I think we may all know at least one of "this guy".

I know of a drummer in this area from a time when he asked me to play in a band with him. All I knew of the guy at the time was the level of the game he talked. As time passed, I recruited a guitar player, a bass player, and a singer/rhythm guitar player. I made a CD of 12 songs and told everybody involved "This is the first 12 songs for our first meet and greet rehearsal." 4 weeks later we met for the first time and started at the top.

The absolute weakest player in the room, by a LARGE margin, was the big talking drummer. No concept of tempo AT ALL. Started everything too fast and speeded up from there. So we staggered through the songs and I went home and ran every song through a BPM tool, and then sent out an email to everybody to "review the material again but run them through without the tracks, just your parts, playing against a metronome at the BPMs indicated."

We met the next week, and he was no better. That went on for a long time, like 6 rehearsals. He couldn't stay in time, and after every fill he lost his place and the music stopped.

The next rehearsal I said "I would like to try something." I set up a click track through the PA and said "I want to run this song once with just the click and instruments. No drums. I can hear things better with just the click." The song went through as tight as could be. We did that for a second song. Then a third. Everything was perfectly in time. Finally I said to the drummer "You see where this is going, right?" I had to explain to a big talking drummer that the correct way for him to practice was NOT playing along with CDs. To just set up the click track and play with it. 5 minutes at one tempo, then 5 minutes at a faster tempo. Then 5 minutes at a slower tempo, and so on. No less than 60 minutes every day with a click track. THEN play with CDs if you want, but he needed nuts and bolts level practice. When you play along with Rush records, you can't remove the Neil Peart from your ears. It's like me singing along with Sinatra CDs. I sound GREAT when Frank is singing along. As soon as the CD stops I sound like Britney Spears without autotune.

We ended practice. The next day he told me, in true cowardly fashion he sent an email, that I was fired and made me an offer to buy my PA. (I countered $200 higher and he bought it. What he offered initially was about right, so I won.) At the next rehearsal, the kid phenom guitar player quit because he fired me. Once I was gone they had no "musical director". He got a new guitar player and they played 5 gigs before 2 members quit, leaving him and the bass player. Than the bass player quit on him too. FOUR YEARS elapsed as he tried to retool, and he did with an ever changing lineup of totally "scrap heap - whoever will do it" level players and he played 2 gigs in those 4 years. Yet he maintains a web page, constantly makes silly, trivial changes to that web page, and really continues to think he has a viable band.

Do any of you know anybody THAT delusional?

PS I sent him 2 tickets to our show at The Civic Theater in November, under the guise of him being a "contest winner" held by the Civic to thank his employer for being a large sponsor for the rehab on the place. He had NO idea I was in that band. The announced us, we walked onto the stage, kicked off the first song. I couldn't see out into the crowd because of the angle of the stage and the lights, but as the second song started I saw him walk up to the front of the stage, get my attention, flip me off, and then leave. LOL!! (Our band is GOOD!) I expected a hate mail but didn't get one.