Ness K Vs. Cover Bands

Thanks all...now is it too late to get in on that Big Mac...hahahahahaha.

No, I just got done with one. :D

Would I be insulting the cook if I asked for catchup( catsup)?
"Ninety percent of everything is crap."
That's not gambling then . . . that's charity.

Nope. Nectar of the gods.

Wow, this is still going, and now we are comparing music to food. :D

This makes it real easy.

Would you like to eat very original food that you've never eaten before that tastes terrible, or would you rather eat food you are very familiar with that tastes great??

I will eat just about anything, and am willing to try new dishes and recipies. But if it doesn't taste good to me, I am not going to eat it again. But I will eat a good steak like Chris said anyday of the week.

I had a friend from Laos once who brought lunch in for me. He was a super nice fellow. Fortunately I had lunch at a different hour than him. When I took the cover off the Tupperware bowl, it smelled just like a dead rat! I mean, the odor was absolutely horrible. To him this may have been a tasty treat, but no way I could eat this stuff. I ate one little noodle and threw the rest away. I returned his bowl to him and thanked him. He asked if I wanted more! :roll:

I had never had this type of food before. It was original. But it was dreadful. And this is how a lot of original music is too. It is just plain bad. I would rather listen to a good cover song than a poor original anytime.

This makes it real easy.

Would you like to eat very original food that you've never eaten before that tastes terrible, or would you rather eat food you are very familiar with that tastes great??
That's a very unfair comparison. "Do you want something you like? Or do you want something you don't like?"

I will eat just about anything, and am willing to try new dishes and recipies. But if it doesn't taste good to me, I am not going to eat it again. But I will eat a good steak like Chris said anyday of the week.
Being willing to try new things (food or music) is a good thing. If you don't try things and grow you will stagnate. Many people have their tastes (musical or flavour) set at a certain age (often high school or college for music) and then never try anything new again.

There's nothing wrong at all with going back and experiencing something again that you know that you like. However, having a McDonald's burger for every meal of the day would be a rather boring culinary existence not to mention incredibly unhealthy. Heck, having Lobster Neuberg for every meal would be just as boring (though it might take a little longer to get there) and just about as unhealthy.

Hyperborea

Everything you say is correct, and I agree with it.

However, when it comes to music you have to remember one thing, you are working for others. I posted many Frank Black videos, he is one of my favorite artists. I love his original music. I became a fan of his when he was with the Pixies primarily because his music was so fresh and original, so different from the mainstream. But even Frank knows the game. I read an interview once and he said, "I learned early that my real job is to sell beer." :wink:

And those are the cold hard facts. You can't just go out there and walk into a club. These club owners are interested in one thing, and one thing only, selling drinks. They don't care if you are the most talented person in the world, the only thing they care about is how many people walk in the door, and how long they stay and buy drinks. Anybody who thinks different does not know anything about playing out.

Now, there are different kinds of clubs. There are clubs that have young adults as fans. They do not want to hear old Classic Rock, they want to hear fresh new original music, and usually they want to hear it from young people they can relate to. At clubs like this you will hear upcoming bands playing original music.

But by far, most clubs serve an over 30s crowd. And they want music these people know and like. Today, someone 30 years old would be into Nirvana or maybe a little older like 80's groups. In fact, I have noticed this myself, you don't hear so much 70's music anymore, now you hear more 80's music. So local clubs are progressing as well, they are about 20 years behind the times. :D

But they want bands that plays music their customers know and enjoy. And this is who they are gonna hire. A club who serves customers 30 years and older is not going to hire a band in their 20's playing original music. It ain't gonna happen, it doesn't matter what your personal opinion is. It is the Golden Rule, the man with the gold rules.

I like to gig. I've never made a lot of money and probably never will. For me it is just a chance to get out and have some fun, to play my guitar and sing for folks. There are millions of "weekend warriors" like me. And to play regular like that, you have to play the music the clubs want. It is that plain and simple.

Amen to that!

