Wednesday Night:
I landed in LA via the always affordable (if you purchase your tickets ahead of time) Southwest airlines. It was a nice flight, and a round of Jack and Coke's for me and the guys made it a little sweeter. For future reference in this epic adventure, the guys = Carlos, Freddy and Bill. So tasty beverages for all, and let me tell you, they make strong drinks on that plane. I know it sounds crazy, but it is true!
For the next 45 minutes or so, I think Freddy and I successfully annoyed everyone around us with our unrelenting giggling. We were excited for this trip, happy to be traveling together, and had a nice adult beverage - which I killed in record time. We probably laughed most of the way up there. Either reenacting a gremlin on the wing scenario, or at the scary woman that was behind us. Truth be told, I was too scared to look at her, but Freddy's reaction to her was priceless - and cannot be put into words.
So upon landing we meet up with my boy Houngry - a.k.a. Aaron - and his girl. We get swooped up at the airport and make our way through traffic to Houngry's house where we will be staying for most of the trip. After unpacking and claiming my sleeping quarters (read: couch), we hang out a little and take off for rehearsal at the studios in downtown LA.
We are rehearsing this evening because we are the band for the singer Jerry Rivera. I had heard his name, so I knew he was somebody, but I had no idea that this dude was pretty legit. I'll talk more about that later......Upon arriving to the LA rehearsal studios, which I think it was actually called, I could tell this night was going to be fucked from jump street. Why you ask?
#1 - Houngry, Mr. LA apparently, couldn't find the place. Nice move Evvon (Aaron's other name), after this weekend it has become clear to me he has the grasp of LA that is only rivaled by a asian tourist. The only thing he was missing was his camera. Fuckin' Evvon.
#2 - It was fairly ghetto. A warehouse district, sort of, that reminded me of home. And by home I mean the flat lands around the Oakland Coliseum. Guess who picked this place? That's right, fuckin' Evvon. Again.
#3 - No parking at the studio, unless you had been there since the night before. Apparently people hang out there because they have nothing else to do. Cars being blocked in by Jamaican looking fellows really pisses off the angry Latino's in attendance. It was emotional.
#4 - The dumb fucks that ran the studio, and I mean that in the harshest way possible, allowed some equally dumb fucks to start rehearsal an hour late. Which of course meant that we had to start an hour later. So after driving an hour to get to LA, we sat around for another hour just waiting for the coalition of dumb fucks to get the fuck out of our studio. Yes, it angerst me. The silver lining? They were probably smoking as much as they were playing in that studio, so I'm sure we were all high a little when we finally did get in there. Yay, free high! Fuckin' Evvon.
#5 - Upon meeting all of the guys we would be playing with to back up Jerry, it was a decent mix. I knew almost all of them. The bone player, who was a pretty good player, hadn't worked on the music for his reasons, and it showed. That fucked us big time: see #6.
#6 - Ah, yes, here we are at number 6. It turns out that evening that the musical director that is rehearsing with us comes to the conclusion that the horn line, which is Bill, myself and this trombonist, cannot handle the music. What - the - fucking - fuck? It was resolved, but where the fuck did this guy come up with that? Well it turns out that the trombonist not doing his homework made us all look bad. The trombonist was replaced, and all was well in the end.
That sure did open my eyes, how easily you can be fired from a gig because of someone else's lack of preparation. That's what happens on these gigs, these guys are big time and if you're not prepared, you're done. And if someone else isn't prepared, you could be done just as easily. That night I learned a valuable lesson about being a "real" musician.
The drive home was long, and laughter filled as they always are, and we ended up staying awake until 3 or 4am. We did that about every night. It was an interesting start to the trip.
Day 2 of LA trip coming up next...
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