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Rock cover band market drying up? (Steve Brown content)


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The main thing I, personally, loved about Neil Shah's article is guys like Trixter's Steve Brown -and myself--, we'd play ukelele for $20 bucks a night in Kabul if there's an audience. We do it for the love of the music. Doesn't matter if we wrote the songs or not.

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"If there's an audience" implies that it's not just about the music. That's the point of the original article. The audiences are dwindling.

If it was all about the music, bands would stay in the basement and derive satisfaction from simply playing together.

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The main thing I, personally, loved about Neil Shah's article is guys like Trixter's Steve Brown -and myself--, we'd play ukelele for $20 bucks a night in Kabul if there's an audience. We do it for the love of the music. Doesn't matter if we wrote the songs or not.

This /\

"If there's an audience" implies that it's not just about the music. That's the point of the original article. The audiences are dwindling.

If it was all about the music, bands would stay in the basement and derive satisfaction from that.

Yep - Rock and Roll isn't dead. We are.

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I think live music has been dying about the same death for 30+ years. It was dying in the early 80’s and hair metal saved it. It was dying in the early 90’s and grunge saved it. You may think it is dying now, but there are a lot of country and red dirt bands making money playing covers to full dance halls.

Culture changes. And “live” isn’t as needed as it once was. But, for me, live is still best. I like live theater over cinema. I like live music over DJ. I like live people over FB posts.

I think what the article reveals is that folks who write for WSJ online and Huffington post are job nomads and are only “journalists” as a back up plan or perhaps as a transition to night club manager. Which might not reflect to positively on the quality of the journalism they produce.

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I think what the article reveals is that folks who write for WSJ online and Huffington post are job nomads and are only “journalists” as a back up plan or perhaps as a transition to night club manager. Which might not reflect to positively on the quality of the journalism they produce.

Journalism credibility aside, you can't "play live" if there is no solid venue at-which to do so. The fact that there are fewer-and-fewer places to play might be an indication that they have a point - if patrons don't show-up and pay ticket prices, those venues don't stay in-business and they close, and that's really happening.

I've been to enough bars that HAD live music, and sparce crowds, to know that sometimes the band is the reason why people don't show up - they wanted to enjoy some peace-and-quiet, or conversation over drinks, vs. hear some over-amped strummer butcher someone else's song. Lots of cover bands flat-out suck. Somehow, a local cover-band has taken permanent saturday-night residence at a local cigar bar I like to frequent. The band is fine (for me), and the crowd is decent, but the venue is questionable for this type of entertainment. At least the bar has separate areas that are very quiet to get-away from the music, as I know many who go there WANT to do so.

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I've been to enough bars that HAD live music, and sparce crowds, to know that sometimes the band is the reason why people don't show up - they wanted to enjoy some peace-and-quiet, or conversation over drinks, vs. hear some over-amped strummer butcher someone else's song. Lots of cover bands flat-out suck. Somehow, a local cover-band has taken permanent saturday-night residence at a local cigar bar I like to frequent. The band is fine (for me), and the crowd is decent, but the venue is questionable for this type of entertainment. At least the bar has separate areas that are very quiet to get-away from the music, as I know many who go there WANT to do so.

This is a great observation, which is why the earlier start time for bands idea seems dicey to me. People are used to that time slot being for kicking back after work without anything more than background noise going on.

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Red dirt was the over reaction to slick Nashville Country in the early 00s. It's since morphed into a Texas/Oklahoma grunge version of Bro Country.

In short, simply horrid.

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I used Red Dirt to mean southern rock packaged as country and sold to mostly white college kids. It is popular in states with SEC football teams and smilier. It gets grief from this crowd, but it is built on guitars and loud amps. Frequently the players are good.

I probably used the genre label wrong.

I’d throw Kevin Fowler under Red Dirt - he used to play for Dangerous Toys for a while.

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Red dirt is the bro country like Jason Aldean

I've also heard the term used to describe Southern Metal bands, especially those from Texas like the Texas Hippie Coalition and others.....

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Red Dirt is a genre created by the Stillwater, OK Chamber of Commerce.

^I laughed very hard.

