The New Guy
…And then the band concluded their discussion with this thought:
IF OUR BAND IS GOING TO GROW AND ADD A 5th MEMBER, WE NEED TO MAKE SURE WE HIRE A MORON.
Ok, I cannot claim that’s what they thought exactly, but at some point years ago when the four guys in old Toolshed Jack decided to grow from a 4-member to 5-member band, I think this is the thought that got me hired. To this day I still have very little idea what I do in this band, besides perpetually doing my dead-on mime impression of the word ‘befuddled’.
So there I was at my first Toolshed Jack practice years ago, on a cold January afternoon, as the ‘new guy’, and within minutes I’m already arguing with our guitarist Joel. The topic of the argument at practice #1? What do YOU care… I was wrong, ok? So butt out. If there is one thing in the world I am always correct at, it is being wrong.
Ok, fine: Back then I was snobby, and didn’t realize that there was a difference between ‘practicing’ and ‘rehearsing’, you see. I showed up to my first band practice cocky and not prepared. Oh, I had the chords (on paper) to play for the background piano part to “You Maybe Right”, but rather than go through the song beforehand, I decided to monkey around with the music ON THE SPOT. Angry Joel was right. He said ‘rehearsal is not the time to try to learn a song for the first time’. He had a good point, and I remember it so vividly because that good point was the very last one he ever had.
But years ago as the new guy, I could ‘get away with’ bickering with the early members of Toolshed Jack. After all, I was a first cousin of half the members of the band, and non-cousin Joel was one of my best friends from high school, so I wasn’t a total stranger to the gents. So that argument played out Normally, not Uncomfortably (like when you have your first spat with a significant other. unCOMFORTABLE…)
Fast-forward to 2010, and Toolshed Jack now has a ‘new guy’ drummer: Tommy Flamini, and now I’m on the other side as Mr. Established. Does he have the same ‘connections’ network to the 2010 Toolshed Jack members as I did years ago? Sort of. He’s from Mahanoy City, and his father used to play drums in a band with my older brother. He grew up only blocks away from Joel. He’s been in several other cover bands like Steve-O has. Is he lucky to already have such great connections, as to make his transition into our musical fraternity a smooth one? Ugh… get ready…
You see, when you are in local bands long enough, you have flowchart connections EVERYWHERE. Yes, EVERYWHERE: You have connections out the backside. Kevin Bacon has longer degrees of separation than local cover band guys. And new guy Tommy, is no different. Weirdly, being from Mahanoy City, he extends a strange statistic string regarding all current and former members of Toolshed Jack over the years:
MEMBER AND LOCATION OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION:
Joel (Mahanoy Area)
Steve #1 (Mahanoy Area)
Brian (Mahanoy Area)
Chris (Mahanoy Area)
Mike (Mahanoy Area)
Jay (Mahanoy Area)
Tommy (Mahanoy Area)
Steve #2 (Shenandoah Valley)
Scott (Pottsville)
Justin (Pottsville)
7 Mahanoy Area, 2 Pottsville, 1 Shenandoah Valley. Out of 12 people, that’s it. Just three tiny high schools. Flowchart connections everywhere, just take 5 minutes and listen to the banter and multiple name-drops. And the next person (GRRRR!!) to make a joke about inbreeding in Schuylkill County…. Will be absolutely correct.
So Tommy showed up recently to his first Toolshed Jack practice. I was expecting him to flub. He’s a keeper: He flubbed rarely. I think the other three of us flubbed more than he did. How? What does that even mean? Ugh… get ready…
Toolshed Jack never does the same thing exactly the same way twice. To give you a better perspective, I’ll put you Behind the Music with Toolshed Jack, ok? Alright: We’ll magically make you, the reader, our band’s… ummm…. Oboe player, and you’re standing there (with your trusty oboe, of course), ready to begin playing in the song with your important oboe part in Enter Sandman. You’ve got a great memory, and you remember exactly how the whole song went the last time we rehearsed it. Remember last time how the main riff exploded in after the 40th measure? This time, unbeknownst to you yet, it will be the 44th measure (so keep your oboe ready to go). Why the extra few measures this time around? We don’t care, as long as we all started the main riff at the exact same time. Our flubbing is actually built into our system of playing.
So Tommy the new guy picks up on this inconsistency REALLY quickly. We are his third cover band, and I will now assume that probably all cover bands use this leverage. They get a general, but not exact, feel for when things are supposed to happen, and when they don’t always happen on time, the wiggle buffer room they left for themselves allows for a lot of margin of error.
Now, coming from a different strict musical background, this used to drive me up a wall. I pass out in frustration if we don’t hit the main riff on the 40th measure EVERY TIME. AAUUGGHH!! Crazy!! Of course, the enablers disguise it as “jamming” or something like that, and I’ve gotten used to it, but it still drives me so mad! After I pass out in a lunatic rage, if I fall and crack my skull open, I would be honored if at my funeral you would play a lovely rendition of ‘Taps’ on your oboe.
So needless to say, Tommy the new drummer guy did a trillion times better at his first TSJ rehearsal than I did. He will definitely be ready for his Toolshed Jack debut on July 23rd at Amigo’s in Minersville. He came prepared, he knows many of the songs, and every time we told him to do something, he was so nice and adaptive. In other words, he wasn’t a moron at his first rehearsal like I was.
In conclusion, give any new guy in a cover band a lot of credit. It is incredibly difficult to learn dozens of songs in a short period of time, to musicians that have played the songs together their own way hundreds of times without you. But the good news is that over time the ‘new guy’ blends in and, in some cases, ultimately surpasses those established musicians in accuracy, talent, and influence. Want to see how embarrassingly fast it will take Tommy to be more in sync with Toolshed Jack than I am? Ugh… get ready…
-Brian from Toolshed Jack
