Are you in a cover band?

Moonshine · 2010-10-27T04:34:17+00:00

lets check how many dedicated cover bands are there on this site. (old forum) Poll Results: Are you in a cover band? yes full time: 7 We do some covers: 9...

Are you in a cover band?

Squonk

I read a David Lee Roth Article once and the interviewer put it to him:

"So Dave who was the best guitarist you worked with? Steve Vai or Eddie?"

David mentioned something about technique and then said something along these lines;

Both are very good guitarists but i would give the edge to Eddie, who has more soul in his playing. It was from all those years we were a cover band where he learned to play so many different guitar riffs and solos, it all just adds to his musical catalogI

Rob-dos

im in what you could call a cover band, we dont play anyone elses songs, we just imitate as if we were a real band ?

singemonkey

MIKA the better one wrote: I think what chad is putting across is that he feels there is more creativity found in originals music...... I would agree with him..... But as said there are guys who love covers........ When studying guitar for a while they made us play covers every week...... but they thing i struggled with was the songs were so bland when interpreted by us, Ile revert to my philosophy here....... Interpretation, means the original meaning is lost, and further the actually art is degraded in a sense (almost disrespected in some cases)...... (damn Derrida)

But I should probably be happy there are cover bands, it means less possibility of another Parlatones ?

Hmm... Derrida. >☹

I think you've made my point here. If a band can't carry a cover, they need to do a lot more work. This is not about creativity. It's about playing and performance. Cover bands have to have that to be popular. It allows them to operate in an environment where you can separate your playing from the songs.

In other words, if you're playing all originals, it's very hard to tell whether it's your performance that sucks, or your songs that suck, or both - and vice versa. You may think you're writing decent songs, meanwhile people are just digging the show - despite tired, derivative song-writing. And there's really no shortage of that in South African rock bands.

They give you a sense of how to write songs that will move people. The Beatles and the Stones may have grown up in a different time, but maybe there's something lost when bands don't do that anymore. I get the impression that a lot of US bands still start off doing covers - at least when they're in high school.

None of this will, I think, change the fact that in SA, because of a very weak original rock music industry, that originals bands will see covers as a sign of selling out, and cover bands are often never going to take a shot at playing originals.

For me, the ideal is an original band that plays a good few covers. It raises their game, teaches them a bit of diversity, and tells me, as an audience member what they're about. I get a sense of their musicianship during the covers, and their performance ability, and it's also interesting to see whether the whole vibe lifts when they do a cover. I can think of one band I've seen a number of times where everything is dead boring except for the covers. It tells you a lot about their song-writing. Maybe if they'd started playing more covers, they would have learned some better song-writing chops.

IceCreamMan

Squonk wrote: I read a David Lee Roth Article once and the interviewer put it to him:

"So Dave who was the best guitarist you worked with? Steve Vai or Eddie?"

David mentioned something about technique and then said something along these lines;

Both are very good guitarists but i would give the edge to Eddie, who has more soul in his playing. It was from all those years we were a cover band where he learned to play so many different guitar riffs and solos, it all just adds to his musical catalogI

DLR is the king !!!

I enjoyed the DLR days and the early albums contained covers , as a nod to the originators of the songs....

Malkav

Wow it's nice to see so many people being so butt hurt about it ?

Anyway I get the idea of people treating it like a training ground but the point is that money is the driving factor here which makes it insincere, other than stage presence I'd say that all the other pros are negligible. If you wanna play someone else's song why not just do so in your bedroom? I honestly don't understand how being able to churn out the same 4 chord rubbish as what is considered popular these days improves your songwriting? If anything I'd rate it more likely to squash your creativity by polluting your mind with the easy-way-out progressions.

I understand that some people find solace in being able to hide behind other people's licks but I just don't get it, to be a musician is to create an intangible product of emotion that may or may not be able to resonate with an audience. There's a communication there that you just don't get with a cover band, there's no musicianship involved in being a dot matrix printer and yes I don't doubt that many of you will try and defend it further by saying that to capture the same feel or to interpret the works in x and x a way counts but I still don't see the logic in that. If I took Lord of the Rings and rewrote the whole book but using my own sentence structures does it suddenly make me a good writer? Surely it proves that I have a grasp of the language and the rules that apply but I've accomplished nothing and it's hollow.

