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Dude, you just can't cover...

#105
I'm not saying it can't be done, but to acturately and proficiently cover any of the pre-90125 Yes stuff seems like it would be VERY difficult to execute. People can play the individual parts right, but its ridiculously hard to make it gel properly and not end up making the song feel like its a struggle to get out.
 
#106
Most of the bands that I think cannot be covered are primarily because MOST bands lack the musicianship to pull it off decently enough.

Zappa. The only band I've heard come close is Parliament/Funkadelic who play the tutti part from "I am the Slime" as their introduction But then again, they are professionals, not the local cover band (and they botch it from time to time as well...). The only bands I've ever heard play Zappa well are Zappa plays Zappa (not surprising there), the Grandmothers of Invention (also not surprising, since Napoleon Murphy Brock does a spot-on version of Napoleon Murphy Brock), and Eddy Palermo's big band.

Rush - again, most bands lack the musicianship / vocals. Rush can't even cover Rush in any fashion other than the album recording (if you doubt this statement, ask a die-hard Rush fan if any "mistakes" were made during the show - he will tell you exactly when, where, & what happened). Five guys in the local bar definitely aren't cutting it.

The other problem is that for these examples - they aren't appropriate for ye average drinking bar. Even if a band could pull off a great version of "Peaches en Regalia", outside of the lone Zappa fan in the audience (usually a middle-aged white guy), no one knows what was just played. And Rush (while one of my favorite bands) wouldn't go over well with most girls shaking their asses while dancing. The five dudes who like Rush would jump around, but no one one else would know (or care) that the bass solo on "Freewill" was spot on, let alone the name of the song or band.

Beatles can be covered. Easily. The problem is they have been played ad nauseum & repeatedly held up as "the best band to ever walk the face of the earth", so people get pissed off if they hear something different than "what is on the album". Same goes for the Rolling Stones.
 
#108
Way back about 20 years ago, we used to play an occasional gig at a fairly popular bar that had a strict NO "BROWN EYED GIRL" rule (the mostly had DJ's, rarely live music, and it was such a heavily requested song for so long that they had banned it).

So the first time we played there, we spent some time nailing down a killer cover of Brown Eyed Girl. Not in the original style at all. They LOVED it. It didn't hurt that we packed the room too.
 
#118
The thing about the really technical stuff---Yes, Zappa, Steely Dan---is that it's hard to see how one could cover it without just doing a note-for-note emulation. (Though Waylon Jennings's cover of "Do It Again" is a notable exception; I'm not sure it's the greatest recording ever, or anything, but you sure wouldn't mistake it for the original.)

A good faithful Zappa cover would be a technically impressive thing, but a good unfaithful Zappa cover would *really* get my attention. ("Kozmic Debris" maybe? It seems like it has a workable rock-n-roll skeleton underneath it, unlike a lot of his other material.)

-NT
 
#119
All the talk of covering Zep songs is funny. Some of the old bootlegs (before they got rounded up) made it pretty clear that Zep themselves could have plenty of trouble performing their songs some nights. Plant particular would often finesse high notes or suddenly get "artistic" with songs and decide suddenly that they'd sound great an octave down in a wheezy mumble (that's art, folks).

Page could be all over the place at times too, apparently struggling to decide which guitar overdub to render live.

Haven't heard Jpj or jb miss a beat though.

Mike
 

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