And Then There Were Four . . .

< sigh > You'll recall a month ago I wrote about the split with Tom. To recap, an argument broke out between Shawn and Tom about how and which songs were going to be added, and Tom quit. Sort of. I didn't think it was going to be permanent, just a flare up that we'd hopefully resolve. The next week, the band voted 3-1 to let Tom go his separate ways. After that we played two gigs with Tom and as time passed, we really weren't looking very hard for a keyboardist and at least two of the 3 votes changed their minds. It was really an exasperating time for me and most likely Tom, while we equivocated and decided what we're going to do. As I thought, it became abundantly clear to certain members how integral Tom was to this band, after the first audition for his replacement. Jim didn't have a bad audition, in fact we all thought he played extremely well and he's extremely talented player, but the problem is Jim isn't Tom. And really, we couldn't replace Tom without becoming a completely different band, and that gave some other members of the band a great deal of pause.
Tom, as I mentioned in my earlier post, was not idling by the phone, waiting until we'd come to our senses. No, he was already getting another band together, but Allan, our namesake and new manager, persuaded him to gives us some time to come to our senses. But, he wouldn't wait forever, so we all gathered at Shawns on the 19th to see if we could make this work.
Sounds good so far doesn't it, but wait there's more.
During the time between our last gig at Matty's, December 11th, and that deadline Sunday, the 19th, our drummer Jeff became completely incommunicado, all email and voicemail went unanswered, and nobody heard from Jeff, until early Sunday morning when Shawn received an email from Jeff, saying that he was quitting the band for a steady, well paying weekend job at an upscale chain of spas.
So, the four of us, Nick, Tom, Shawn and I meet, air out our differences and resolve to make our partnership work. First order of business, replacing Jeff.
So far the quest to replace Jeff is proceding at a much faster pace than the quest to replace Tom ever managed. We put out ads on Craig's List, The City Paper and the Trading Times. As of today, we've got 7 potential drummers to audition and we'll start auditioning next Monday. Wish us luck.