I've played covers professionally and if anything it taught me how to recognise the boring and over used chord structures of this century and helped harbour a massive loathing towards the "cliches". There were one or two challenges in terms of remembering everything, but I never went "ooh I'm so worried that I have to play a Jimmy Paige solo cause he's such a technically ferocious player" ? I think that a lot of people just have fairly low standards on what they consider "good" - we could of course get into the redundant "feel" debate for an hour here but honestly at the end of the day that's just personal opinion and I'd rather listen to Guthrie Govan everyday of the week than Paige, Clapton, Mayer or whatever the next big flavour of the guitar world is going to be.

Honestly I'd rather listen to a crap originals band than a good cover band, for the same point though I don't think you can have such a thing if the people making the music have their hearts in the right place. I can go into a club to watch a band and literally within the first 4- 8 bars I know if they're there to make the music they love that they honestly believe in or if they want to be the cool kids who get all the girls, and if I find it leans towards the latter I can simply leave, whether it be to step outside or vacate the premises entirely. Ah free choice is a marvelous thing.

@Singemonkey - You speak sense, isn't it better to watch a good band play a good cover or two and then show you what they're all about, for the same token though I don't consider playing someone else's song note for note counts as a good cover - take for example All Along The Watchtower, now I'm not a Hendrix fan on the best of days but props where they are due, you listen to Dillon's version, then Hendrix's and then Michael Hedges' and all three of them are unique and yet somehow the same song, that's what I call a good cover.

Now just to speak from experience for a moment here, I'm in a prog-metal band. The whole genre is kinda about breaking the mold so by default I would hate the most exacting form of the mold. Personally I find pretty much 90% of everything on the radio & TV boring and repetitive, and I think the last 10% only comes from when I listen to Classic FM... I don't understand how anyone could want to learn any of it, I don't get what you feel you could learn from it unless you honestly consider U2 to be the pinnacle of song writing. In which case "yeah yeah yeah!" and all that but at the end of the day being a musician and being a good one at that isn't about other people's music - it's about you and your own personal growth and what it is you want people to feel when you communicate a piece of yourself in what you do, how you could ever learn that from someone else's music escapes me, been there done that - don't want the T-shirt.

Of course I don't doubt that there's going to be a major backlash against what I've said, people will no doubt just be so annoyed by my obvious lack of good taste that they'll have to verbally assault me over the internet ? No doubt most people will try to correct my obvious errors of judgement and tell me they know better than how I feel, but there's the thing about it - I don't feel anything when I watch a cover band, I don't very often feel anything when watching local original bands but when I do it's better than all the cover acts I've ever seen combined. This is of course my opinion, another great thing about the internet is that you can randomly just assault forums with whatever crap you feel like. The best part is people often misunderstand, or assume the worst of your opinion but none of it matters cause "you can't read my, no you can't read my, no you can't read my poker face." ?

MIKA-the-better-one

Chad Adam Browne wrote: Wow it's nice to see so many people being so butt hurt about it ?

Anyway I get the idea of people treating it like a training ground but the point is that money is the driving factor here which makes it insincere, other than stage presence I'd say that all the other pros are negligible. If you wanna play someone else's song why not just do so in your bedroom? I honestly don't understand how being able to churn out the same 4 chord rubbish as what is considered popular these days improves your songwriting? If anything I'd rate it more likely to squash your creativity by polluting your mind with the easy-way-out progressions.

I understand that some people find solace in being able to hide behind other people's licks but I just don't get it, to be a musician is to create an intangible product of emotion that may or may not be able to resonate with an audience. There's a communication there that you just don't get with a cover band, there's no musicianship involved in being a dot matrix printer and yes I don't doubt that many of you will try and defend it further by saying that to capture the same feel or to interpret the works in x and x a way counts but I still don't see the logic in that. If I took Lord of the Rings and rewrote the whole book but using my own sentence structures does it suddenly make me a good writer? Surely it proves that I have a grasp of the language and the rules that apply but I've accomplished nothing and it's hollow.

