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I think the bands I have played with over the last 20 years, with only one exception, play stuff I enjoy playing - that includes a healthy dose of non-Top-40 songs and cool covers.

The band that played stuff I hated playing insisted on "Mustang Sally" ("everybody LOVES it!!"...no, that is definitely not true - that's just weak filler!), hacked to death Bob Seger stuff, and Allman Brothers and long jam shit that bores the piss out of me...and very clearly the majority of the people we played for. :D The guys in that one band had the guitar chops, but nobody in a bar/club or at an event with a mixed audience around here wants to hear a 10-12 minute free-from jam/guitar duel.  They just don't.

 

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1 hour ago, cmatthes said:

...and Allman Brothers and long jam shit that bores the piss out of me...and very clearly the majority of the people we played for. :D The guys in that one band had the guitar chops, but nobody in a bar/club or at an event with a mixed audience around here wants to hear a 10-12 minute free-from jam/guitar duel.  They just don't.

So true. My current band plays "Blue Sky" at my suggestion. While I lobbied to cut the solo in half, they were impressed that I could do both parts note-for-note and insisted on the whole enchilada. After a few gigs, I think I have them convinced that we can do the song justice with a solo spanning far less than 72 bars. In all things, moderation.

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12 hours ago, DaveH said:

I know some who will simply raise the middle finger when someone in the audience hollers “Free Bird”. 😂

We just tell ‘em to drop a Benjamin in the tip bucket if they want to hear us play that one. No refunds.

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11 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

I wanted to do Freebird as a three piece band for the entire 14 minutes of the live version just to get the reaction from the audience so that they would never allow anyone to make that request again. 

We did that one night.  Fucking awful version... I limped through the slide part (I don't even pretend to play slide well), and the whole solo part was mostly us cracking up as we kept botching parts.  

"There, they'll never ask for that again!"

Next show, "Y'all do Freebird again!  That cover last week was wild!"

Hoisted on our own petard. 

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If you play like shit, just rename and introduce it as "FreeTurd".

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2 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

If the audience is drunk it will be OK. 

Basically, in Mississippi at least, if it is intelligible enough for the drunks to be able to sing to, their imaginations will fill in the rest regardless of what is actually happening. 

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13 minutes ago, LucSulla said:

Basically, in Mississippi at least, if it is intelligible enough for the drunks to be able to sing to, their imaginations will fill in the rest regardless of what is actually happening. 

As a drunk in PA, I can tell you the same rule applies... And I have spoken to some of the most beautiful women in the  world.

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1 hour ago, Steve Haynie said:

There is a country song there if you just finish out the lyrics! ;)

Just rework the "Greatest Country Song of All Time"........"I was drunk when MA and PA got outta prison......."

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On 16/04/2018 at 6:51 AM, DaveH said:

I know some who will simply raise the middle finger when someone in the audience hollers “Free Bird”. 😂

Flipping the bird at your audience is never acceptable.........unless you're in a "Sex Pistols Tribute Band"

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10 minutes ago, Caddie said:

Flipping the bird at your audience is never acceptable.........unless you're in a "Sex Pistols Tribute Band"

Or, if they yell ‘Free Bird’. 😂

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17 hours ago, cmatthes said:

I think the bands I have played with over the last 20 years, with only one exception, play stuff I enjoy playing - that includes a healthy dose of non-Top-40 songs and cool covers.

The band that played stuff I hated playing insisted on "Mustang Sally" ("everybody LOVES it!!"...no, that is definitely not true - that's just weak filler!), hacked to death Bob Seger stuff, and Allman Brothers and long jam shit that bores the piss out of me...and very clearly the majority of the people we played for. :D The guys in that one band had the guitar chops, but nobody in a bar/club or at an event with a mixed audience around here wants to hear a 10-12 minute free-from jam/guitar duel.  They just don't.

 

10-12 minutes of jam/guitar duel = restroom break time, out back to share a joint time, across the street or next door to get a slice of pizza time, stop by your car to check if it is still there time,  if its a redneck bar lookout for incoming bottles time.

Nobody wants to listen to you rehearse or jam, even your girlfriend.

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3 minutes ago, LucSulla said:

What do you get to flip out if you're a Doors tribute band?

pull your pants down

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I'm currently marking time in a band that only does vague B side covers with extended jams and won't do anything remotely popular or audience requested. I fail to understand how you can justify being snobbish while only playing covers, however unpopular they may be. 

I've learned that I never again want to play in a band where I have to keep waiting on the drummer to pick up on the non-verbal message to end the fucking song.

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1 hour ago, Jfritts said:

I'm currently marking time in a band that only does vague B side covers with extended jams and won't do anything remotely popular or audience requested. I fail to understand how you can justify being snobbish while only playing covers, however unpopular they may be. 

I've learned that I never again want to play in a band where I have to keep waiting on the drummer to pick up on the non-verbal message to end the fucking song.