I think rock music is going the way of classical and jazz. As I tell my classes, Rock and Roll isn't dead, it just moved to Boca. It seems to me that most of the new rock bands that are somewhat popular are just doing their best at sounding like something between 1972 and 1982, be it the Stones, Punk, or New Wave or whatever. I know rock has always done that to a degree, but each new flavor of rock from the mid 60s through the late 90s took ideas that came before, worked them in, and then came up with something a little different. Now I just hear bands and think, "Oh, you're trying to be the Who. Oh, you're trying to be Television." And it's so BORING.

Now there is new rock. And there is now orchestral music and jazz, but those two genres are no longer music for the mainstream when it comes to new music. People still love them some Moonlight Sonata and Take 5, but most of those same people could give a damn about modern composers. I think rock and roll MIGHT be in that part of its life cycle. I don't like it, but there it is.

EDM seems to be increasingly the weapon of choice for those staying out late and listening to any kind of "live" music.

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I am hearing from the high schools that athletics is finding the same issues. Getting people to come to anything live is very hard.

I'm mostly theatre now adays. People are more hunkered down than ever. It takes an act with an edge to get the seats filled.

...or just play country and serve budweiser.

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My Buddy runs a large C&W bar here in Gainesville, and while they do put butts in the door for live music, nothing beats Thursday night ladies night for attendance. And though it is line dancing, it's about half rap and hip hop, half country. And I'd say the better part of the "country" they play is that hick-hop crap, and a good bit of the rest is the current "hair-metal with a twang" stuff coming out of Nashville. As I understand it, that is the name of the game in C&W for paying the rent.

I'm all up for watching the girls dance to it, but there's a snowball's chance in hell I'd start a band to play it. Besides, at the end of the day, it's still people coming to listen to a DJ play dance tunes. They only way to make the concerts work is to space them out where you do one maybe once a month. Country, whatever that is supposed to be these days, may still have a better draw, but it doesn't really make up much for the overall drop in live music.

Some hick-hop for those of you unacquainted. Don't say I never gave y'all nothing ;)

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Hoboken use to have fifteen live venues, places that had live music nightly. They are down to zero after Maxwells closed. We're talking about a town that could handle 315 bands/gigs a week gone. Ironically with the build up of condos in the old Navy yard has yielded a 30% population growth during the same time all the clubs were shutting down.

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Some hick-hop for those of you unacquainted. Don't say I never gave y'all nothing ;)

While they wisely put about as many hot women in their video as I would if someone would give me a production budget, I will confide to you that I didn't care for that at all. It hurt me.

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^^^

I can't bear to watch. But if rednecks (real or pretend) embracing elements of black culture (out of genuine reverence or even simply for monetary gain) isn't a stone-cold indication of 'Merica's ever-changing demographic (which also explains the demise of live rock'n'roll) I don't know what is.

And don't get me started on Luke Bryan. I can't detect one iota of talent in that guy.

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.....And don't get me started on Luke Bryan. I can't detect one iota of talent in that guy.

If it weren't for autotune/pitch correction, you wouldn't detect much talent in most of the rest of 'em, either.

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Some hick-hop for those of you unacquainted. Don't say I never gave y'all nothing ;)

While they wisely put about as many hot women in their video as I would if someone would give me a production budget, I will confide to you that I didn't care for that at all. It hurt me.

HFCers, I’m pretty sure that is a parody.

.

.

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It has to be.

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.

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Right?

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In other words... the live music market has moved from America to "Mehricuh.

I'm consistently amazed at how EDM and DJ acts pack clubs with hundreds or thousands staring at some dude standing around playing MP3s, turning knobs and pressing buttons.

As much as I love Drum & Bass/Electronica, I don't get one ounce of seeing the "bands" live.

They don't even fucking pay dancers to dress up in crazy outfits anymore... it's just some amateur video overlay loops that the DJ or electronica act didn't even make themselves.

These morons can't even be bothered to execute their own light shows via MIDI... they pay someone to do it.

All they have to do is pick the setlist... and even they don't bother to do that. They spend a lot of time telling the audience "I don't even know what i'm gonna play!" lolz

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