And, even if you are doing popular covers, there are always going to be people in the audience who request "their" songs. You get better money in the tip jar if you know it and can launch right into it. Invariably, once we were asked more than once about whether or not we played a particular song, if we didn't know it, we learned it. Gotta keep the public happy or you'll wind up just playing around the house for your friends or yourself and not make any money at it at all. This doesn't mean, though, that you can't throw in an original or two, guage your audience's reception/reaction to your material, then determine whether to leave it in, throw it out or re-work it until it does become part of your regular show. When you get people asking for your original material, then you know that you've sufficiently honed your craft and you can stop doing covers.

I think a few different things get mixed up here. Covers serve two functions:

1) Educational: they teach you songs 'that work', you'll learn tricks and techniques without having to reinvent the wheel.
2) Gig-possibilities. If your goal is to play live, playing covers is a tried&proven way.

Both functions can be simultanously of importance to one musician, but only one or even neither of them to another musician. For example, the most important educational aspect of music is learning to listen. Having a song playing on your I-POD while talking to your friends won't help much, but either fully concentrated listen-sessions or practicing to play a cover note for note will. If you play covers for educational reasons (for example both my violin and piano teacher won't allow me to evade the standard etudes and songs with my own songs) you have to play it as close to the original. Most people who I know who 'put their twist' on it do so because they can't play it note for note. That's bad if you're trying to learn something.

The second function, playing live, really depends on how much you want to gig. I've gigged and I can't say I like it too much. Loads of work, stress, it never sounds how you want it to sound and it's just plain frustrating. To me. But if you like to gig, knowing covers is ofcourse a big help.

There's also another issue that has two sides to them: some of us are mostly instrumentalists (including vocals), while some are more songwriter/composer then musician. I'm the second type. I don't play because I like it on itself, I play because it's the only way I can get the sounds out of my head and into the real world. If I could hook my head straight up to cubase I'd do that. Even if the whole darn world would beg me to stop writing songs I won't. I don't care if I 'honed my craft', I'm not going to wait ten years to write down what I want to write now. Telling people like me that we should do covers is the same as them telling instrumentalist that they must write songs. Different people have different reasons for playing music.

In that sense I think Wes and me are exact opposites: he does write songs like I sometimes learn covers but he's mostly a guitarist/vocalist, whereas I am mostly a composer who happens to play guitar. He loves to gig while gigs are for me a reason not to join a band. All of us somewhere fall between the two of us, whether we play covers or not, write songs or not and gig or not, we're all musicians. And this is just my humble experience, but I never met a musician who didn't help me somehow with music. I'm willing to bet a whole lot of beer that me meeting Wes for an hour that would be a big experience for me.

I don't care if I 'honed my craft', I'm not going to wait ten years to write down what I want to write now.

The "craft" to which I was referring was songwriting. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Arjen

Thanks for the kind compliments. And I am sure I could learn much from you as well. I have listened to your music quite a few times. Now in all honesty, your music is not what I would go out and purchase. Not saying it's bad or anything like that, it is just not the style of music I listen to. I do appreciate very much your originality. I think it is very important to listen to musician's who play outside of mainstream music. I often get great ideas from listening to music like this.

And I completely agree about there being many various types of musicians. Yes, I am more of a player than a composer. I have written a few songs over the years, and some are fairly good. But I have to be in a very special mood to write music, and for some reason I don't get in that mood very often. But I enjoy playing good songs I hear on the radio. You are different, you are driven to write original songs. And that is a great thing, I wish I had a little more of this drive in me. But you are what you are. And not all musicians want to gig, I can understand that too. Some are satisfied to sit at home and play. There is nothing wrong with this whatsoever. The great thing about being a musician is that you have control over your music. You can play the style you want, you can write, you can gig, you can do what you want to do.

I know I keep bringing up Frank Black, but really, you and him are similar. In an interview he was asked how he writes songs. He said he just writes songs everyday. He said he doesn't even know if a song is going to be good or bad, and doesn't worry about that. He just writes what he feels, and if he writes a song that people really like, well, that is just a bonus.

