I’ll start by telling you what did not go wrong. We had the standard agreement to show up with our song lists. Although Jim is a guitarist, he did not scan through my list in ten seconds, reject everything except guitar songs, and propose obscure substitutions when he recognized an artist. He did not undertake to twist everything to his liking. Gee, do we know anybody famous for doing such things? Instead, he patiently tried each of my tunes and in the end, settled fourteen of my songs to just six of his. (He chose all the songs, I chose none.)This is important, for I did not recognize anything on his list. Instead of implying I didn’t know “any good music”, he understood that you can test whether I know a song by listening to the bass line. If it sits there and doesn’t do much, or in the other extreme is a lead riff played on bass, I probably don’t know it. Instead of getting antsy, he went down his list and rejected over half his material as instantly not unsuitable for this bass and guitar duo. Show me another guitarist in this town that ever made this concession.
He responds very well to new input and grasped the concept that nobody gets anywhere performing for other guitarists. This is good. I have no intention of trying to impress any prima donna lead players. I am uniquely indifferent to that crowd. Jim’s playing is a mix of lead and rhythm. He has very little stage experience but that is better than twenty years of the wrong exposure. There is no damage that needs undoing. You know what I mean.
Jim has fancy gear, including a complete Fender Passport stereo PA, the top of the line. This comes as a set which includes microphones of spotty quality. Between us, we can do any club in this town. He started off the evening over-strumming but learned that he can rely on the bass to carry the crowd. We had a startlingly great sound and he has perfect timing, which makes two of us. In total, we played 28 tunes tonight, more than enough for a full gig within a week or two. We are both equals in the arrangement and very respectful of the other guy’s experience.
I’ll have to split my time with the Live Karaoke. I’m at a disadvantage because I have never even heard music like “Only God Knows Why” and “Street Corner Symphony”. For all I know they are dragging droning guitar ballads that will have to be custom memorized, if that’s what it takes. It all adds up to remarkable flexibility over getting on stage as quickly as possible. (The first band I teamed up with in Florida took an exhausting 13 weeks to get mobile. That guitarist would not agree to a practice agenda. Incredible hours were wasted because he could not focus. Come to think of it, I never saw that particular guy agree to anything else, either.)
Jim and I already have two hours of good material, so he plans to show up at the gig this weekend. In all, I am most happy with the situation. He was surprised to learn I have only played bass but a short time in my life. (The rest of the time I was band manager or played other instruments). Let me calculate a few comparisons here.
Alright. I have played roughly 106 gigs since late May 2007. I made money at all except a few when I stood in or did demo work. That is over nine times as many as were found by the very person who, between 2000 and 2006, said I wasn’t able to get gigs. He’s a regular Einstein. If you factor in the time element, that means I get the gigs 26 times faster, as well. We don’t count the gigs he got for himself, because he was supposed to be playing as a duo. He found 12 duo gigs in six years. A lousy 12.
See what happens when you get me started on music? Change of subject. I missed the PBS show last evening because it was broadcast an hour earlier on cable. Teresa reports that is was not up to par. She ways it was a rehash of the same old. She was at City Hall and noticed the casino nearby is looking for a payroll clerk. Plug in those numbers. I like that kind of office work, so let me think about that. Remember, I am not looking for a stressful position, no matter what it pays. It beats leaning on a government shovel.
That reminds me of some trivia. Did you know that every so many miles, the Interstate highway system is required to have a straight stretch? I don’t know the specifications but I know it had to do with the military. During the cold war each side had targeted all the opposing airstrips. I think it was every five miles, but the idea was to use those parts of the highway as runways in case of a nuclear attack.