I think that depends on why you are doing what you are doing.  When I tried to play music for a living, I was in an originals bands since, as @Steve Haynie pointed out, that's the only way you truly reach the top.  I got closer to that top than most, though not nearly as close as some of the folks around here.  And then the whole caravan fell back down the mountain. 

And whilst sitting at the bottom of the mountain again, it was evident that intellectual property was going to be worth ever less and that the album was becoming ever more passé.  So I gave up on trying to do music for a living and went back to doing music because I love playing guitar in a group of other musicians.  Ever since, I've played a mix of originals and covers to varying degrees in various genres of music.  I, for the most part, play what I want to play, which was never exactly all that esoteric to start with, making it not particularly hard to find a sweet spot between what I find artistically interesting and what a crowd might find entertaining.  Besides, it's not really what you play but the show you put on while you play it that makes a live band.  And on the commerce side, given my limited financial ambitions, I've alway felt I can do just that and still provide a product that will net a bar more money than if they'd just not had us.  

So that's how I justify it.  I do want to entertain people, but I want to do it playing what I think should be entertaining.  It I look at it as part of my job to translate what I think is entertaining over to the audience so that they really are entertained. That's the fun in it for me, both ends of that equation.  I started playing in bands to make the music I felt like I wasn't hearing on radio, and I tend to be in bands that do covers I think guys and gals like me would want to hear if we were at a bar.  And being that I have a career that I enjoy almost as much as playing music, I am in the position where if that means never playing for more than a few hundred people or never making more than $1k for show, that's fine.  The market is there, everyone has a good time, and it's enough business that the bars stay happy. 

And how snobbish is it really?  At the end of the day, there are countless cover bands doing fantastic covers of the two or three songs I don't like to play.  It's not as if I'm cheating the world of another Journey cover, plus, I don't necessarily want to compete with those bands for their market segment anyway.  

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Whew, where to start? Stuff I played (and some still play) but hate playing:

Summer of 69, Like the Way I do, Born To Be Wild, Smoke On The Water, Hey Joe,  Sweet Home Alabama, anything by Status Quo, Nickleback, Roxette, Nirvana, Europe, Bon Jovi, Guns 'n' Roses, Rammstein, Green Day, Blink 182, Placebo and most 90's stuff (I really hate most 90's stuff), cheesy german 90's TOP 100 stuff, Radar Love, I will survive... and a lot more, too many to list. I grow a dislike to several songs I even play with my blues band as there seems no progression, those songs include several Hendrix and SRV tunes, Sunshine Of Your Love, White Room, Superstition... I don't know, it may sound like I am never satisfied, but I need something fresh to the setlist from time to time. The guitar player is just such a die hard  SRV fan that I can't stand any more SRV tunes added to the setlist. I'd wish the others would like to try different thing, like playing some tunes by Tom Waits or Leon Russell in our own style. People I play with generally don't have interest or talent to rearrange songs, nor do they have any imagination to let loose off the original song arrangement. I never was any good at covering songs note for note, I improvise a lot and that is the strength of the band, this is what makes us different from other local bands. And there are mostly metal or TOP40 bands in our area. The jazz people seem to prefer set themselves apart from the local music scene. Also there is an age barrier dividing the music scene (and sometimes in audience too). Ah, now this has become a frustration rant by me again. But this thread was a rant anyway, wasn't it? :D

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18 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

If the audience is drunk it will be OK. 

True that. Can’t tell you how many nights Seger’s Night Moves was sung as Nice Boobs.  Nobody noticed, nobody cared.

 

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SO many opportunities for abuse.......

Bright Lights, Big City easily becomes "Nice Thighs, Big Titties, Baby Won't You Gimme Some Head".

Elton John's hit becomes "Don't Let Your Son, Go Down On Me"

Stones Beast of Burden becomes "I Won't Drink Your Beastly Bourbon"

Addicted to Love becomes "Gonna Have To Face It You're a Dick With A Glove".

After a while, SOMEONE in the crowd catches on and starts paying more attention.

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4 minutes ago, django49 said:

SO many opportunities for abuse.......

Bright Lights, Big City easily becomes "Nice Thighs, Big Titties, Baby Won't You Gimme Some Head".

Elton John's hit becomes "Don't Let Your Son, Go Down On Me"

Stones Beast of Burden becomes "I Won't Drink Your Beastly Bourbon"

Addicted to Love becomes "Gonna Have To Face It You're a Dick With A Glove".

After a while, SOMEONE in the crowd catches on and starts paying more attention.

Steve Miller Band's "Jet Airliner" becomes "Bingo Jed Had a Lighter".

The last repeat in the the 6-line breakdown of "Jumping Jack Flash" becomes "Jumping Jack Flash...Kiss My Ass!!!!"

The end of the chorus in "Bad Moon Rising" becomes "There's a bathroom on the right"

 

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