Part 3:
If it's not Metallica, it's p()$$% music
I played that little, Mexican guitar for years. I played it during all commercials on television. I would watch wrestling and try to play along to the entrance music. I would play commercials. I just enjoyed making noise on it any time my ears and hands were free. Being a teenager, that wasn't as much as I wish it had been. In the old converted barracks that my mother and I lived in, the doors had no locking mechanism. To gain some privacy, I would wedge my guitar under the doorknob and up against the body of a large, built in dresser. This worked well for a year or so until my mother finally broke the guitar down the sides. Still playable, but jacked.
I would go to school and when musicianship came up in conversation, I would lie and tell people I was a bassist. No one ever really challenged me on this. I would get jealous seeing how starstruck my peers would be for other kids that played music and it made me want to have those fans for myself. At the time, I wanted nothing more than to be a pro wrestler and the fandom given to musicians was very similar to the kind wrestlers got. I developed a sense of competitiveness towards bass players in particular. If I heard people swoon over how well someone else could play a song, I looked that song up, stole it from the internet like we all did then, and learned to play it better. I always fantasized about somehow getting into a situation where I would be able to outplay a local celebrity and steal their thunder. Looking back on it, I learned how to be a man from wrestling (no male role models around), and I treated everything like it was a gimmick for a title shot. I was such a mess as a kid, damn.
I did not attempt to play anything beyond Metallica until college, when I hit 17 and dropped out of high school. I began going to poorly lit drug houses and all nighters out in the desert. A couple of bands would bleed through my, "Metallica or NOTHING" mentality. System of a Down, The Mars Volta, Slayer, and Megadeth were a few. I idolized a couple of guys in town that were thrashers. To a young mind, they looked free, powerful, and full of energy. They had the greasy long hair, the over-washed band shirts, acne, and of course instruments. Any money they came across went to cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, and instrument accessories. They typically had 1 higher end guitar or amp and everything else they had was trashed and covered in ash and sticky messes. For some reason, I wanted to be them. I started making myself listen to bands that I may have liked a song from before, but never got into, out of my attempt to live that lifestyle. Oddly enough, one of my favorite bands of all time, Megadeth, was one of these bands. I started making myself learn songs from these other bands.
Eventually, I got noticed. Not playing, but just owning a bass :)
I was walking across campus with my bass in my hand (I didn't have a case for it then) and a small pickup pulled alongside me. An old man with a grey beard and long hair was shouting at me from the passenger side and a young, douchey looking guy was driving. They asked me if I played bass. I looked down at my bass, back at them again, and said, "Nope." They asked me what kind of music I played and this series of questions continued on for a couple of minutes. It eventually lead to them saying they needed a bass player for a band that already had gigs coming up and wanted me to audition. They gave me a CD with burned songs on it and told me to come to their house in a few days. I went home and popped the CD into my computer. I was excited until the first few notes of, "When I Come Around" started playing. I skipped to the next song and heard Slither from Velvet Revolver. I kept skipping ahead and never found a band I listened to, many I had not ever even heard of before. I spent the couple of days learning all the songs and looked forward, nervously, to the day when I would take my place in the Olympus of musicians.
I arrived at the douche guy's house. His dad was very intrusive and seemed like he was the real motivation behind this "band". He said he was the manager. I head into the garage with my bass and then TINY Crate amp. I met the drummer, Gilbert. He was excited to meet me and started asking me want music I liked to play. When I said Metallica, he beamed. He was so excited man. He would ask, "Oh man, Do you know any Manson?" I would start playing a Manson song and he would drum right along with me. Every band he called out, we played together, and I felt like I found a long lost brother. Then Douche stepped in. The entire time me and Gilbert were hitting it off, he kept looking with disgust at what we were playing. He finally interjected and said, "Alright. Let's play the music we'll actually play at gigs. No one would want to hear that hard stuff." We started with Slither. We got through the song and Douche finally broke his sad face. He was getting into it. Next song killed it again. When I come Around was up. We got 15 seconds into the song before Douche stopped everything. "What are you playing? Did you look up the tabs on UltimateTabs.com?" I told him I don't use tabs, I play by ear. He told me to play what I was playing again. I played the "Deet, deet deet deedley dee, Deet, deet deet deedley dee, Boom, boooooom". Just the way it's played. Gilbert shook his head in agreement and smiled. Douche handed me the tabs he printed from the internet and told me Green Day didn't play it like that. It's just quarter notes in G, D, E, C. I told him that the tabs were wrong and that the bass plays it a little more talented than that. He got so flustered and kept returning to the notion that because the tabs on this site were GDEC, that I was wrong. Gilbert spoke up and said that he too thought the bass played it with more notes. Douche was not interested. By this point, his dad had gone back into the house. We skipped When I Come Around and jumped into another song from the CD, I cannot recall what songs were on there. We played through and then Douche put his guitar down and went into the house. Gilbert and I continued to play our name game with bands we liked and followed by playing them for an intro or so. Douche comes back into the garage after several minutes and says, "Well man. You are a virgin bass player. I don't think you are quiet good enough to be in the band, but maybe with some practice we can get together again in a year or so." Gilbert looked shocked. I must have looked confused because I certainly felt it. I shook his hand, gave my number to Gilbert, and packed my things. I don't know what power Douche had over Gilbert, but he had something. Maybe he gave him free drugs. A place to stay. I dunno. I could tell that Gilbert wanted me to stay and he wasn't able to make any decisions.
It fueled me to continue to learn these songs, the first two anyway. This is why I remember them. It also gave me a taste of working with bands. It won't always be friends hanging out. It would eventually be people who want a bright light on them and to feed their ego. My goal for a few years was to be amazing and wait for the opportunity to take the pride of the later. I was a bully for a few years in school, unintentionally, and that predatory drive to make others suffer just swells when it comes dicks in hobbies. The next time I saw Douche, his dad had died. He had mentioned that they never got to start gigging and he lost contact with Gilbert.
