Battling Exes by Jay Allen Sanford 10.23.7
Bassist James Trent says ex-members of his ska group the Hi-Lites are co-opting venues and gigs originally booked by his band. "[Their new band] t he Amalgamated showed up and played two dates that were originally booked for the Hi-lites to play," according to Trent in a lengthy (14 page) email correspondence (which is only partially excerpted here). "We were missing our horn section, since they had all left the band at once. My fiancé Em attended the show the Amalgamated stole from the Hi-lites at the Casbah that took place in July. According to Em, they had about fifteen people show up, no one danced, and to boot they played all of my original arrangements of classic Jamaican ska tunes, the exact same arrangements I had taught them."

Earlier this year, five members of the eight piece Hi-lites left the band to form the Amalgamated. According to departing member Keith Duncan, "Seven people in the last month and over twenty people in the last year and a half have gone through the revolving door that is the Hi-lites...basically, James [ Trent ] gets what he wants, when he wants, and doesn't give a damn about the people around him."

Trent  mentions the power struggle between him and former Hi-lites percussionist Chris Wise, referencing an ongoing dispute covered in a San Diego Reader "Blurt" article several weeks ago. "I made all decisions about artistic direction of the band, exercised sole creative control over our repertoire, specified which gigs to accept or refuse, wrote all material, auditioned, rehearsed, and trained all band members.all Chris did was make phone calls for us to venues trying to shop the band around, make fliers, and sort of play percussion on the side. However, Chris kept destructively trying to usurp my authority. [he] wanted to be a 'boss' because he liked thinking people had to listen to his opinion."

"At one point during an argument about imagery associated with the band, Chris threatened to delete our band's MySpace website and stated that he would smash apart all of the copies of the Hi-Altitude CD in his possession.he also said that he would call my fiancé and tell her that I was an asshole and a mean person charading as a nice guy. I fired him on the spot."

The Hi-lites debuted their new members locally for the first time when they played the Kensington Club on October 19 . (Note: James Trent wrote me the 14 page email excerpted above in hopes of the Reader publishing a Blurt article, rebutting comments made about him by ex-band members in an earlier Blurt --- we didn't have space in Blurt for the piece, but he raises points well worth consideration, hence posting in this forum.)