I'm IN the Band - Part 2

I don't remember too much about the audition except that it was held in one of the band's many rehearsal spaces (this one a basement) and that I got along great with everyone. I was able to play the songs that they taught me and must have had a sound that they thought fit in well with the rest of the band.

My guitar tone at the time was simple and uncluttered: guitar into amp, distortion on full, with the mids and bass boosted a bit. My friend's tone was a bit obnoxious. It was all high end and lacked "definition." I had never really liked playing with other guitar players, mostly because if you didn't communicate properly with each other the results could be quite unpleasant, so we spent most of the night feeling each other out.

I was welcomed into the band after that audition and with an upcoming gig looming we set rehearsal for one night a week (it's like I said, none of us had aspirations, and besides two of us were still in high school and had things like grades to worry about). The rehearsals went smoothly in those early days. We all started at the same time, played in the same key (although none of us officially knew what that key was), and stayed, for the most part, in tune. We spent the first few rehearsals coming up with a workable set list that included mostly originals and a series of cover songs by bands that I had never even heard of.

We didn't sound half bad, and I had pretty good feelings going into the first show. The band had been booked at a bar that had a few months earlier been a strip club (it reverted back to being a strip club not too long after our gig), and we weren't required to do anything more than just show up and play our 25 minute set.

And what a great show it must have been if you were in the audience (actually, my Mom, brother and his girlfriend, and a buddy of mine were in the crowd that night, so next time you see 'em go ahead and ask how it was). We opened with the first few bars of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (we were trying to be ironic) before we unleashed our brand of NJ hard core. We missed cues, played out of synch and off key (although, once again we still didn't know what the key was), and did it all at an incredibly high stage volume. We had arrived, and central NJ would never be the same (well at least for the next 13 months)...

TO BE CONCLUDED

To Part 3