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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:42 am
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I disagree whole-heartledly about audiences only wanting to hear the "classics..."

If you and your band are good enough, they'll embrace whatever you play (within the genre of the audience...you can't play Norwegian DeathMetal for an audience who wants to hear blues)...and even that has some wiggle room--I've played blues and classic rock for plenty of country audiences, and outlaw country for a lot of rock and blues audiences, and they've always enjoyed and respected what we were doing.

An enthusiastic band playing a good song very well will always go over better than a bored band going through the motions on a great song.

It's an insult to the audience to say they cannot absorb or enjoy something "new"...

I'm not a fabulous songwriter, but I'm good enough for most people to think, "That must be some obscure song I've never heard before...and I like it!"

Maybe I play to a different kind of audience, but I've always had good response from original/B-side/obscure songs.

I will agree that a band/artist sometimes has to give the audience a touchstone--a familiar or popular song that mirrors the style/genre of the artist himself/herself (every great artist started out copying somebody)...however, to say that an audience cannot enjoy original music is indicative of (1) a poor songwriter or (2) a badly prepared band.

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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:05 am
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OK, so people get off their seats when bands play mustang sally and brown eyed girl, so what? There are plently of other songs that'll do the same if bands took a chance and did them. I have no EGO, infact the other guitarist in the band was much more talented than me. I just don't want to play songs that have been covered by so many other bands. Whatevere wounld happen to music if bands didn't take a chance or a risk and try something different?

Personally, when I go to see a cover band I love it when they do something different. The last band I saw did a full set of songs that I had never heard another band cover and the crowd loved them. Goes to show if you do the right songs people WILL listen and get off their seats.


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:11 am
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mrpink wrote:
OK, so people get off their seats when bands play mustang sally and brown eyed girl, so what?

Well said. Who in their right mind wants to hear those old worn out classics? They're boring IMO, very boring. IDK maybe people that are drunk like them or something but after you've heard them for the zillionth time they kinda don't mean much.

You definitely get fed up with those songs. Hell even Robert Plant said he got fed up playing Stairway every night!

You need to inject freshness.

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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:18 am
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Gorgon wrote:
mrpink wrote:
OK, so people get off their seats when bands play mustang sally and brown eyed girl, so what?

Well said. Who in their right mind wants to hear those old worn out classics?

That would be the girls who want to dance to those songs and request them.
Without them there would be no income at the venue. She who pays the piper calls the tunes.

If you don't want to play the songs, pick a different audience.


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:28 am
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To me, doing the so called `classics` is a lazy and unimaginative way of putting together a set list. I don't play because of the money, I play because I love playing and if I don't love the song, what's the point? If I played songs I didn't like just to get regular gigs and money wouldn't that makr me a sell out?


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:35 am
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I agree wholeheartedly with you.

I was in a covers band we put together in work. In the beginning it was a mess so we added some easy stuff just so we could learn to play with each other but unfortunately they got stuck and weren't dropped because some members of the band loved doing them. They really become some awful cliches. I thought just playing in a band would be enough to put up with them but soon it didn't.
They were:
Mustang Sally (ugh!)
Smoke On the Water
Whole Lotta Love
Comfortably Numb
Sunshine of Your Love
Nothing Else Matters
Back In Black

All I could think of was being laughed offstage when we played the opening bars to Smoke On the Water. This band was rehearsing once every two or three weeks. I was also playing bass in a band that only did original material that was rehearsing weekly and looking to our first gigs. I found this infinitely more satisfying than doing the cheesiest covers. The moment I knew it was time to leave the covers band was 4 minutes into the 2nd solo on comfortably numb while I was standing looking at the lead guitarist and wondering if he was going to come back down out of his own backside so we could finish the song. I left the next day and focused on the originals band. We found that people were very interested in hearing original material and also found that most of the venues were only interested in hearing originals and we got great reactions from the crowds. We were averaging one to two gigs a week.

Eventually the band broke up. Recently I've put an entirely new band together, all around the same age liking the same type of music. We agreed from the outset we would do both originals and covers but mainly originals. Now we are a couple of weeks in, we have more covers because we have to write some originals.

The covers are:
Run - Snow Patrol
Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty
Give Me A Reason - Tracy Chapman
Zepher Song - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
Erase & Rewind - The Cardigans

We have also written two original songs and a third on the way.

We agreed that the covers we did would not be very well known but they would be great songs and people who heard them would be pleasantly surprised when they heard them and wouldn't be subjected to the usual covers that a lot of bands play.

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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:57 am
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Erase & Rewind - The Cardigans, now see, that's what I mean! A Great song and I have Never heard it being covered.


