Original bands: How many songs in your catalog?

[IndyBass]

Hello all,

I read a thread the other day in which a player was lamenting that his original band had only written one new song in 14 months, or something equally dire. It got me thinking about how quickly TBer's original bands build their catalogs, and what size those catalogs are now.

My band has been around for about 3.5 years. We've been gigging for 3 years, and had one lineup change in that time (which killed our momentum for a few months). We're debuting two new songs at a gig tonight, which brings our total catalog to 29 songs.

What about you?

 

[Waffles and Scotch]

Joined in Feb '09. After a lineup change, name change, tweaking of all existing material and some growing pains, we played our first show in October. I got diagnosed with Mononucleosis and was out of commission for several months. Played our 2nd show in April and have been gigging steadily since. 10 songs when we played our first show, 15 now. Several more in the works. We plan on having 2 albums worth of material (22-24 songs) when we go into the studio next summer to record our first album.

 

[Unrepresented]

We've written about a dozen since our new guitarist came in about a year ago. Prior to that we'd amassed about 15 during the first guitarist's tenure (about two years). Obviously fresh blood will help in terms of output.

 

[paul_s]

Been playing with this band since February, I was the line up change (due to a medical condition of the incumbant that made him unable to continue). We've got 10 originals, working on three more. It's been a really busy summer for gigs and recording so we focused on polishing what we had.

 

[viper4000]

The last original band I was in was about 5 years ago. We were an incarnation of two prior groups that merged when things were right. That gave us about 90-100 original songs. Add to that about 20 or so covers. Of course, not all of the originals were necessarily album material. But we still had the ability to play multiple shows back to back without over-playing songs. This also allowed us to do a full night on our own, without getting another group to join us on a bill.

It would appear I was very spoiled. I'm getting close to pulling the trigger on a new original group, and the thought of playing a bill with 3-4 other groups is a little disconcerting.

 

[D.M.N.]

Well, my band has been together since....early 2010? Though this last school year we were on hiatus until the guitarist returned from college. Last year we only did covers, but this summer we got down to work writing new material, and all coming together with bits and bobs, riffs, lyrics, what not, had about 13 songs inside of a week, with 9 fully flushed out. So, we kinda knocked out a bunch quickly, not sure if that's normal or not.

 

[warwick07]

Since October 2009 when my band started we have 30 songs. Most of them are in the 7-10 minute range.

 

[Schizo Sapiens]

My first band was active from spring 2006 to summer 2009. We had about 20 original songs (most written by me, some by guitarist) and some covers, 10-15 of 'em (we did 1-3 of them per gig).

My current band (autumn 2009-current) has 11 songs and 6 of them are taken from first band.
Yes, i suffer some serious writer's block

 

[ric3xrt]

My main band has 16 in a year, none of them are mine. I came into this project after it had started. and right now we are going through a "lets rerecord every thing we recorded last year" phase.....its pain.
The metal band has 40something, good even split between the guitat player and the late org bassist(agian, I have no songs in this band.) These guys were together for about 8 years before I took over the bass playing.
My old Band Gerry Rigg we were together for about 10 years had over 90 songs 70/20 split between me and the guitar player.
My side project is a reuion of my late 80s Orgnial band, we had 18 in a year of wich we'll keep 7 of those tunes. and we have written 6 more in the 12 practices we have in this last year.I'd really like to spend more time with this band.
I have a almost 10 hours of home recordings of Org songs and riffs.

 

[dj150888]

We've got around 20-30 on regular rotation on our set-list right now. We've written and dropped more songs than we can count though. I'm not lowering the quality of my output just so that I can say I've written a hudred songs. If its not good enough to go on an album, its discarded and forgotten about.

 

[Structure5]

The band I am in started 4 years ago as a three piece. We were up to 24 songs before adding a lead guitarist. We made one abulm as a three piece and just released our second with the lead. Since adding the lead we actually have moved our catalog up to 42 originals with 5 new ones that are still rough, but coming along quite nicely.

 

[Liam Wald]

We have about 50 original and 100 "original arrangements" of covers in current catalog.
Easily and equal number of each that we don't presently use.
We don't even try to get close to the sound of covers. We make them ours.
We typically play 60% originals and 40% covers in a set.

 

[bassbully]

I would say 40 and growing.

 

[joshmat]

40 give or take. Like others have commented, we rotate them in/out of our normal set and could probably count more if we included retired songs. We've written songs in a practice or two and have had others that we tweaked for months before playing them in a set.

 

[clutebass]

My band has only been playing together for about 2 months... we have 17 songs currently, but 11 of them have been stuff the guitarist and I have been working on for 5 years or so. But we have a solid hour and a half original setlist when we jam out a couple of the tunes. Also we have enough to really mix it up for the shorter set gigs.

 

[teleharmonium]

I'm in 3 bands, all of which do original material. One has been together about 5 years, and has, I think 11 songs. However, those are full arrangements with horns and stuff, and each song typically runs between 10 and 15 minutes, with lots of solos (which are largely filler, in my opinion). The scarcity of material as well as the shall we say excessive familiarity with some of it has been a real sore spot for me and I'm pushing hard right now for changes. It remains to be seen whether I will stay in that one after the current batch of shows are finished.

Another was a recording project first and has turned into a live band as well, mostly over the last 9 months. That band has about 15 songs we can play now, with about another 5 that we have worked on but are not yet ready to play in front of people, and about another 10 that we have written or recorded but not yet turned into an arrangement that can be done live. Some of those songs are complex and require a lot of gear on stage.

And then the most recent band has only been together about 8 weeks, but we have 16 songs, and we also improvise as a group. Some of those songs are simple and/or crude. But it's a fun, weird, low drama band. We've played just one show so far, which was bizarrely well received.

 

[robertusf]

These are the one we recorded and made a CD
18 Songs of Dwayne over a two year period 07-09

Link Removed

With at least as 20 more in the repertoire. Too bad we slowed down and kind of stalled......for now

 

[canamrotax]

Two bands I'm now, metal band has about 10 originals, the alt-rock band is writing a couple a month, just recorded our first album. About 12 songs polished, many more still getting used to. Been a member of both bands less than 7 months.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

We've literally been together for a week and already have around 12 songs - some of which are really good!

 

[shadowmac]

10 recorded - album due out in late fall.

Another half dozen written (for album 2).

We plan on picking up ONE cover song just for the fun of making it our own...not exactly our style, but it will probably be a DIO tune as a bit of a tribute to Ronnie James.