This was just after the rehearsal with Willis on Saturday. Eddie and I were bullshitting with Joy, when I just off-handedly mentioned that if they needed a drummer while I was away, there was one just about three miles that-a-way, as I pointed to the east. Joy wasn't sure who I was talking about, but Eddie did. And what he said next kinda surprised me: that this particular drummer wasn't happy that Eddie had chosen me over him, and didn't think that much of me, referring to me (to Eddie) as 'that poser who plays in Reno'.
Well, if you haven't already figured it out by now, we're talking about our old pal Jay Reid, who briefly played with me in Dirty Joe, and his disinterest in working with the group led to me going back behind the kit to be the singing drummer instead of merely being the singer. To be totally honest with you, Jay's a good drummer, but he's also an asshole with a massive ego, who can't be bothered to put in the work necessary to make a good band work right. Apparently, he didn't think he'd even have to audition for Willis, that he was just going to get the gig because he was Jay Reid.
And Eddie already knew this, which was why I had the gig from the moment I had voiced an interest in it. The audition/rehearsal on Friday was pretty much a formality. Eddie and Jay have been friends and bandmates for thirty years now, but Eddie won't work with him ever again because of Jay's very bad habits, such as the aforementioned lack of punctuality for rehearsals and gigs, and his desire to just play in his mobile home instead. I also learned a few things about Jay that I didn't know before - mostly that he'd had a tumor removed from his brain several years ago, and that had affected him in several physical and psychological ways.
I wanted to feel some sort of sympathy for the guy, but I couldn't. Up until that day, I didn't think that Jay had harbored some sort of ill will towards me before, and had chalked up his departure from Dirty Joe to his known disinterest in driving back and forth from Agnew to Roger's place up at Laird's Corner for rehearsals. He'd even tried to friend me on Facebook, but I wasn't really interested in being friends with him after disrespecting my band like he did.
But enough about him. Eddie and I had a nice conversation yesterday, talking about adding material to the repertoire for me to sing lead on, confirming rehearsals for next weekend, and setting up a regular rehearsal schedule that would be copacetic with my schedule with Steppen Stonz. Eddie wants me to commit full-time to Willis, but understands that I'm not going anywhere without something to fall back on. Which means there would have to be a lot of guaranteed gigs for Willis lined up before I'd even think of switching bands. That said, if some of Mike and Arthur's plans come to fruition in the near future, Steppen Stonz might need a fifth member. And seeing how Eddie was geeking out over a Roland guitar-synth controller John has - playing the saxophone riff to "Careless Whisper" by Wham! over and over again with the synth's saxophone patch - that kind of versatility could come in very handy down in Reno and points elsewhere.....
Oh, and as you may have noted from the title of this post, this is the 100th post of my insane ramblings on this blog. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my brain droppings, and trust me on this - there's a whole fuck of a lot more to come, I ain't dead yet! Here's to the past hundred posts, and to the next hundred!
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