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Learning songs you REALLY DON'T LIKE

#45
I dislike playing our whole originals catalog...every one of them....just a heap of self indulgent, electronic masturbation.
We have a gig in a couple weeks that I am almost sick about doing. I'm pulling the plug on these guys right after the show, gonna take my PA and go home...at least that's my plan at the moment. :cool:
 
#46
shastaband said:
Hard to call the shots on material when you're just filling in. I was in a cover band for 14 years with the same guys. It was a democratic band, no leader, and we ran it like the U.N. Security Council-any member could veto a song choice. We passed on some very effective songs (in terms of audience appeal), but nobody had to play a song they hated. My personal take on popular cover songs is this: the song was a hit-millions of people liked it-what is it about the song that caused that? What can I learn about popular taste in music by learning this song? I'm currently in a covers rock band and I do what the bandleader chooses, if I want to work and get paid. My jazz band doesn't gig, just records (mixing our 4th CD now), and we arrive at song choices by mutual discussion and only do material we all like. For my solo folk act, I do what I want to do.
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Unfortunately, in the case of some songs what you can learn is popular taste is bad.
 
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#48
repoman said:
I dislike playing our whole originals catalog...every one of them....just a heap of self indulgent, electronic masturbation.
We have a gig in a couple weeks that I am almost sick about doing. I'm pulling the plug on these guys right after the show, gonna take my PA and go home...at least that's my plan at the moment. :cool:
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Sometimes playing a song written by a good guitar player is like driving a race car designed by a good driver. The skillsets are different.
 
#49
petrus61 said:
The song in question is Meatloafs "Paradise By The Dashboard Light". I have hated that song since the moment I heard it years ago. It has to be the most gratuitous display of exaggerated theatrical cliche crap that ever existed. Absolutely horrible. I didn't want to say the song because I didn't want this to turn into a debate about the genius of Meatloaf ;)
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I really feel for ya, man. I really do.
 
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#50
repoman said:
I dislike playing our whole originals catalog...every one of them....just a heap of self indulgent, electronic masturbation.
We have a gig in a couple weeks that I am almost sick about doing. I'm pulling the plug on these guys right after the show, gonna take my PA and go home...at least that's my plan at the moment. :cool:
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I hear you. I'm actually going to pass on the Thanksgiving gig they're proposing. I already committed to New Years but after that, I think I'm done playing anything I can't easily digest for a couple hundred bucks. Life is too short. I'm not going to be playing Madison Square Garden anytime soon or getting in a bus with a bunch of smelly hipsters for an east coast tour...my rock star days are over. I guess this is bothering so much because I got to a point where I didn't have to network and be on the scene constantly to play what I enjoyed and I promised myself I wouldn't put myself in this type of situation. I had a flurry of calls in the last few month for some decent pay gigs and I think one just turned into two and so on, and i got a little ahead of myself. This is exactly the scenario I wanted to avoid and here I am. I guess I'm sort of just realizing this as I write this post.
 
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#52
Way out there suggestion, which I'd do since I'm a smart-@#%$; try making up your own parody lyrics, Weird Al style. "Apple pie by the fridge night light," etc. They only have to go through your own head, but it might make it easier, unless you have to explain why you keep cracking up at certain points in the song. (Best case scenario there- they ask you to share the lyrics, like your version better, and go with it instead.)
 
#53
Meatloaf is the worst. I recommend charting the song out one section at a time. Normally I just listen to em a dozen times and don't even play bass along with em till practice. But listen to a section , chart, rewind as necessary.
Also when I really hate a song I put off learning it. Sometimes just listen to it on the way to the gig! Less painful when you know your reputation is on the line In forty minutes.
 
#55
petrus61 said:
As I said, I keep the two completely separate. The other bands that I 'jam' with are all made up of people and friends in regular gigging projects. We get together because we are in other bands that do not afford the same freedoms and have no interest to play out or to play what "the crowd wants". It's very different than being in a group of naive weekend warriors that think people care about their drop tuned version of Simple Man.


The song in question is Meatloafs "Paradise By The Dashboard Light". I have hated that song since the moment I heard it years ago. It has to be the most gratuitous display of exaggerated theatrical cliche crap that ever existed. Absolutely horrible. I didn't want to say the song because I didn't want this to turn into a debate about the genius of Meatloaf ;)
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Ouch! But there are definitely worse songs out there - for interest as a bass player anything by AC/DC or any pre 1960 country song (or any post 1960 country song.
Focus on the challenge of remembering all of the parts (if I recall correctly none of them individually is all that challenging, but there are a lot of them) and not so much on the actual song. I know that once my band got it together one of my favourite songs to play was "Every Rose Has Its Thorns" which, as a song to listen to I despise more than pretty much anything I can think of, to this day hearing it on the radio makes me change the station but paying it makes me smile. for me the challenge on that song was singing the harmonies since I have like a three semi-tone range - but what ever the challenge is focus on that.
 

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