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I have a problem with cover/tribute bands.

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#982
TheBigO said:
Yes, that is double plus ungood - that's me covering George Orwell.

As I've mentioned, my old guitar player is now a session/touring musician. I was talking to him last night (he is finally settling down with his longtime girlfriend and called to tell me) and this topic came up briefly. His take was that he learned a long time ago to put his heart into his guitar playing whether it was a commercial, a potential hit single on some pop album or any of the hundreds of songs and song bits that he records and may never be heard by more than 10 people.

Just an interesting outlook.
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yes it is. and i'm glad you didn't get to deep in the thread poking muck. you've had a lot of good things to say throughout and i don't recall you stooping to say them. bravo!
 
#985
wow, i have followed this thread on & off for days (weeks?). is it finally settling down? i thought of a couple of things that i believe have not been stated, though i have not read every single page...

one is time.

for the record, i love writing/arranging music. i have been playing in original bands for over 25 years. along the way, i have been in (or been a hired hand for) cover bands. currently, i am in an original rock and a blues band (covers, but with improvisation... a hybrid?).

anyway, it seems to me that the typical "originals" experience is to have one rock solid set. usually you only get 20-45 minutes to make a bigger impression than the other "originals" bands on the bill.

most of the gigs i have played, however, have been 3+ hours, one band. and this has made ALL my "originals" bands "cover" bands as well!

i guess i am one of those crazy extremists that believes that playing any live music is a beautiful thing. maybe we could debate live music vs. lip-synching? now can we call in the trained monkeys?!?!
 
#986
EBodious said:
wow, i have followed this thread on & off for days (weeks?). is it finally settling down? i thought of a couple of things that i believe have not been stated, though i have not read every single page...

one is time.

for the record, i love writing/arranging music. i have been playing in original bands for over 25 years. along the way, i have been in (or been a hired hand for) cover bands. currently, i am in an original rock and a blues band (covers, but with improvisation... a hybrid?).

anyway, it seems to me that the typical "originals" experience is to have one rock solid set. usually you only get 20-45 minutes to make a bigger impression than the other "originals" bands on the bill.

most of the gigs i have played, however, have been 3+ hours, one band. and this has made ALL my "originals" bands "cover" bands as well!

i guess i am one of those crazy extremists that believes that playing any live music is a beautiful thing. maybe we could debate live music vs. lip-synching? now can we call in the trained monkeys?!?!
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some of us are already on the job.:p
 
#987
I have to say that this thread helped me remember that one of the original tunes from my last band was entirely written by myself.

I started thinking of it as a cover song because it had been lumped in with a bunch of covers for so long.
 
#988
Now you've all got me remembering one of my 'all originals' bands (we did one cover - a very stylized version of Neil Young's "Helpless") from the middle 90's.

I guess we did pretty well, all things considered. We were booked every weekend at good clubs and we did 4 hours nights. I just thought that was how things went - 9 to 1 - fill 'er up!

We had our share of opening gigs - the typical 45 minutes in front of semi-big national acts... Remember the Connells? (I hardly to either... but I do remember they were very nice, down to earth guys). Brave Combo too... man, I never new polka could be SO FREAKIN' KICK @$$!

We all had a very strong work ethic and two really great song writers and the drummer did an amazing job keeping up on the bookings, getting us in-studio radio spots - the works. I primarily acted as arranger (and graphic artist) - but my arranging skills were strong mostly due to my deep experience with *here it comes* - playing covers.

Nothing like having experience playing everything from Prince, Led Zep, Rush, Steely Dan, Jeff Beck, Spyro Gyra, The Busboys, The Cure, Iron Maiden, Anthrax... Learning all those songs - all those different structures - things that can be done with time signatures, key changes, the different styles and attitudes... Arms you nicely with reference points. Ya know?

Anyway - just wanted to do my part to get us to that 1K mark!
 
#991
I have played in original bands, it felt like I was covering the singer/song writer's songs. It was fun.

Now I play in a cover band and actually make money. We play 4hr shows, so I can't remember every note for a hundred songs. So I make nashville charts of the song...like "Sweet child of mine" key e: vs (7 6 3 7) ch (4 6 7 7) br(1 6 5 4) end(1 3 4 6 7) and I improvise the rest. Every night the songs sound a little different. That's about as fun as playing originals.
 
#994
tZer said:
Nothing like having experience playing everything from Prince, Led Zep, Rush, Steely Dan, Jeff Beck, Spyro Gyra, The Busboys, The Cure, Iron Maiden, Anthrax... Learning all those songs - all those different structures - things that can be done with time signatures, key changes, the different styles and attitudes... Arms you nicely with reference points. Ya know?
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Absolutely- it's not like Rembrandt picked up a brush and immediately started making breathtaking works of art out of thin air, first he had to hone his craft by learning from others. I don't have any interest in playing covers onstage, but I've learned a lot of my favorite songs for my own enjoyment and it's been helpful to my songwriting.
 
#996
tZer said:
I am saying playing covers is creating art - by definition. I am assuming most people playing covers are not frauds and trying to convince their audiences that they actually wrote the songs they're playing. That does not change the fact that they are musician creating (= making) music.
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I'd have to disagree. Again, if I made a copy of a Rembrandt painting, is that art? I was creating a painting, but it's just a copy of what someone else did. The fact that I wouldn't try and pass it off as an original painting is irrelevant.
 
#998
Ephminus said:
I learned that when you mention feces and Ed Asner in the same sentence, that Ed Asner seems to be more offensive and shocking.
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Feces lost a lot of their shock value after the "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" episode of "South Park". A guy kicking you in the nuts while holding a picture of Ed Asner though... jeez, you're gonna give me nightmares.
 
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