One year ago today: October 11, 2020, I followed tradition.
Five years ago today: October 11, 2016, orange oak & Old Spice.
Nine years ago today: October 11, 2012, my last ten “dates”.
Random years ago today: October 11, 2013, Pudding-Tat hiding.
The band will make this an important day for me. Here’s a rare picture of Mitch playing the tin wall. He can do complete drum solos just flicking his fingernails on walls, boards, tables, wires, an unsung hero. Rehearsal s in nine hours and I’m not ready. Here’s the scoop. Later y’day I got reminder calls from everybody except the drummer. Things have changed somewhat, so this is only opinion. It may be that this band is counting on me more that I anticipated. I was the one that pep talked them into continuing as a four-piece, but that was dependent on the guitar player learning to comp. The role of my rhythm bass was to make it sound like he was doing more than that. We did one demo song and he seemed uninterested. That is the biggest change.
A great breakfast of iced shrimp and toast, today we work on the cabin. I’m going to team up buying supplies with band practice, since I have to drive right past the lumberyard. Progress is slow but continual and I’m dismayed by price increases. Not just materials, but food and gas. If I didn’t say, the band has given me the okay to make bookings, so it won’t be long before I arrange something. I love the extra money from this source, which I’ve described as the only clean and decent part-time job left in America.
In any order, I checked the radiator level (slow leak) and cleaned the van cargo space. The plants are watered, birdfeeders full, weeds pulled and I’m now fixing some music gear, such as a wooden case for my lyrics. They no longer make a store-bought model that stands the rigors. I rotated the food storage, checked the now-dead wasp’s nests, and plucked any yellow leaves off my fruit and shade trees.
Eventing boots.
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Now some mediocre news. The drummer canceled rehearsal, this is what, four hours in advance. I have personal issues with people who do that more than once every other year. That’s twice in 42 days. Yes, I allow for emergencies, but at the same time there is usually a little warning. Even in my age group, with people dropping left and right, I not sure about the timing. I know the Parson and him were talking on the phone just before he called me last evening, and nobody was urgently ill at that time. Before you conclude I’m snapping, my thinking centers on the band and this type of situation shunts ever more toward management, where I definitely over shadow the whole crew. I toyed with the idea of giving you a picture of the band here, but thought better. The Internet is nothing like it was promised to be.
Polk county is down to 16 paying venues within my 33 mile travel limit, many of them suspending entertainment due to the plandemic. They are used to the $500 circuit bands so this is the time to go prospecting. After such a break, every club is likely to lose money if they hire their old groups back. I hope I’m not facing a NOVA situation, where if cancelling at the last moment becomes so easy, it increases the odds of weak people doing so. And alas, the drummer is the weak link on this chain. If he does it a third time, well, I wouldn’t. Drummers are the second largest surplus in this vicinity, right behind the commonplace lead players and now I have enough time and money invested to protect it if I have to.
Some say how can I act with such confidence so early in this new band? Simple, for those with the savvy, this isn’t new. The bottom line is once more that bands who do not make money break up. I know the keyboard guy, like my self, is hankering to get on stage and make some cash and the lead player is advertising for side work. That makes us the majority but nobody wants to pull rank. My diagnosis is the fourth guy has money from family or something and is behaving like he isn’t hungry. He has the keys to the practice shack. I’m considering what can be done about that.
Another disturbing point is both times when he called off, he said just move it to the next day. Am I the only one who finds that callous? He lives across the street, the rest of us have to get out on the highway. True, I’m still the new guy and don’t know the background yet. But I would have done things quite differently today if I’d known I could work all afternoon.
So, how are these things dealt with? My method is you go on about your business, and ask the opinions of everybody you know, factoring in most of them have no idea about the details. The consensus is clear. Go for it. So big deal, John Wayne was plucked from the crowd at 22 to become a star. The rest of us are not 6-foot-6 (or whatever). How about some good news? On the way back from town, I found four sheets of plywood that will make my attic good again. I did not enjoy crawling along the narrow planks I left there for the purpose.
This scavenged plywood, despite being somewhat discolored by shipping oil, is just right to get the rest of the attic together. Despite the improvements I’ve made up there, it is still a chore to work in that confined space. I’ll try to get pics of this project, since a third of the insulation is up there, but not properly installed yet.
