When Todd left the band in December, we weren’t exactly sure what our next move would be. Brad, Will, and I all knew that we wanted to continue the band. We really love playing the music and we weren’t ready to let it die. But at the same time, it’s not the easiest music to grasp. It would take a special drummer to be able to step right in and process all of the time signature changes, tempo changes, and rhythm changes present the majority of our songs.

Our first logical choice was to offer the job to Joe Perry. Joe is a good friend of ours, and he’s played in a band with us before. We knew what we were getting – a good drummer with a good work ethic and very creative ideas for arranging the music. Plus, he’s played many of our songs in a previous band, and would probably be able to get up to speed fairly quickly.

However, Joe had recently revived another old project called Earmeal, and so he didn’t have the time to commit to our band. As it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise.

Since we didn’t know any other drummers around town who seemed like a good fit for the band, we took our search to a more public forum – Craigslist. You gotta love Craigslist. You can find almost anything you want there. I’ve found my Fender Rhodes, both organs I’ve owned, and one of my amps. My old band in California, Day-Old Jelly Roll, found our bass player there. I found my current job on Craigslist as well. I even have a good friend who found his wife on Craigslist. Yes, whatever you are looking for, it can be found on Craigslist. You just have to be diligent and patient.

We were a little worried about taking our search to Craigslist. After all, it is easy to get bogged down in months of sifting through subpar drummers looking for the right fit. Will and I have experienced this in the past. When playing with Pawn Shop Jababa several years ago, we used Craigslist to try and replace our original singer, Katie. Boy was that a nightmare. Week after week, we’d bring in another person who thought she could sing, but wasn’t really a singer. Ultimately, we found a singer for that band through more organic channels, but our Craigslist search almost broke the band. We were hoping this wouldn’t happen to us with our search for a drummer.

I am happy to say that I got a ton of responses to my Craigslist ad. There were a lot of drummers out there who after listening to the songs posted on our website, were very excited to play music with us. That felt very good. It’s always nice to know that other musicians respond well to what you are writing and doing, and that they want to be a part of it. As it turns out, we never played with a single one of these drummers.

When I posted my ad on Craigslist, I also spent a few minutes perusing the other posts already on the site. I came across one drummer’s post that really caught my eye. The drummer had just moved to town from Ohio, was getting his Master’s in drumming, and his influences seemed very similar to ours. I suppose the Ohio part intrigued me as much as his influences, since Brad was from Ohio. Sometimes, random connections like that make all the difference in the world.

I sent this drummer a message including a link to our website. He checked out our music and was interested in getting together. I chose to invite him over to play before any of the people who responded to me, mostly because of the Ohio connection. Our musical connection was apparent instantly.

We felt a tremendous energy in the room from the first night, and it was obvious that this guy can really play the drums. Fortunately, he was having as much fun playing music with us as we were playing music with him. He was part of the band by the end of that first night.

So I would like to officially welcome Aaron Bagby to Jababa. He is an amazing drummer and we are very excited to start working with him. In less than a month, Aaron has learned our entire repertoire, and we are already at the point where we can start playing out again. In just a few short weeks, a lot of our music is sounding better than it ever has before, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it all grows and develops in the coming months.

We will be playing our first gig with Aaron this Wednesday night. It is a private event for Brad’s company. We are currently starting to book gigs for the spring. We’ll keep you posted on when and where we’ll be playing so you can come check out the new lineup. 2010 should bring great things for Jababa.

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.