I'm just saying that a whole band decicated solely to the work of another band is idiotic.

A whole band dedicated solely to the work of another band would be a tribute band.

A whole band dedicated solely to the work of many different bands/artists would be a cover band.

A whole band dedicated solely to the work of inexperienced songwriters/musicians would be a band that doesn't work outside of the garage.

Two quick questions, Ness K.... What is your band experience and what is your age? I'm guessing that you're young (16-19, definitely under 20), with little or no band experience. Would this assumption be correct?
well im 17 and I have no band experience whatsoever, but when 20 and older and get in a band, ill still think cover and tribute bands are idiotic, thats just how i feel. And what do age and band experience have to do with my opinion on cover bands?

And what do age and band experience have to do with my opinion on cover bands?

With age comes experience.
With experience comes learning.

Experience and learning often cause opinions to change.

I think Elektrablue has a point, speaking from my own experience. I love writing music, I seriously do. Given my pick of jobs, that's all I'd do - write and gig. And when I was 17 and in a band, it was absolutely integral to me that we only play our own tunes. But the truth was they weren't all that great. Even the ones that had potential suffered due to our lack of collective musicianship. And the truth is, most 17 year olds music-writing skills are, well, fairly crap. Very few 'make it' at that age, totally off their own back (i.e. writing, performing, recording, all-original and gigging it without backing tracks and pitch-correction and getting a strong enough crowd to get hyped and break through). Even those that do, compared to 'the greats' they're not all that hot. I respect bands like Silverchair when they first came out, but they're not the greatest by any criteria, and they've stagnated somewhat, imho, because of their early success. And most 17 year olds don't have the people-skills for want of a better word to make it, even if their music is great. Its a business, as much as an art, and the success of Pop Idol and similar only serves to illustrate that raw talent alone will not cut it, if you can't 'schmooze' sufficiently, too.

I still love writing music, and I've gotten much better at it. I've even had some work from it. But when jamming with a friend on some blues and the idea of doing a blues band sprang up, my immediate thought was, "hell yeah, I'm up for that, all covers, regular paid work doing something I love and furthering my craft and (hopefully) my name." Well, it beats working in a supermarket, that's for sure ( not that I've had to...yet - and not that this alone could immediately be a 'full time job' either, but you get the drift).

Ideals are great. But sometimes life gets in the way. And sometimes, realising your ideals might well mean going against them for the time being, too.

How I read it, EB wasn't dismissing or belittling your opinion based on age/experience, but rather pointing out that with experience of the music industry, what is and isn't something you consider 'acceptable for you' may well change. They may not, but they may. I'm 24 (barely) - 7 years from now, someone could dredge this post up and, if you're still on here (and if GN is still going) you might be having to explain yourself to the next 17 year old who thinks they've got everything figured out. And I'm saying that in the full knowledge that I knew a hell of a lot more at 17 than I do now. :wink:

(apologies to EB if I've misinterpreted you here)

Precisely! Thank you, Kent_eh and Scrybe! When I think back to the person I was at 17 (and that was 35 years ago!), she bears little resemblence to the person I became at 25, and the person I am today bears little resemblence to that 25 year old! The 17 year old me could not be told anything because I already knew it all (I thought). Anyone who tried to tell me differently was (in my mind) invariably either "just trying to keep me down" or a "pompous twit who doesn't know their A from a hole in the ground" or they were "stuck in a time warp that no longer applied". And it was all so INTENSE! As I got older and continued to grow and the intensity began to mellow, my mind became more open to the world around me and the things that I was completely adamant about at 17 no longer really applied.

So, I have no doubt, Ness_K, that your opinions will continue to grow and change as you become more open and receptive to other points of view and as you experience more of life (and, believe me, there's a WHOLE lot more to experience!). You've got your entire life in front of you and life is nothing if not a learning experience. Be glad that you're young now, but be sure to keep your mind open to new thoughts and experiences. Don't lock yourself into a "this is the way it's always going to be" mentality, because it's not always going to be. You must change and grow to keep from becoming stagnant.