Setting – Mid 90's, Motel Lounge Gigs
Place - Texas, New Mexico & Arkansas
Players 4 pieces, exchanging lead guitar player.
Full Schedule, gravy gigs, just keep it together.
As everyone who has been in this business for a while knows, players change. Especially if you work 48 weeks out of the year for over two decades. You get subs, you get new best buds, and you get lots of things that come your way, not all good, not all bad, and some with quirks. I was lucky for many of those years with only one end falling off at a time, someone had bad health or a wife that wanted to see them, or someone simply got shit for brains and decided to become a world book encyclopedia salesman or something of equal chance for advancement. My last guitar player was worth his weight in gold… but ya'll have heard me brag on him before, and this is not his story at all, however it is about a guitar player.
There are times where you try it again with a player that you worked with before. You may not have lost contact even after they no longer are on the road with you. Especially if you developed and kept a friendship thru the rough times. This is a story about just that kind of situation. I had hired a kid, he was good on his demo tapes, and he was a nice guy, all the other reasons fit that made me give it a shot. He met us in New Mexico after a long ass drive to get to us. There is risk for him as well as for us, it does equal out.
I have to give him credit here for one thing. The songs he knew, he knew very well and his ability to play and deliver what he knew was very good. But that was the kicker, "what he knew". The boy couldn't play a three-cord country wonder to save his ass.
He could play like Van Halen, but he couldn't hear the cord changes in a simple little three-cord song. This was amazing to me. He could not hang on for the life of him. Now. I don't call myself a lead guitar player, but hell, someone had to do it and I hired him to do it. So I ended up having to hang on with guitar parts and do my own stuff. Not good. So. The search began again. I was in touch with "Steve", who happened to be out of work and starving back in the town where I keep my stuff. He had landed there because of a woman, the woman was no longer a part of his life, he was ready to move on, hence the road was a calling again. He had no money for travel, so an advance was going to be needed. I could not help myself here. I notified my bank that "Steve" would be coming in for a withdrawal. I needed to go into the third degree here, but they knew me from other situations and it was not a problem to set it up. However, Mr. Steve had to do a few extra things to prove who he was. He used to have a rubber chicken he had on stage (yeah one of those guys). I made it so that he could not withdraw any money unless he showed up at precisely 11:am WITH the rubber chicken. Her name was Henrietta the wonder hen. His instructions were to open the door of the bank, with the rubber chicken and announce for all in the bank to hear… "Henrietta the Wonder Hen & I are her for business", then walk like a chicken up to the second teller. LoL well, I have to have some joy in life. So. He did it. I told the bank that if he didn't. He was in no way to get the cash. We all laughed about it many times later and he was able to get to us and we let the kid go. Gave him two weeks notice and he hung around for one, playing with Steve and the rest of the band. I was hoping that along with his two weeks notice and playing with another guitar player he would or could get a clue… um.. Nope didn't happen.
Anyway…. Steve, it is his second time around with us, and all is going ok… till it is not.
Steve was hungry like I said before. He was very insecure about me replacing him with someone else in the first few months. History has a way of opening your eyes up and learning things, or it can make one paranoid as hell. This was Steve. I learned what not to do with him, and he learned that he was on eggshells. Every time I turned around he was almost pushing me to the extreme to see what his boundaries were. He screwed up on something not even musically related and was SO PARANOID that he thought I was making phone calls to find someone else. I was not. I was tired of the roulette game and wanted to get a tighter sound for a while. However in his paranoid state, which lasted about three months, things happened that are very humorous to us now. Restless Heart was playing in San Angelo Texas the same time we were playing a hotel there. They were staying AT the hotel we were playing in. Steve was hanging out in the lobby when a guy with a guitar came to check in. It was Greg Jennings from Restless Heart. Steve however does not see this… he sees ANOTHER GUITAR PLAYER AFTER HIS JOB!
He thinks this is his replacement even though I have assured him that things are ok, we have some problems but lets work them out. He goes up to Greg Jennings and starts up a conversation. He said something like, "So, you are the guy. Look here is $20. To just walk out the door and you never made it. OK? " Greg stared at him for a bit and cracked a grin. He told Steve that he thinks he had the wrong guy. He had an ok job already. He introduced himself and Steve was so relieved and so excited and feeling stupid, he had to tell the rest of us about the boner he just went thru. We had a great laugh but had no idea what it would lead to. After the Restless Heart concert was done, THEY CAME TO US! The place was almost empty cause of the concert, but we had to play anyway. So we were having a slow evening when in walks, the band. Yes. All of em. They had a laugh too because of what had transpired and had to meet the paranoid guitar player and the chick that was about to possibly chop his head. They stayed till closing, had a great time talking to them, and then I guess they went off to a hot tub someplace. ahem. But that is another story…….
Yes, I was hit with my own foam rubber bat by Greg, it is true. Damnit.
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