TBurst Std
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Currently, as I play Praise/Worship weekly, it is mainly covers as the congregation knows them.
Covers or Originals?
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I haven't been in a band in a long time, but I love making recordings at home, and for the last five years or so I've recorded a lot of covers where I've tried to rearrange things in interesting ways (a couple of Jeff Beck tunes, some Steely Dan, Roy Ayers... I'm kind of happily trapped in the 1970s). Doing rearrangements has been an awesome way to learn new things and gets me playing all my instruments. After I did my first cover recording and sent it to my guitar teacher, he made regular recordings a part of my overall instruction, which has been great. Now I just have to work up the nerve to play with other people...
mullyman
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Well, here are my views on this one.
1. I have no aspirations of becoming a superstar
2. I want to play music that brings people in the door and keeps them on their feet
With those 2 things in mind my band sticks to covers. We do 80's rock. Some of the bands we cover would be Van Halen, Metallica, Poision, Guns 'n Roses, Motley Crue, KISS, Godsmack (90's/early 00's but still kick ass) you can see a pattern here. Anyway, my band sells more tickets to live shows than any other local band around here. In all honesty, I don't feel like any of us are great musicians, but, we play well together and we play songs that people know and are excited to hear. We've played with bands that I personally think are light years better than us and we consistently blow them off the stage. The people want to hear things they know. Playing a bunch f originals will put a crowd to sleep real quick, unless those originals are really really good. Either that or you have to build up a fan base so they get to know your music. Nah, I can't be bothered with that. I just want to get on stage and have fun.
We all choose music but I get the final say. I'm not a tyrant that shoots everyone out of the water though. I'd say 99.9% of the time we move forward with suggestions from everyone. But there is the occasional situation that pops up where A) I don't feel I can pull off the solo or B) the choice of song is an obscure song on the album that not too many people would know. I will play songs that I don't like if I think it will get the crowd going. Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit is one of those. I hate that song with everything that I am. I think Nirvana/Kurt Cobain was the anti-Christ for the guitar. Nirvana started the wave of talentless knobs that couldn't move out of a simple box pattern and they avoided solos like the plague because they didn't have the ability. How that crap got popular is beyond me. But, I know that song gets crowds going so I play it and I play it like it's my all time favorite, but I hate it. The only joy I get out of it is that the crowd goes nuts when I hit that opening riff and I can draw energy off of them because of it. Other than that, I wouldn't lose a millisecond of sleep if I never heard that song again.
So yeah, I stick to covers. And, remember, I'm playing to a Japanese audience. They're not as open to originals as people are in the US.
MULLY
1. I have no aspirations of becoming a superstar
2. I want to play music that brings people in the door and keeps them on their feet
With those 2 things in mind my band sticks to covers. We do 80's rock. Some of the bands we cover would be Van Halen, Metallica, Poision, Guns 'n Roses, Motley Crue, KISS, Godsmack (90's/early 00's but still kick ass) you can see a pattern here. Anyway, my band sells more tickets to live shows than any other local band around here. In all honesty, I don't feel like any of us are great musicians, but, we play well together and we play songs that people know and are excited to hear. We've played with bands that I personally think are light years better than us and we consistently blow them off the stage. The people want to hear things they know. Playing a bunch f originals will put a crowd to sleep real quick, unless those originals are really really good. Either that or you have to build up a fan base so they get to know your music. Nah, I can't be bothered with that. I just want to get on stage and have fun.
We all choose music but I get the final say. I'm not a tyrant that shoots everyone out of the water though. I'd say 99.9% of the time we move forward with suggestions from everyone. But there is the occasional situation that pops up where A) I don't feel I can pull off the solo or B) the choice of song is an obscure song on the album that not too many people would know. I will play songs that I don't like if I think it will get the crowd going. Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit is one of those. I hate that song with everything that I am. I think Nirvana/Kurt Cobain was the anti-Christ for the guitar. Nirvana started the wave of talentless knobs that couldn't move out of a simple box pattern and they avoided solos like the plague because they didn't have the ability. How that crap got popular is beyond me. But, I know that song gets crowds going so I play it and I play it like it's my all time favorite, but I hate it. The only joy I get out of it is that the crowd goes nuts when I hit that opening riff and I can draw energy off of them because of it. Other than that, I wouldn't lose a millisecond of sleep if I never heard that song again.
So yeah, I stick to covers. And, remember, I'm playing to a Japanese audience. They're not as open to originals as people are in the US.
MULLY
alexmyla
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mullyman said:
i'll agree with the nirvana comment. i still cant hate too much cause the way i got started playing guitar was hearing riffs from bands like Blink 182 and nirvana and stuff like that. once i finally learned how to play and create my own stuff i got tired of those. its just boring to play that on stage but it suuuure gets the crowd goin.
another thing is do u happen to have any gig photos? or live pics or videos? i think that would be cool for everyone to see!
mullyman
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alexmyla said:
Yeah, I'll have to pull out my old HD and see what pictures I have. I know there are files somewhere with a buttload of photos, I just don't know exactly where they are. Also, I didn't intend for that to sound like we played really large places. Our biggest crowd was probably around a hundred people or so. Japanese live houses are small.