Thank you,


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 11:07 am
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torresfan wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly with you...Recently I've put an entirely new band together, all around the same age liking the same type of music. We agreed from the outset we would do both originals and covers but mainly originals. Now we are a couple of weeks in, we have more covers because we have to write some originals.

The covers are:
Run - Snow Patrol
Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty
Give Me A Reason - Tracy Chapman
Zepher Song - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
Erase & Rewind - The Cardigans

We have also written two original songs and a third on the way.

We agreed that the covers we did would not be very well known but they would be great songs and people who heard them would be pleasantly surprised when they heard them and wouldn't be subjected to the usual covers that a lot of bands play.

In the words of Mark Knopler, "That's the way ya do it!"

Cover songs that haven't been heard 8.62 billion times.

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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 11:09 am
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Let me tell you about a recent experience. In August we played an outdoor show at a farm about 20 minutes out of the city along with 4 other bands. It was a small "fest" if you like. Our band closed the night out and we rocked the show like none of the other bands could, not because we were the best musicians there because we weren't. The band that played immediately before us was by far the best band present in terms of musicianship and I was little nervous about having to follow them. We totally rocked the show …. because we were the only cover band there. The crowd was unfamiliar with the other bands and did not recognize a single song any of them played. They all played their own original music. They were all good in their own way and for the most part people were interested in hearing them and checking it all out all but the patrons didn't "party hearty" while those bands were on. Band members from the other bands watched with interest but the vast majority of people didn't pay close attention at all. They just stood around talking and occasional glancing at the stage, not unlike a band being ignored in a tavern … except on a larger scale, of course. As soon as we played one bar of our first song, girls started screaming and guys started shouting and people danced and moshed. People recognized our songs and partied. I'll freely admit we didn't play Mustang Sally or Wonderful Tonight but we did play several rocked out versions of some old classics by the likes of SRV, Elvis, Carl Perkins, etc.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, for a cover band, when you play "out" you play for the crowd. You don't play for yourself. Calling it selling out might seem like a great way to make yourself feel good about making a questionable decision but the truth is, as I've said before, if you're going to play covers you will have to make compromises. You have to make compromises anyway just by being in a band with other people. Being uncompromising is the number one reason why most new young bands never make it past 6 months together. Learn to compromise. Learn to be a team player. Learn to look at your priorities from an objective perspective.

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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 11:52 am
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Playing cover songs is not selling out.

Making money playing cover songs is not selling out.

Playing a song you hate and/or are embarrassed to play IS selling out, whether you do it for money, adoration or whatever.

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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:02 pm
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Screamin' Armadillo wrote:
Playing cover songs is not selling out.

Making money playing cover songs is not selling out.

Playing a song you hate and/or are embarrassed to play IS selling out, whether you do it for money, adoration or whatever.


correct!


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:05 pm
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Remember that Eric Clapton became successful through playing cover songs. And became really big by playing songs he had played so much that he hated them.
Call him a sellout if you like. I call him successful.

As my late father used to say, you may have to do what you don't want now, so you later can do what you do want. If playing "Summer of '69" or "Gangnam Style" is what does it, so it goes. You grin and do your best, and pretend to like it so the customers are happy, and you let your free bars show that you can do better. If you can't, you don't belong at that venue. Some other place, sure, but not where people want the songs you don't want to play.


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:17 pm
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I have no intention of grinnin and bearining it, lifes too short to waste doing things you don't like. Music is my passion and I will not let it be clouded or tainted. Since starting this post this morning I have been contacted by the singer form the band offering to start our own band doing songs that I like, witrhout the other members. Some people have no morals aye.


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:18 pm
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Can I just say some of the replies on here are just marvelous, "um, no", "lazy" whatever.

If I hear Mustang Sally or Wonderful Tonight on the radio I'd probably turn the station. If If we finish playing "Brandy" or "Coulnd't Get it Right" and we have lost some momentum will we play them, have fun watching the dance floor fill up again? Absolutely. I play for the fun of it, and any $$ I make at it goes to by more toys to have fun making music. Our band will be forgotten not long after we stop because we're just another cover band, and I'm fine with all of that.

Curb your elitist attitudes a bit. Reminds me of the guy who came up to me while we were on break a couple years ago. He told me, yes TOLD me he was gonna sit in on my bass after break to "show me how to play some stuff." At which time I told him I'd rather break my bass over my knee than have such an a-hole touch it.

Why do people have to be so superior all the time? I've never heard of any of you as a famous musician so you're no more important than I am.


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Post subject: Re: Was I rihght to leave my band?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:31 pm
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It's not about being elitist or thinking you're better than anyone else. It's just about having different tastes in music. I thought punk was supposed to have cleared the way for originality and new alternative music. looks like we need another punk explosion.....I'm in!


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