datriani":10jcswpf said:
I was living out in Vegas for about a year and got to play with some pretty cool musicians but it seemed like it was kind of an extension of LA where image was almost more important than musicianship.......
Regretfully, I admit that I have a story similiar to this one, but with a different angle. In 1989, my old band lost our bass player suddenly, in a freakish "girlfriend accident". We had a pretty big gig coming up in a few weeks, and wanted someone.......anyone to fill the bass spot....or so I thought. We posted ads on bulletin boards, walls all over town, and the local weekly artsy newspapers, etc. (Atlanta), for a metal bassist in the style of Crue, Faster Pussycat, Icon, GN'R, etc. The singer received a call from a guy that seemed to know his stuff, seemed compatible, and was very interested in coming out to meet us at our practice space, etc. He stated that he lived 70 miles away but saw our ad at Little 5 Points over the weekend, and said that he would commute at first, and then if everything went right, would re-locate to Atlanta. So the singer said, "Hey.....why don't I just mail you a tape, and you can learn a couple of our songs, and then you can ALSO play with us when you show up?".
At the time, the members of our band were all fairly talented, I guess, but basically we were just three 20 year olds, with big dreams, and bigger hair.......but no real idea what we were doing except having fun.
Fast forward to the day that we were supposed to meet him, and he calls the singer and they arranged the meeting time, and gave him directions. The guy said on the phone, that he knew that he was only supposed to learn a few songs, but went ahead and learned all of the songs on the tape. I was impressed with his initiative, based on that alone. Anyway, he was about 30 minutes late, and we were getting tired of waiting, and were ready to go inside, and just play without him. Then we heard tires screeching, and this old beat up, primered gray Trans Am comes flying into the parking lot. I think I just laughed and said "It doesn't get anymore rock and roll than that, guys". Well, "Tony" (the bass player) crawls out of the car and is every bit of 350 pounds. I guess we were just a little bit shocked and suprised, and no one said anything for about 30 seconds

I remember thinking to myself that as long as he could play, it did not matter.
But I still felt guilty, because it did bother me a little bit, and THAT made me ashamed of myself.
Well, Tony could DEFINITELY play and our meeting / practice went extremely well. It felt good to have a bass player back in the mix, and I thought we sounded good. I was very excited, looked forward to the next practice, and even suggested that we learn a couple of new covers, before next practice. A few days later, while talking to the singer and drummer, they inform me that Tony would not be coming back. I got pissed and frustrated, and wanted to know what excuse he had provided. They informed me that THEY ( the two of them) had talked it over, and did not feel like he fit "the image", so they told him that we had found another bassist. We missed the important gig that we had been looking forawrd to, and I ended up quitting a month or two later.