MULLY
everything in Japan is small..........except for me
My band is getting ready to record for a myspace page (needed to get gigs here apparently) and we're doing four originals in the studio next Tuesday. Our singer hates the idea of covers, but the rest of us are happy to play them for the reasons Mully mentioned. We actually went through a Nirvana song or two in practice but the guitarist and I rejected them out of disgust for the musicianship.
I've got mixed feelings about it all - I don't love our originals, they seem pretty generic rock to me, but the rest of the band likes them. I have more fun covering The Stones and whatnot right now, and my guess is that an audience would agree. We'll see soon though. I do not think that playing covers is the same as advanced Karaoke. The idea that each musician needs to only play music they write is kind of a weird and when you think about it, stupid idea. When did that become the norm for musicians to not play other's music? Someone tell Ella Fitzgerald and the NY Philharmonic quick!
I've got mixed feelings about it all - I don't love our originals, they seem pretty generic rock to me, but the rest of the band likes them. I have more fun covering The Stones and whatnot right now, and my guess is that an audience would agree. We'll see soon though. I do not think that playing covers is the same as advanced Karaoke. The idea that each musician needs to only play music they write is kind of a weird and when you think about it, stupid idea. When did that become the norm for musicians to not play other's music? Someone tell Ella Fitzgerald and the NY Philharmonic quick!
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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I don't know what kind of music scene is in your area, but myspace allows 10 songs now. 1 or 2 well done covers might be a good idea to include because some clubs want majority covers, so it might be nice to show an example of your take on someone else's song. It seems people always want what you don't do. If you give a demo with covers, "Oh, we're sorry. We wanted a band that does originals." If you give a demo with originals, "Oh we're sorry. We wanted a cover band."
mullyman
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tfarny said:
Oooh, don't get me started on singers. That is the reason I quit my last band. That guy and I get along just fine outside of a band situation but get us working together and we are polar opposites. He felt like since we do covers that they have to be exactly like the CD down to the last note. As a guitar player I like to have a little free space in my playing. I've seen so many shows from Aerosmith to ZZ Top and one thing never fails, the guitarist hardly ever plays the solos like they are on the CD. Hell, even Angus takes a little liberty on Back in Black from time to time. I always told him "Look, I'm not Eddie Van Halen and even the man himself doesn't play it like the CD." and then the arguments would start. Towards the end of our run we added Rock n Roll All Night to our set and I sang it. Personally, I don't think I'm a singer in any way shape or form, but I enjoy doing it from time to time. I got a lot of positive feedback from people saying they really liked that song and enjoyed hearing the song with real English pronunciation. Screw it, after we split up I decided no more singers. I'll do it myself. I've got some other friends together now and we get together every once in a while for a jam but none of us really have the time for a band right now.
MULLY
mullyman
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In a strange turn of events, I ran into the singer from my ex-band on Saturday night. It's been close to 5 years since I saw him. When I opened to the door to the place we were going he was standing right there. He gave me a big smile and I gave him a big smile and we hugged like a couple of poofs. We sat around talking most of the evening and got the brilliant idea of having a "MISCUE" (that was our band's name) 10 year reunion. We started that band in 2000. We're thinking of maybe doing a one off show sometime in the new year.
As much as we fought in the practice studio I have to admit that it was good seeing him again. I think I said it in my earlier post but we got along just fine outside of the band, just couldn't manage together with the music. I don't think a one off show would do any harm. No commitments of any kind. We'll see what happens.
MULLY
wondering what it will take to get the bassist and drummer in on this???
As much as we fought in the practice studio I have to admit that it was good seeing him again. I think I said it in my earlier post but we got along just fine outside of the band, just couldn't manage together with the music. I don't think a one off show would do any harm. No commitments of any kind. We'll see what happens.
MULLY
wondering what it will take to get the bassist and drummer in on this???
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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My question is why? If you had a big following and it was something that people demanded that would be one thing or even had the chance to turn into a regular thing, but I wouldn't want to put all the time and energy into practicing for one show. Especially if the the two of you didn't get along on stage. The tens or hundreds of dollars (with exchange rate) wouldn't be worth it to me. If you missed jammin', get together and do that. To me it's like an old girlfriend, spend enough time together, you'll remember why you're not together anymore. This can't turn out good, IMO. Let memories be memories.
mullyman
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Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
Ha! Actually, we wouldn't be getting paid, that's not how it works here in Japan. You have to pay the place to allow you to play there. You need to sell enough tickets to cover that or it comes out of your pocket. Once you cover the ticket sales any number of things could happen. You could pocket everything for yourself or the live house may ask for a cut of it. There's no money to be made in amateur music over here.
As for us getting along in the studio again, I don't think it would be a problem. Knowing that this is a one off gig I'd be more than patient with anything he would have to say. This would be something totally for fun. I don't expect it to be more than one show and there would be no commitments after that.
MULLY
P
ptirman
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90% covers. That will change in the next 2 years.
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