Happy or not for some friends???
Home > Home Recording Forum > Talkin' Smack > Happy or not for some friends???
Posted on Sep 12, 2007 07:01 pm
dbmasters
Administrator Since: Apr 03, 2002
These guys I used to be in a band with, and am still friends with, are in a weird spot in my heart.
A couple of us started in a classic rock cover band, we were pretty good, did well on the cover scene, but wasn't fulfilling at all personally, eventually a couple members dropped out and me and one other guy got other members and went all original, now THAT is fulfilling to me, we did well, got paid decently playing a couple to a few times a month...but as we grew up, I got married, had a family, a members psycho girlfriendsa made problems and whatnot I quit.
Some of these guys are now together in a classic rock cover band and calling em about these little gigs, "battle of the bands" stuff and all that.
I like these guys, good dudes and all, but the one guy I really did some cool stuff with disappoints me...he's a great songwriter and guitarist, nice guy and all...I feel like somehow he is just belittling himself by going full circle back to cheesy cover band crap...
No disrespect meant to cover bands here, if you like it great, but I know he is capable of so much more...
I dunno why I am rambling about it, I guess a couple beers and a Vicodin into the night I am a bit melancholy.
The other members that know are good guys too, but one will always be a cover guy, that's just who he is, and that's fine, but this one guy I did so much with, wrote good tunes, played good gigs had fun and DID something original and cool...to step back to being a lounge act/vegas cover band junk...I dunno, just bums me out.
Does that make sense.
They tell me about their shows, but I am so uninterested I can't get my *** off the couch to go...of course the last was the day after surgery, but still...
[ Back to Top ]
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Sep 12, 2007 07:15 pm Sometimes it's just about having fun, and He most likely is having fun doing what He's doing right now, I would just accept it as that.
Writing your own material and getting a place to play it is work, satisfying as it may be it still requires alot more effort and in the end most of it will sadly go un-noticed. I can fully understand why someone would want to just get out there and play having fun.
Dan
Sep 12, 2007 08:04 pm I suppose maybe it's fun, I guess I can't relate, I never had fun in my cover band days. Some I like watching...I enjoyed watching the Cutaways a couple months back, they were good, another buddy of mine is in a cover band that is quite good...that I enjoy that...
Ya know, maybe it's more because they are playing the exact same songs him and I played back then, so they are tired to me...maybe that's it...maybe it's not the cover thing at all...maybe it's the boredom the set list gives me having played them all a billion times...
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Sep 12, 2007 09:23 pm Funny, to me they were all covers. Granted, I would create my own parts for songs that the origional band did, but, still even that was so simple that I didn't feel creative. For me it was all about how well the band played together and how well the music conveyed. I never have cared who wrote it, even if it was me.
Sep 12, 2007 10:03 pm Yeah, the whole cover band thing gets really stale, really fast. I'm definately growing tired of the bar scene. I longer enjoy playing for a bunch of drunks shouting "woo-hoo!" asking for "Freebird".
I love playing festivals and community events and private parties and such. There's more of an opportunity to play some of the more obscure covers that we do, as well as a few originals. The bar crowds only want to hear the same old danceable covers that every band since 1985 has been playing to death.
In a few weeks we're playing at an outdoor BBQ and Blues Fest, and we don't even know any blues tunes. That should be fun!
dB...I hear exactly what you're saying. Some folks get a real kick out being in a band and playing the songs people want to hear and just rockin' out. I'm growing beyond that...to where, I don't know.
Sep 12, 2007 10:58 pm Yeah, I got a real charge out of doing covers my first few gigs as a young kid wanna-be rock star...when none of the bands ever got out of our friends basement parties. Once I started playing clubs the cover thing sucked...it was fun for the first show or two, after that it was just work..."wow, they are dancing and screaming to the songs that [insert songwriter] wrote...big deal"...
Once we got people dancing, grooving, buying us drinks, giving us phone number and flashing us body parts to our own music, that is what it was all about to me...
I could never go back to a cover thing...as fun as some are to watch, I can't help but think of the practice, hauling gear, stupid ego tripped musicians when it was all about somebody else's music...I just no longer understand it, even less understandable to me is the dreaded tribute band...(apologies to the Green Day tribute guy here)...it's just something I'll never get...
...and the guy I spent years jamming with, writing tunes with, performing with, hearing us on the radio, watching each other do our studio takes of OUR music...
man, I dunno...
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Sep 12, 2007 11:07 pm Blahahahahaha! It's been the same since the late 60's early 70's. But it used to be some fool yelling, "Play Wipe Ouut Maaan!" Private parties and such are plain hit and miss. We did the Ford foundation MDA event which was also Mr.s Ford's birthday and it was a total drag. Everybody was simply seeing how brown they could get their noses. Turned around and did the U of M alumni bash and holy hell those people let loose. A thousand or so doctors gettin down. Every crowd has an demeanor. If they want to party, they will. But I do agee, the best parties I have done were not in bars.
