It's so hard to imagine what that would be like, to have our brains augmented by computers. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to keep my mind alteration drug-based. Perhaps one day I'll regale the youngins with stories about how "back in my day, we had to do math on paper, and it took time to think things through". And they'll be like oh grandpa, you and your silly stories.
We had band practice today with a new bass player, he's a guy who plays in some other projects in town. I knew he was good but I didn't quite realize just
how good. He did substantially better on first run throughs of our songs, where we didn't even talk about it or tell him a single thing beforehand, and he'd never heard them before, than the other guy we're playing with has done after 4 practices and at-home practice. Plus he's really cool and nice. He's in a bunch of other projects though, so I doubt he can be our dedicated bass player. But a guy can dream. We started the evening by breaking into a spontaneous funk jam that was so good, and different from how we usually play together. All night he was picking the same notes and runs as our old bass player played. And even the most complex, arranged song we have, that has a long and complex middle part that is basically written out note by note, we only had to tell him once and run it a few times and he had it.
Maybe it will work out. We really need to find a dedicated bass player. Right now we have two guys who are both busy with other projects too, who say they can play some shows with us but we should be looking for a permanent bass player. It sucks, 2019 was an epic year for the band, we were on the road a lot, played a ton of shows all over multiple states, got some momentum going. 2020 was supposed to be the year we broke out into a wider audience. Instead, covid happened, and our bass player, who is like a little brother to me in that short year since he moved here to rejoin the band, basically had a breakdown and left. Now we have to replace him, and it's hard, especially since he is a unique and amazing musician. The band was complete, we were a 4-piece family. It fucking sucks that he left.
And apparently, though I have not seen it, since I don't use social media anymore, he is posting on Facebook about how everyone here is fake and toxic and enabled him, when we did everything we could to help him and loved and supported him always. I mean I dunno, it's secondhand, I have been texting with him and he seems cool with me, but I suppose he's not ready to actually address his issues and he needs a scapegoat. He's living with his parents so now instead of feeling bad about himself for being too anxious to go work and make rent and feed himself, his parents let him stay at home and make music and not support himself. Apparently he's still tripping a bunch and doing ketamine but he has a lot less anxiety since he is being supported.
Whoa that turned into a lot more stuff than I intended on writing, lol. I doubt he'll read this but if you do, brother I love you and care about you and it just hurts, I've got nothing but love for you always.
My intent is not to hurt your feelings.