It’s been a while since Part 6 and a lot has happened so let’s continue this musical saga, shall we?

Unfortunately the news isn’t great. Instead of moving forward and finalizing the line up, some unexpected things happened and we basically have no guitars in the band at this time, except for me and I’m not all that great, nor am I looking to be the guy holding the songs together. I just backup the other guys and sing.

So long story short, we took in a lead guitarist who was 19 and the chemistry just wasn’t there. He could play leads but he was too laid back and didn’t really learn the parts well enough. So we decided to let him go. Then, we lost our regular rhythm guitarist when it turned out that if I wasn’t playing, he couldn’t play his parts either. We had been rehearsing The Who’s “Long Live Rock” for about 4 months and when it came time to play it without me backing him up he walked over and said, “I haven’t worked on that, yet.” We’ve been playing it with him for all that time and I guess because I was playing louder than he was, we never heard him basically doing nothing back there. Turns out this was the case with some of the other songs as well. He was basically faking it and either not playing the right parts, or playing them the wrong way. Whatever the case was, he just wasn’t working out and then he got all pissy to boot, so we just parted ways.

It was good because I knew there were songs I could never ask him to play because he couldn’t handle it, but at the same time it was a setback because we now had no main guitarist at all.

However, I got right on the case. I put up ads the next day and we got a lot of replies - only two of whom showed up. Both of them were decent but didn’t come in prepared which really bothers me. The person who gets this gig is going to have to take the three songs I give them and basically play the parts they need to play. Both these guys just jammed on top of the tune and that’s not what we need. We only have 2 hours a week to try and get these songs sounding right and definitely don’t have time for 2 hour jam sessions.

I’m not sure what’s up with the guitarists these days but I remember back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when guitarists were a dime a dozen - and they were good! I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s so damn hard to find one that can just listen to the tune and play the parts, then come in prepared to play the song fairly close to the original. Our drummer does this, the bass player does it, the keyboard player does it, I try to sing it best I can but we keep ending up with these guitarists who just do their own thing and that’s that.

I’m all for doing a different arrangement here and there but in a cover band you have to at least try to play most of the parts, you know what I mean? From there you can take it somewhere else but know the damn parts you need to know to make the song sound right. This is the single most frustrating thing I’ve encountered. I really thought we’d have someone by now and playing some summer shows but we just can’t find the right person. It’s driving me bonkers.

Anyhow - I’m setting up a few more auditions for Wednesday night and hopefully they’ll show up. If we’re lucky, they’ll learn the three songs I ask them to and come in prepared, knowing the leads and the rhythm as well. Please, Lord. Have mercy on this sinner and bring us a guitar hero. Amen.

Stay tuned…