that I knew my stuff and seemed to be ok with going forward.  He’d be back with me shortly.

Meanwhile I have to remember to keep playing every night and just wait til I hear back.   Hopefully I get invited to join and hopefully I will be able to keep using the fingers I was born with when I play.  The other ones looked ok but they didn’t work too well.

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AFTERWORD:
I tried to edit this post three times. Nowhere does it indicate that it forgot the new paragraphs or that the font changed beneath the horizontal line. There is something faulty in WordPress or in how Linux Opera interacts with it.

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