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That one random song your cover band does that nobody else does.

I doubt I could ever talk a band into doing it, but I always wanted to do "Pablo Picasso" by John Cale. NOT JJ Cale mind you, John Cale....originally from the Velvet Underground.

Saw him at a small concert in college and he played "Pablo Picasso".

If you have never heard the song (and I am sure most of you have not) the main lyric hook in the song goes:

"Some guys try to pick up girls and get called *******s; but this never happened to Pablo Picasso"

A few years back I watched the National Geographic "Genius" series about him, it had Antonio Banderas playing him in his middle aged and older years, some young guy did the younger Picasso.

I knew the guy was popular with the ladies but OMG, women just fell all over the guy; more so than I had thought so no wonder John Cale wrote that song LOL.

Analogeezer
 
Well in Saint Louis Missouri we have the great institutions AOR and progressive music going back to 1967.
Playing in a cover band around here is actually rather fun. Because an older lady in the crowd will come up and request the most unlikely song and you might actually know it. Here is a partial list of not only obscure songs, but arguably GREAT SONGS, that you only hear within 100mi radius of STL.

Aphrodite's Child- the 4 horsemen,
Mason Proffit- 2 hangmen.
Point blank- Nicole
String driven thing - circus
Brian prothero- pinball
Fly at night - chilliwack
Mama let him play - Doucette
Switching to Glide/ This Beat- Kings
Full moon/turn around -off Broadway
The Prize - The Blend
Going down the Road-Painter

And Bout 1,500 more... just for shyts, look any one of those songs up and give them a chance. Saint Louis resisted the corporate music scam of the seventies longer than any other market... Something happened in 1967 where they let a local legend named Prince Knight take over the night shift at the radio station ... After numerous complaints came in they were about ready to fire him when the ratings came in and showed that after 5pm it had beaten out every other station exponentially in the market ... And so the new market of "album oriented radio" and/or progressive rock radio basically started in Saint Louis for the 1st time ever anywhere. And sold their soul back around 1980... There are still a number of people in that city that will actually Obsessed and make their lists of songs that were played on this station that were never played anywhere else... These are called Saint Louis classics... The band called Gypsy just played over this last weekend to fiur sold out shows it shows... a truly great band... and Nektar and thousands of other no hit wonders enjoy gigs in STL.. Budgie!! Lol.
 
Probably a lot different here in the UK, I have played The Cowboy song in bands, it was quite a popular cover song over here.
Fast forward a few years, I was in funk/soul band, we covered "I like your style" by Tower of Power & "Turn on Tune in Cop out" by Freakpower, never saw other bands do those songs, both went down really well & were different from the norm.
 
Our band plays 5oclock world by the cyrkle and the Frasier Theme song for random stuff
That was by The Vogues, one of those vocal groups that still managed to thrive for a while in the post-Beatles world, like the Arbors, Tokens, Happenings, and Lettermen…

Drew Carey did a cover of it for his TV show.


I doubt I could ever talk a band into doing it, but I always wanted to do "Pablo Picasso" by John Cale. NOT JJ Cale mind you, John Cale....originally from the Velvet Underground.

Saw him at a small concert in college and he played "Pablo Picasso".

If you have never heard the song (and I am sure most of you have not) the main lyric hook in the song goes:

"Some guys try to pick up girls and get called *******s; but this never happened to Pablo Picasso"

A few years back I watched the National Geographic "Genius" series about him, it had Antonio Banderas playing him in his middle aged and older years, some young guy did the younger Picasso.

I knew the guy was popular with the ladies but OMG, women just fell all over the guy; more so than I had thought so no wonder John Cale wrote that song LOL.

Analogeezer

Actually, written by Jonathan Richman, who kind of started geek chic. A hardcore Velvets fanatic, he and his band The Modern Lovers got Cale to produce demos/an album for Warner Brothers in the early 70's, but nothing came of it, only released years later. They were just a little too ahead of the game, but became forerunner icons of the new wave era, with bands from the Sex Pistols to Joan Jett covering their anthemic "Roadrunner", which featured a lot of Cale-style organ. He then paid them back by covering "Picasso".

I'm a huge solo Cale fan, I loved how he demolished "Heartbreak Hotel", talk about doom and gloom. As for the ML, drummer David Robinson went on to The Cars, and keyboardist Jerry Harrison showed up in the Talking Heads. Richman went in an acoustic direction, and bassist Ernie Brooks just sort of faded away.
 
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