Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Local Live Music Is Dead
- Thread starter Altitude
- Start date
Naah, I play programmed drums/programmed synths/autotuned vocals stuff with "real instruments". It's just notes and words, a lot of it is not much harder to arrange and play than classic rock. As long as you try to retain as much of the spirit of the original as you can within the limitations of what you got and don't take the "this song is terrible, let's fix it by making it rock" approach you'll do all right.
Sure, the original version will sound better, but yours will be more human, give the audience more to look at, and in a way be more prestigious and impressive. I mean, you're not only doing something other cover bands can't do, you're often doing something not even the original artist could do. That brings back some of the mystique, too.
If real instruments were useless and irrelevant DJs would not be doing "live acts". Even Buraka Som Sistema use live drumming as an addition to the loops. I don't want to go all Denis Dutton on this thread, but there are some pretty fixed things people will always want from art and entertainment.
Could be. Though if you want to play anything that's not retro, "interesting reinterpretations" are pretty much the only choice you have anyway.
We could play them. But there is no reason for a club owner to pay 4 people to bring their instruments when customers are just as happy with his work-for-beer cousin on a laptop.
I've seen some of your posts and vids and you've got an interesting thing going. I'm not saying there is no market for live music, just listing some reasons why it is dwindling.
Yeah, I agree that the market's dwindling and pretty much agree why. I'm really just pointing out some possible rearguard actions.
This is actually kind of the point. Gigging as a sideman is no longer a career choice. The fact that it is almost impossible to make a 'middle class living' as a player at this point for the VAST majority of players.
It would greatly improve your 'art' if you could focus on music full time (of course, I agree, many 'back in the day' wasted that gift with laziness, drugs, alcohol, etc., which is always a shame), you would be a better player in general and the product would be better. But again, those days are over.
Your point above summarizes the whole issue. Up until about the late 80's, a decent player COULD focus totally on playing, make a decent 'lower middle class wage', have good gear, etc., and play regularly enough to really develop your ear, time and 'professionalism'.
Of course, the high end DJ's are kind of living this life right now. Again, this isn't about 'music', but rather live music played by 'bands' that are based on a format (guitar, bass, drums, keys) that emerged 50 years ago and is now, IMO, yesterday's news.
Live music is "dead" to an entire generation, for the most part, because of what they know. We've had a decade and a half of the boy bands and prefab teen poppers, beatbox auto-tuners and noise doctors pumping out pop music that is not "live" in style. It's not conducive to being played live with a high degree of visual entertainment value. It's music built for the moment; the dance; sonic toilet paper. The college crowd has been raised on this crap. At a recent live band karaoke gig on an ASU campus, the "track tunes" took over in the final hour, as the coeds Britneygagadelled out. Poor guitar player had to fake it, and I just tried to learn the songs for next time with my volume pedal down, and ramped it back up for chorus parts that I knew were easy enough. Keys played along at no volume, as well, and drummer played with. It seemed to work quite well, but you could understand that the experience really brought home the feeling of being pushed out that is at the heart of what so many have written, here.
I live on a tiny island and the music scene here is more dead than it was 5 years ago but its still very much alive and kicking (albeit mostly metal). With the band I'm in we had 3 gigs a weekend every other week through out the summer, we have a lot of opportunity here to play our own little festivals and all the pubs are more than happy to have you play there, we also have this thing called the rock of ages which happens nearly every month and its always packed out. I wouldnt say its dead here, but I'm talking british/England/Guernsey, it doesnt seem to be dead this part of the world.
What gets me is how much music these days doesn't even seem to care about a real bass line. It's just that damn, deep bass drum sound bumping along. I was listening to different arrangements of an old song recently and when I went to John Mayer, I was appalled to hear too much deep bass drum on that track. I didn't expect that from a track by him. Maybe that's a poor example of what I'm talking about, but ya'll know what I mean, I'm sure. It seems that the whole world has gone too low with everything---drums, bass, vocals, keys, even movies---all have much more lows than they used to.
It makes me fear if bass guitar isn't dying sometime soon.
It makes me fear if bass guitar isn't dying sometime soon.
I've seen you playing with your shirt off. You need to work on your rearguard
Part of it is my location. I'm all about taking popular songs and playing them in an unusual fashion (3 guys doing "I kissed a girl and I liked it", male quartet singing "Natural Woman"). We have fun and the audiences like and appreciate what we do. But twice in the last 3 months we had gigs booked at places that closed down before we got the chance to play.
My favorite place was a local wine bar. Close, small, great crowd, no smoking, done by 11, and OK pay with all the wine/beer we wanted. They expanded in 2008, economy tanked, we did the New Year's Eve gig and they announced at the party they would be closing the next day.
The corporations around here are pretty cheap, too. They don't do any events beyond softball and soccer. Last year a German auto plant opened nearby and we did the opening party. I turned it down because I've decided not to miss my kid's games to play for a bunch of rich folks that don't care anyway. So I found a sub for the band. Turned out I was on point.
It was a Thursday night. They had a nice set up, lots of expensive stuff in goodie bags for the guests. They had dinner but didn't let the band play until 9. These people had to work the next day. They weren't there to party, they were making an appearance. So they were all leaving by the time the band got up. They played one set and went home (with some goodie bags
). It was still a decent gig and everybody got couple of hundred, but that's few and far between around here.
