Bender wrote:vinceesquire wrote:true story...
i was in Studio City L.A. about 8 months ago working in the studio...which is located directly across the street from a famous little club called the Baked Potato (those familiar to the L.A. area probably know about this place). I believe it was my last day there before I came back to Hawaii...so as I was walking back to the studio from subway I see on the marquee that Scott Henderson was going to be playing there that night! I was really stoked because I have both of his instructional videos and have been virtually learning from him for years! not only that but I had never been in that venue so this was the perfect excuse to go...
so I wait all day and finally walk over to the place around 10pm and there's a $15 cover plus a 2 drink minimum...so I pay the cover and the place is basically empty except for maybe a couple of guys sitting at the bar. By this time Scott and his bass player had already set up their gear and I could see Scott standing at the very far end of the bar at the back of the venue (which is extremely tiny inside!) and he was on the phone...
so I had my 2 coronas while half an hour passed....and then an hour, and then an hour and a half...until I really started wondering 2 things...why the band hadn't started yet, but even more so...why there was no drummer...and right as I was thinking that, the door guy came up to the stage and made the disappointing announcement (to me and the 4 or 5 other people who had wondered in) that they had to cancel and reschedule the show because of a conflict with the drummer....
needless to say when my one and only chance of ever sitting right in front of Scott Henderson while he basically played me a semi-private concert came to a close...i was pretty disappointed. So I got my cover fee back and sulked back across the street to the studio...
Ahhhh...that must have been the night that Kirk Covington didn't show.
Scott and The Baked Potato were both real mad about it.....Scott actually sacked Kirk from the band.
It's become known to people in the fusion circles.....! Whilst I grew up with blues when learning guitar, other types of music have occupied me for the last 15 years or so.....jazz and fusion probably being the foremost. I closely follow the careers and music of guys like Holdsworth and Henderson, and heard about it that way.
Here's a couple of quotes from Scott Hendersons about the whole thing:
"Alan's on the next two tours and I hope he'll keep doing the gig cause we love his playing. I don't like to change band members, it's a pain in the ****. We played at the Baked Potato the other night for the first time with Alan, and all my musician friends really dug his playing and told me that the band sounds really musical. Alan's got chops but he uses them in a tasteful way - he puts more energy into creating cool grooves than into destroying them with million note fills every eight bars. He's also a recording engineer, and what really impressed me is that on our South America tour he was playing a different kit every night and he managed to tune every one of them to sound better than some guy's own kits. Especially the snare - his sound is fat and ballsy, not high pitched and pingy. I hate that type of snare sound. Some drummers feel that their snare should "crack", which I guess makes them think it cuts through the mix, but in reality all it does is give people a flooping headache. So, we're stoked to have Alan playing with us. He's a nice guy, super professional, so if he says he's gonna be somewhere, you can count on it. And he hasn't been banned from ever playing at the Baked Potato again. I like that in a drummer. "
AND
Q: so how does a drummer get banned from the Baked Potato?
A: He doesn't show up for a gig and doesn't even call. The club goes dark and the manager has to return all the people's money. The band fires him and gets someone who's a better player and more professional.
So there you go!
