I got a call (well, really, an email, but call sounds so much more personal) from a good friend of mine last week.  He has joined up with a guitarist we both knew from the PLOW days, who is putting a new project together.  They were discussing band related things, as bands often do, and decided to ask me in to jam.  I accepted, and this past Wednesday, I hauled my gear out, and went to rock.  I had a great time.  The guys are friendly, and the band has potential.  I think I'll continue to work with this group for a while, and see where it goes.

A little side note:  As I was loading my gear, one of my new neighbors (oh, yeah, I moved.  I should probably blog a little about that as well) saw me hauling gear and asked if I played.  I said yes, and it turns out that she and her significant other (not sure if they're married, dating, or just roommates, because I just met them a few days ago) are musicians as well.  Violin and guitar.  I'm looking forward to some back porch imrov throughout the summer.  That will be lots of fun.

Well, trying to rebuild PLOW just hasn't been working out, so I started reading the PA Musician, and Craigs List ads to see what might be out there in terms of projects for me to join.

I found and interesting ad, and replied to it.  The guy seemed reasonably intelligent, and articulate, and so we set up a little meet and greet over an adult beverage.  That really seemed to go well, even though the initiator of the meeting didn't really have a lot of time to hang out.  It was all good though, and so we set up a date and time to get together and play a few songs, to see how we got along musically.  

At the end of the first jam session, we all agreed that it was a fun crew, and planned to meet the following week to rehearse.

Unfortunately, I caught a bug that had been going around, and ended up being sick most of the weekend, and missed the first two days of the work week lying in bed.  So, when Wednesday came around and I wasn't feeling much better, I called my new found bandmate and told him I was sick, and didn't feel up to coming out to rehearsal.  He seemed to be ok with that, but the following day I got this email:

John,

           As much as this may or may not be disappointing to you the band decided that we are going to seek out another guitarist. We think you are a fine player and could have been an integral part of the band. Please know this was a band decision and it's nothing personal. We wish you good luck and maybe we'll see each other around town.

Now, I only have 1 week invested, so I'm not going to mope about it, but I guess that if you're going to audition for a new band, you shouldn't get sick the next week or they'll fire you.  

Live and Learn.

No hard feelings, and I wish them all the best of luck, and continued good health!!!!!

P.S. If anyone from the band that just fired me reads this, please drop me a line with your band name and when/where you are playing.  Seriously, I wish you all the best and would be happy to come out and be part of the audience.  When I'm not on the stage, I still like to support my local musician friends.

John.

Well, last night was another open mic/acoustic night.  Mothers Acoustic Blend opened up, and played for about an hour.  Mike came out with the upright bass and dobro, Mac and Al came out and played some guitar, and me...after the MAB portion of the evening, I fired up the keyboard add added some electric piano and jazz organ accents!  It was a fun night, as always.  Many thanks to everyone that came out, like John C., Kevin and Maria T., and Bonita, who never did show me that tattoo she was bragging about!!!  Starting in November, we're going to be scaling the open mic nights back to once a month.  We'll be using the off Wednesdays to do more recording, work on some new material, and try to keep things fresh and exciting!  Oh, and it looks like I'll be needing a new acoustic guitar!  I borrowed my friend Scott's Breedlove last night, and it really cleaned up some of the sound issues we've been experiencing.  I really like my Seagull, but the electronics are really sensitive, and in a live setting, it's just really noisy.  Keep an eye out for the MAB MySpace page, which should be coming online soon.  We'll be putting some of our demo recordings up, and it will be a great place to keep up with the bands performance schedule!

LAter!