Help with bar songs...

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Modest Mouse - Float On, Paper Thin Walls

I'm assuming you don't want to go totally into that indie-rock direction but other bands that fit are:

Death Cab for Cutie - Sound of Settling
Hot Hot Heat - Bandages

Hope this helps. Might want to give an example of material you already plan on playing. That way we could taylor the suggestions.

Other "hip" bands along those lines might be:

The Unicorns
Arcade Fire
The Hives

I'm in the same situation as you. We are an originals band, and, as such, our covers are lacking. Whenever we DO pick covers, we pick songs that lots of people that are into our kind of music would like. We avoid new "hip" music, because it has not proven its worth, as it were. We are an alt/rock band, and the covers we use are stuff by the progenies of our genre. We have covered The Smashing Pumpkins (Bullet with butterfly wings), Stone Temple Pilots (sex type thing, plush, interstate love song on those lighter gigs), The Foo Fighters (everlong, monkey wrench), that kind of thing. We assume that the music that was formative to us has been formative to our fans, and, as long as we stick to the more popular, but not TOO popular, side of that music, it has worked out great. If you want some more suggestions, let me know.

Foo Fighters are always a good choice

Beck

Ben Harper

Though I doubt you want to cover emo songs...

My Chemical Romance
Thursday
Atreyu
Story of the Year
Yellowcard

Here's some better stuff (imo) but not terribly good

Dashboard Confessional
Green Day
White Stripes
Foo Fighters
Kings of Leon (don't know their single)
Audioslave
Blink 182
Switchfoot

Half that stuff isn't good, but it's what people like. I'd say Foo Fighters are always cool.

Hope that helpsish

Oh, and if you like older rock, check out Oasis!

Its not a bad thing to be stuck on Morphine. I have been too for about two years. I'd go with some classics. I'm in the same boat as you are, I don't watch MTV or VH1 and barely listen to commercial radio. I guess I see most of that stuff as a fading bleep, so why learn it if you're doing originals. Throw in some Band or Big Brother and see what happens.

Download iTunes from http://www.apple.com/itunes/, go onto their online music store, and scan their sales charts. They also have airplay charts for most of the radio stations in the country, which should also be a help.

I'd say you'd do well playing some Foo Fighters or Audioslave. Jet seems to be playing at all the non-dance club bars around here so I guess at least somebody likes them.

- Franz Ferdinand
- Black Eye'd Peas (Let's Get ********...people are going apesh** when we do that one)
- Jet
- Maroon 5

Don't forget...sometimes "retro" is "new" to some of the young folk. Right now, I think that 80s pop is the rage for people 20-25 yrs old...however, there are 2 categories of songs in 80s retro: those that were huge at the time, but not played anymore (these songs go over huge with an older crowd who haven't heard these tunes for a long time), and those tunes that still have legs...the ones with legs are huge with those kids who don't even REMEMBER the 80s.

Stuff with legs for the young kids:
- Bon Jovi
- Twisted Sister
- Def Leppard
- Rick Springfield
- The Buggles
- Michael Jackson

TRUE retro for the older crowd:
- Pet Shop Boys
- Frankie Goes to Hollywood
- Survivor
- Toto

Good luck!

The Nanny

In line with The Nanny's 80's pop song idea. A band from the bay area that had a very "80's" type sound (pop-punk with synths, really) did a REALLY cool cover of "Under the Milky Way Tonight" by the Church. Went over well with the kids too (especially the ones who had seen Donnie Darko).

Someone recently played some songs for me from a band, I think they're called, Interpool. I really liked it. It seems like a good band to check out.