Unfortunately it seems when you experience things to the extreme, they often happen in the negative sense. Over the course of a few months, we had been in casual talks with a band out of San Diego. It's during these casual talks that you learn a lot about the band, their goals, and get a sense about them as people. Once it became clear that there wouldn't be space in our roster for the near future, there was a real potential for a difficult and ugly conversation. Having done this a few times, I've come to expect it. This band took me by surprise. Instead of having the reaction of anger, dire disappointment, or screaming bomb threats, they wrote me this:

 

Hi Josh,

It has been such a pleasure keeping in touch with you during the past few months, and we look forward to taking you up on your offer to have a place to crash.

We all appreciate your transparency, and we look forward to sending you our songs anyway for all of your listening pleasure. We hope all the success possible for Branch Records and all of your great artists. Perhaps the timing will be better for all of us sometime in the future.

Best wishes, and we look forward to keeping tabs on all of your artists in the future. Please let us know if there is any flyering, or the sorts, that we can do for you in San Diego.

- George Thornton - incomplete neighbor

     Now it's been over a month since they sent me this and it still resonates. Why? Because every time I deal with over reactions and bad attitudes from perspective bands, it reminds me of the great dialogue I've had with a band in San Diego called Incomplete Neighbor. Life is too short to waste it on arrogance and drama queens. Find great talented people to work with and you will always be happy in whatever you do. These guys were worth every second.