It’s been a few tumultuous weeks since the last installment of this series and now that I’ve had time to think a little, I can recap the last few weeks for you. In short, the was lots of good news and bad news.

In the last installment, I said this: “With 4 guitarists coming down, one of them’s bound to stick around.” That was referring to the fact that we were having a mega tryout on our second rehearsal. As it turns out, none of them really fit the bill. Well, let me back up…

It was only our second rehearsal. Dave, Pete, and myself weren’t even really in any kind of a groove yet and we were going to be trying out something like 4 guitarists and 2 bass players. We did our best to organize the chaos and it didn’t go too badly. The folks who came down were good but a couple of them were mainly rhythm guitarists and we really need a strong lead guy.

Two guys, however, stepped up with us and really made the songs come alive. They were standouts who had obviously been playing together for a long time and they clicked with us right away. They were so good, we almost thought they were overqualified for us. I wrote them off in my head. However, the next day they seemed really into playing with us.

So we put things in motion to join forces with these two guys - a bassist and lead guitarist with pro chops, going against our initial gut feelings. They had free rehearsal space in a KILLER studio, located in the bass player’s home. It was looking sort of like we stepped in some serious shit.

I cancelled our weekly room at the studio where we practice but suggested to everyone that we have one last practice as a three-piece there just to shine up our turds and fill in Pete (guitar) on what was happening with the new guys. Dave (drums) and I are sort of in charge of “staffing” if you will and we tend to leave Pete off the e-mails until things are settled. The e-mails tend to get long and wordy so it’s best to just recap when there’s time. This “last” practice at the old studio was the perfect time to get everyone on the same page.

Our third rehearsal came and went, we filled Pete in, said goodbye to the studio, and that was that. The only thing to note about the third practice is that there was some progression and the songs sounded a little better. I was actually playing bass that night and while it was hard to sing some stuff and play all the parts, we did an OK job. Things were getting tighter.

So to make a long story short, the two new folks we added to the line up pulled out a short time before we were supposed to have our first rehearsal.

That was both good and bad. It was good because it avoided wasting any more of anyone’s time. It was bad because I had cancelled our weekly stint at the rehearsal studio, we told the other folks “thanks but no thanks,” and we lost 2 more band members. They were sort of set in their ways anyhow. I’d say they were stuck in the 60’s, if I didn’t know better. Plus, they said at first they were willing to do songs from other genres but as we started talking songs over the weekend after our third practice, it became clear they actually weren’t too open to some of the things we wanted to do. I don’t think they took the time to read the original “vision” statement so there was a lot of miscommunication. Anyhow, no hard feelings were had and we moved on.

I got the studio to let us back in for rehearsals and we called back our first choice for bass, a guy named John, who seemed to fit our attitude better. He was much more laid back and seemed like he was looking for something similar to what we were doing. He was, thankfully, still interested in playing with us even though we originally told him no.

So we started preparing for our fourth rehearsal, this time with a bass player. We were all on the same page now and though we had some setbacks, things seemed to be moving forward again at our own pace.

Wednesday came around and lo and behold, our bass player showed up! We had a really good practice. The addition of solid bass really changed the dynamic and things sounded a whole lot better. I decided to surprise the guys with a rendition of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” out of the blue. I just started strumming and singing and before you know it, everyone joined in and the thing took off. We’re definitely going to add this to the set list.

I talked to John afterwards and he still seemed to be interested. I basically told him we’re going to keep having him back until he decides if this is worth his time. I saw every indication, however, that he’s into it and he really does seem to be a nice guy. He fits us pretty well and he’s willing to learn whatever we give him. That’s all we ask for.

So now, we’re officially a four-piece and marching on. That night, after practice, I went home and put up ads on TheMode.com and Craigslist for both Keyboards and a Lead Guitarist. I got an email for a keyboard player who seemed interested so we’re having him down for Practice #5. We also got two replies as of this blog for lead guitar. One guy sounded cool and the other didn’t say much. We’re definitely having the first guy down for Practice #5 as well. We’re not sure if we want to have the other guy down that night or the week after. We’ll see.

So despite all the ups and downs in the last few weeks, things are progressing and actually starting to sound good. Once we add a good lead guitarist who can take the songs and make them come alive, I think we’ll be well on our way. Then, with the addition of keyboard, our set list will expand into the likes of Billy Joel, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and loads more.

Here’s to Practice #5 and more milestones.