A Lost Opportunity

Over a year ago I jammed with a couple of nice musicians in San Francisco. It was a drummer and a singer and they were looking to flesh out a band that would have explored some areas of music that were very interesting to me.

I went to their rehersal room in San Francisco, a cramped room in the back of a restaurant, I think. We played, just improvisations. I had my double-necked Carvin Guitar and a rack of effects and was playing with some very dreamy textures that were sometimes pretty funky as well. I could see that the singer was enjoying my work; she started moving to the sounds and rhythms I was making and sang some pretty sweet things. However, even though the drummer had told me his influences and they were all people and groups that I loved (and he even had a King Crimson "Discipline" tatoo, for God's sake), it just didn't seem to work for me. He felt both stiff and sloppy, as though he hadn't played in a long time, and I had a lot of difficulty playing with him. In the end, I just didn't think I wanted to play with him, thanked them, and left. I contacted the singer afterwards by email and let her know that I had enjoyed her work, but just didn't think I'd work well with the drummer, and she replied that she understood. I thought we had parted on good terms.

A few months later I saw an ad in Craigslist for a bass player that looked very interesting. I sent them an email, listing my influences and some links to some of my mp3 demos, and waited for a response. And waited. Eventually I tried to contact them again, and talked to their guitar player, and found it was the same group plus him. He promised to forward my email to the singer, who eventually responded with a polite refusal to meet with me.

And I feel bad about this. Every time I see an ad of theirs (and there's a new one now; evidently the band they put together the first time didn't work out) it seems to be the perfect situation for me; just the right influences and goals. I'm saddened that I couldn't convice them that we should give it another shot. I told the singer about one of my very favorite drummers, who is also extremely difficult to play with. However, when I played back recordings of him I was often stunned at what he had really been doing; in other words, it was worth the pain ;) Perhaps this might have been a similar situation. I don't know why they are so opposed to trying it again; I guess I really offended them by turning them down the first time? My guess is that she really thought we had connected while jamming, and that it was as though we'd had a good date and I hadn't called the next day. Musicians are a sensitive lot ;) I'll probably never know.