Ain’t that a Bitch?

Story time,

Imagine your looking to be a hot shot guitar player who’s come out of music school less than a year ago. Now, you’ve moved to Los Angeles, one of the ‘music capitals’ in the world and you’re palling around with a vocalist who is considered one of the best in rock. Then someone from your school passes your name along to an industry heavyweight who puts bands together for signed artists who are going on tour. You get a call from this person and they ask you to go to some weird address in Hollywood late one night to pick up a copy of some music.

You hop in your car and find the address, get the music, learn it and the next day you head to a rehearsal spot with your guitar to meet the artist and play the music you’re asked to play. You do the audition but are told you’re not right for that gig, but he loves your playing and he wants you to go immediately for another audition a few days later. Again you’re given the music the day before…

This audition is for a new artist you’ve never heard of. You learn the songs, and even work up the use of effects and are asked to bring in your own amp this time. So you learn the songs show up at the audition which is very different in that only the main band members are there – no artist. No management. It turns out your the first person of the day and everyone is setting up their stuff. You setup, plug in, refresh your memory on the tunes.

The keyboard player is attempting to play the songs and it turns out he’s in the band and doesn’t even know how the song even goes. Odd, especially when he’s directing the musical traffic so to speak. Thus you speak up and offer how the song goes and everyone kinda does the knock on the head and go ‘oh ya’ that’s right. The drummer has some sort of device on his snare that tells him how fast he’s playing (wow, that’s kinda cool, so you ask if it really works). Then comes the moment of truth. The band kicks into the song and you’re off and running. During the intro of the song where you’re playing a wha-wha guitar part, you kick it off to play the rest of the song, and the wha-wha doesn’t stop. You continue playing anyway, cause you’re a pro.

After the song, the band is asking what happened, so you look down and realize your wha pedal just broke in the middle of the song. To which the band replies, damn must have been rockin’ hard to do that. Of course we were. The drummer felt he played the song poorly and at the wrong tempo. To rectify he wants to play the song again cause he feels the shot was unfair to the new guy (you). You speak up and say sure, but unfortunately there’s no wha-wha this time. You play the song, the band is rockin, and the song ends and everyone thanks you. You pack up you leave and wonder if you’ll get the gig.

Later that afternoon you’re on a plane to meet up with your buddy, the vocalist, who has a gig in Phoenix. You meet up at the hotel he’s staying at. At some point you’re picked up by a girl who knows your buddy and offers to give you a ride to the show in her car. While you’re riding along you hear a song come on the radio. It’s the song you just played earlier that day in the audition. You tell the girl driving that hey, I just auditioned for this person. She freaks out because it’s like the coolest song she’s ever heard and they’re playing it all the time on the radio station there. You’re like really?!? She promises to keep her fingers crossed because she wants to know a working musician in a big touring band.

Later you find out you don’t get the gig because you’re too tall. The artist is much shorter than you and proportionally it isn’t a good thing to dwarf the star.

In case you’re wondering, said guitarist was me. Said artist is who you’re listening to now.

(** Disclaimer: If Meredith’s label decides to be a bitch, I’ll have to slap the audio off the server. The post will remain to show what it can be like when going for an audition. **)