What seems to get a lot of run here in the Houston area is this tribute band crap. Outside of that, cover bands are having a hard time finding regular gigs it seems. There a few that mangage to stay somewhat busy however. I don't mean to offend anyone with calling tribute bands crap- I play in one too. Sometimes if it weren't for that I wouldn't be out playing. But the live music once really thrived in this town. It has slowed down considerably. It's really sad.
My sense is that, in order to draw for live music, there needs to be an appeal beyond the live music experience itself.
The nostalgia angle with a tribute band sounds like a good example. Hard for me to imagine people going out to see the same tribute band more than a couple of times, though. I guess Superdiamond does it.
In a sense, ANY cover band is a tribute act. When you play someone else's music, it is a tribute to them, even if you are doing a unique interpretation of that song or songs. If a band plays, say, heavy metal versions of ABBA tunes, that is a tribute to ABBA and to heavy metal.
To play original music is possible in our local scene, but you won't make much money or play to many people.
Cover bands fare better. Especially blues, salsa, and mariachi. Beyond that, gigs are few and far between. With our 50s band, we have been pretty lucky, playing big local events and getting a fairly regular casino gig.
Don't really agree with this. 'Tribute' bands have a very specific definition and vibe... exactly reproducing a single band's (or artists) sound, tunes, and even look. It was always a strange concept to me, but people seem to like it. I guess it is the same sort of thing as going to 'international village' at Disneyland.... not the real thing, but I guess it gives some the 'flavor of it'.
The whole 'tribute' thing is, IMO, a unique way to get work in this era, and for some, it seems to work quite well.
Fair enough. I was more addressing the notion that tribute acts are crap, but cover bands are not. I have done both, both are viable ways to get in front of an audience and play music. In that sense, they are the same. Believe me, in a perfect world, we would all play original music in front of thousands of adoring fans and make loads of money!
It's a draw factor. In a tribute band, you attract fans of the band you are "tributing", in addition to your own fans. I see how it can work, although I wold always feel like I was giving up a little of my own soul by deliberately emulating another person's art like you do in that situation.
There's a band here in the Denver/Boulder area called the Motet who has met this concept halfway and had some success. The Motet is a long-tenured and popular band in its own right, so they have a local draw. Now and then, they'll do a show that completely features music from a certain other band - I've seen them to Talking Heads and EWF nights recently to full houses.
That can add a draw ingredient, but it's a s**tload of work for them, as they have to get a whole night's worth of music together for a single show.
To quote my favorite movie of all time:
"When are you going to play That Thing You Do? We came here to meet girls and dance and we can't meet girls until we dance!!"
When I go out on the town, I want to get drunk and hopefully score with some random girl. Maybe that's not what every person is looking to do, but from my observation/experience it seems to be a pretty 'in' thing right now with us younger folk.
To do that, I will probably pick a bar that is pumping dance music with a DJ rather than going to see a band. The dance clubs are where the drunk girls looking for trouble will be, therefore that is where I am going to be.
I don't want to spend my time and money going out so I can appreciate Johnny Tightpants amazing guitar skills. It's WAY more fun to meet a random girl and possibly get herpes.
Cover bands can still be good for this if they play the right music. Unfortunately a lot of them would rather work towards a mosh pit than a dancefloor.
That's my two cents anyway. There are still people who genuinely want to see live music and appreciate it but I think the trend is more towards dancing and having a good time for yourself... not supporting local bands.
"When are you going to play That Thing You Do? We came here to meet girls and dance and we can't meet girls until we dance!!"
When I go out on the town, I want to get drunk and hopefully score with some random girl. Maybe that's not what every person is looking to do, but from my observation/experience it seems to be a pretty 'in' thing right now with us younger folk.
To do that, I will probably pick a bar that is pumping dance music with a DJ rather than going to see a band. The dance clubs are where the drunk girls looking for trouble will be, therefore that is where I am going to be.
I don't want to spend my time and money going out so I can appreciate Johnny Tightpants amazing guitar skills. It's WAY more fun to meet a random girl and possibly get herpes.
Cover bands can still be good for this if they play the right music. Unfortunately a lot of them would rather work towards a mosh pit than a dancefloor.
That's my two cents anyway. There are still people who genuinely want to see live music and appreciate it but I think the trend is more towards dancing and having a good time for yourself... not supporting local bands.
My friends are succeeding very well with this concept here in Atlanta: Invalid Link Removed
Outside of these guys there is not much to say about the scene here. Glad I have a road gig.
There is a local act here that gets TONS of casino gigs. They play 80s covers and dress like REVENGE OF THE NERDS. They are also VERY good!
This is a unique learning curve for me, being in originals bands for the past 2 years and switching to an established blues/ rock cover band ( 7 years ). It's interesting, my originals bands were by far better bands, but nobody cared. Gigs and money were a struggle.
Now I'm seeing the other side of the story. While I love originals music, I love performing every weekend (sometimes, Fri, Sat and Sun) and being compensated a lot more.
Yeah, there's a hip, a relatively small sophisticated crowd in Milwaukee that go to the originals clubs. But
not nearly enough to support the struggling originals bands.
I am to old for originals anyway.
Now I play to packed bars (admittedly small bars & clubs) where a bottle of Bud & Mustang Sally is all they want. Who am I to judge.
blue
