Neck sticking-outing time

T-minus 23 hours and I will be far away (for a Tuesday night!) in Arlington on an audition for a band. It's been a long time since I've done this. Life, as it will, has gotten in the way since the last band I was in. Granted, my experience turned out to be less than stellar so I guess I can admit that I allowed life to get in the way for a while. But the time has finally rolled around to where I am tired of not singing. Yeah, I was in a few musicals here and there, appeared with a local chorus during their Christmas show a few times.. all good, very good experiences. Especially this latest show with the chorus.

At any rate, I decided I wanted to sing in a band again. Not just decided I wanted to- I'd been feeling that way for quite some time- but decided I was going to do something about it. For reals. And that's the part that gets scary, right? Wanting to do something is safe, but actually doing something is the risky, you could fail and make a fool of yourself part. So I had to get through a lot of self-sabotage first:

I'm too old. I'm too overweight. I don't have enough experience. I don't know how to communicate to other musicians.

I expressed all these doubts to Gin at lunch a few weeks back, and she promptly stood up, grabbed her La Madeleine tray, and hacked at my neck with the thin bit. One of her mottos is 'you don't know if you don't try', and she did a fantastic job of reminding me of this, as well as adding a lot of wind to my sails. (not to mention a lot of blood to my neck and shoulder areas.) I left that lunch feeling pretty good, and immediately started looking for bands. 'She's right', I thought, 'I am who I am and screw it.'

Crap.

And now I've done it. Crap! I've found a few bands and I've responded to their ads. Crap!

There have been three ads so far that look good. The first one I responded to looked, I thought, to be pretty close to what felt.. I dunno, risky with an element of difficulty but definitely inside my musical comfort zone. It's a duo who want a woman to sing jazz and standards. Good enough; I'm a big fan of jazz, and who doesn't like a girl from Ipanema every once in a while? (I hear they're lovely.) Another plus- they've been pro on their own (individually and together) for thirty years. They've responded back to me and want to meet, do an audition. And this is great, but something keeps nagging at me. I finally figure it out- they seem schlocky. A guitar, a saxophone, and vocals. All the rest- keyboards, drums, etc- is filled in by looping midi. That's it- I'm just a little ooged out by singing Jobim while being backed up by the unflinching rhythm of the Yamaha "Samba #4". 'Listen to your gut,' says Gin, who is emailing me from the safety of her own home, far away from me and any buffet-related weaponry.

Second ad. Moving right inside my comfort zone, here we have someone looking for a partner to do acoustic covers like Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan and that sort of thing. Definitely a direction I'd like to investigate. I'm gonna let that one rumble around in my head for a few days because OHMYGOD I'm responding to this next one:

50s- 60s era full band: sax, trumpet, bass/ stand-up bass, drums, keyboard, male vocalist/guitarist. Old-school jump blues, swing, rockabilly. Lookin' fer a ladysinger.
Oh. hell. yes.

So now I'm trying my hardest to memorize four - yes, just four- songs for this audition tomorrow night. They sent all auditioners (auditionees? auditties?) a list of six songs from their repertoire, and we were to prepare three or four. I didn't get the music until Thursday, I think. Left me with the whole weekend and Monday to learn them, and how is that not enough time? I dunno. Ask my brain, which is being less than cooperative.