Sep 13, 2007 03:54 am yeah i got burnt on the cover gigs at a VERY early age....when i was 15 playin' bass with my dad drummin' in a cover band, i know i played every weekend solid for at least a year an a half....sure the playlist evolved, but i first got bored with it, then it became WORK! now i consider myself a 'go with the flow' kinda guy so when things like 'work' and 'responsibility' come up, i tend to distance myself from it...and at around the second year, i got in an all original band and giged atleast once a month for another year an a half....i put more 'voluntary work' into it because i simply cared more for it.
my dad is a cover kinda guy, and it might be some kinda 'father/son' issue to where i rebelled against it because his philosophy to this day is "play it EXACTLY how it was recorded, that's what the crowd wants to hear"...AHHHHH!!! NOOOOO!!!
i cannot distance myself further from that statement!
than again, when me and my friends rip the snot out of "Runaway" into an almost unrecognizable form, the crowd isn't exactly as 'into it' as they are when the hear the simulated original version....
so i'm quite biased....if you're gonna play covers, put your flava on 'em!!!!! make them yours!
it's like joe cocker vs. the beatles (or was it an individual's project?) version of "get by with a little help" (sheesh! i don't even know the real title! shame on me.) or Ike and Tina's version of Rollin' on the River.
i'd much rather hear a new spin on an old favorite then some (dare i say) sad people trying their damnedest to sound like the original artists.
my drunken two cents.
Sep 13, 2007 06:49 am you summed up my thoughts pretty well...even in an all original band we played a couple well chosen covers and put our feel on 'em.
I HATE Tina's version of Proud Mary (or "Rollin on the River as you call it) good that version sucks. It's hardly even music to me.
Sep 13, 2007 07:09 am I'm tired of playing "Sweet Home Alabama" every weekend. The guitar players go on and on with their solos (they ARE good, though). I play bass on that one, and I'm no bass player. Consequently, I stand there and play the same three frickin' notes for ten minutes. D - C - G (repeat ad nauseum) and don't forget to throw the F in there on the verse about the Governor.
Sep 13, 2007 07:22 am hahahahaha, yeah, I used to piss off one or two bandmates cuz when I'd get bored I'd just start noodlin around...in key and on time, like my own little bass solo underneath the guitar solos...
Fortunately the guitarist (the guy in question in this whole thread) was the one that always thought it was cool...so hell with everybody else...they were always the "play it exactly like the record" kind of guys like WYD mentioned of his dad...
Sep 13, 2007 07:29 am Yeah, fortunately, we are NOT a play it like the record kind of band. We're a "play it however you want to but never play it the same way twice" kind of band. I think that the rest of the guys are tiring of the bar scene too. We have one gig on our schedule, Oct. 7th...that's it! Everybody, myself included, seems to be content to give it a rest for a while.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Sep 13, 2007 08:21 am The whole rock gig is so bizzare to me. In the jazz and swing bands I played in there was no such thing as play it as it was. Maybe some signature riff in the thing, but beyond that it was our arrangement either formaly or by default. I guess I just think differently. I remember going to bars to listen to rock as a kid, and hearing people say 'they sound just like xxxxx'. I remember thinking they sound either better or worse. I never connected with that goal of sounding like someone else at any level. If you can't do better, why bother? Get a DJ.
Sep 13, 2007 09:37 am A fellow named Herb on the drums
Was weary of gigging with bums
Afraid that he’d just
Spontaneously combust
He left them with butts on their thumbs
TallChapAnswer:On a good day, lipstick.Member
Since: Jun 24, 2004
Sep 13, 2007 10:30 am I'd say let them do their thing, and be happy for them dB-Wan. If it's not your thing, that's cool. Maybe you shouldn't overanalyze the situation and just dig that their having some fun. If the music sucks, that's a whole other story.
I got out of cover bands in my mid teens. It's weird that I'd go to auditions etc. later on and have them say, "Do you know XXX [insert classic rock song]???" only to have me say, "I know it, but I don't know how to play it..."
I just did so much original stuff that I never needed or bothered to learn anyone else's songs.
Whn a band I was in did a cover, we'd make it our own, and do it slightly differently to the original as there are a lot of "untouchable" songs out there that you don't want to f*** up. They are kinda sacred to some people. Playing them poorly is a bit of an insult to the original artist.
That said, "Jet" was supreme fun.
Sep 13, 2007 10:34 am Quote:
If the music sucks, that's a whole other story.
Well, that is another topic, cuz, well, let's just say you can have a group of great instrumentalists, but that doesn't mean you have a great band.
That said, I should go check out one of their gigs sometime...I have drank with them at practice and it sounded bad, but then, gigs typically sound better...
It's really not a matter of not "being happy for them" I guess, or over analyzing anything, just watching that buddy of mine that I know is capable of so much more...
TallChapAnswer:On a good day, lipstick.Member
Since: Jun 24, 2004
Sep 13, 2007 10:45 am I get what you're saying. If you see it as a bit of a waste, it can be disheartening.
But, if your buddy sees the whole originals thing as too much work he probably doesn't want to pursue that road.
I personally prefer sitting in my garage with headphones on to playing out with bands these days. I'd still love to play the odd gig (once a year...), but other than that I don't really miss it. For me the satisfaction of writing, arranging, recording, and mixing a song is far more rewarding than hefting bass amps around (or even coiling dusty cables) late at night.
Sep 13, 2007 11:11 am Yeah, actually they asked if I was interested a long time ago and I said no, I'd never go that direction again. The other funny part is that due to the anal-retentiveness of one member (he is a great guy, just very anal-retentive) they have literally been practicing for a year and a half and just now are doing shows...
I am much like you, I prefer sitting on my front stoop while the kids are play, and the dog is running around, with my guitar, a beer and my 'lil smokie amp...just pickin for my own personal thrills.