I've played covers professionally and if anything it taught me how to recognise the boring and over used chord structures of this century and helped harbour a massive loathing towards the "cliches". There were one or two challenges in terms of remembering everything, but I never went "ooh I'm so worried that I have to play a Jimmy Paige solo cause he's such a technically ferocious player" ? I think that a lot of people just have fairly low standards on what they consider "good" - we could of course get into the redundant "feel" debate for an hour here but honestly at the end of the day that's just personal opinion and I'd rather listen to Guthrie Govan everyday of the week than Paige, Clapton, Mayer or whatever the next big flavour of the guitar world is going to be.

Honestly I'd rather listen to a crap originals band than a good cover band, for the same point though I don't think you can have such a thing if the people making the music have their hearts in the right place. I can go into a club to watch a band and literally within the first 4- 8 bars I know if they're there to make the music they love that they honestly believe in or if they want to be the cool kids who get all the girls, and if I find it leans towards the latter I can simply leave, whether it be to step outside or vacate the premises entirely. Ah free choice is a marvelous thing.

@Singemonkey - You speak sense, isn't it better to watch a good band play a good cover or two and then show you what they're all about, for the same token though I don't consider playing someone else's song note for note counts as a good cover - take for example All Along The Watchtower, now I'm not a Hendrix fan on the best of days but props where they are due, you listen to Dillon's version, then Hendrix's and then Michael Hedges' and all three of them are unique and yet somehow the same song, that's what I call a good cover.

Now just to speak from experience for a moment here, I'm in a prog-metal band. The whole genre is kinda about breaking the mold so by default I would hate the most exacting form of the mold. Personally I find pretty much 90% of everything on the radio & TV boring and repetitive, and I think the last 10% only comes from when I listen to Classic FM... I don't understand how anyone could want to learn any of it, I don't get what you feel you could learn from it unless you honestly consider U2 to be the pinnacle of song writing. In which case "yeah yeah yeah!" and all that but at the end of the day being a musician and being a good one at that isn't about other people's music - it's about you and your own personal growth and what it is you want people to feel when you communicate a piece of yourself in what you do, how you could ever learn that from someone else's music escapes me, been there done that - don't want the T-shirt.

Of course I don't doubt that there's going to be a major backlash against what I've said, people will no doubt just be so annoyed by my obvious lack of good taste that they'll have to verbally assault me over the internet ? No doubt most people will try to correct my obvious errors of judgement and tell me they know better than how I feel, but there's the thing about it - I don't feel anything when I watch a cover band, I don't very often feel anything when watching local original bands but when I do it's better than all the cover acts I've ever seen combined. This is of course my opinion, another great thing about the internet is that you can randomly just assault forums with whatever crap you feel like. The best part is people often misunderstand, or assume the worst of your opinion but none of it matters cause "you can't read my, no you can't read my, no you can't read my poker face." ?

thats half a book... but i get what you are saying.....however I dont think music has to be complex, 4 chords or even two chords do me just fine.... its how you play them.... and radio stuff... katie perry, and all that, its catchy, and at times very fun but I never forget what it is....just radio songs which come and go.. its the songs I have to think about that stick with me

Malkav

MIKA the better one wrote: thats half a book... but i get what you are saying.....however I dont think music has to be complex, 4 chords or even two chords do me just fine.... its how you play them.... and radio stuff... katie perry, and all that, its catchy, and at times very fun but I never forget what it is....just radio songs which come and go.. its the songs I have to think about that stick with me

4 chords are fine - but if you don't play them with conviction you shouldn't play them at all. Whether it's 4 chords in 4/4 our triplet groupings of 8th notes in 19/16 the conviction is the most important factor.

MIKA-the-better-one

we seem to be on the same page then.......

Squonk

Well at least the two of you are on the same page!

I am getting sick of all this freaking Guthrie Govan is God (check out all the G's) and everyone else is crap syndrome you guys find yourself in.

Why have this condescending attitude to millions of guitarists that aren't interested in playing like Guthrie, If they play a boring 4 chord song so be it.

I saw Crowded House on the weekend and their 4 chords seem to work alot better than Guthries 27 chord songs :?

Guitar is all about enjoyment, and if I am happy playing Celine Dion covers, who are you to judge me? What gives you the right to walk in on gigs and make judgement calls. opinions are ok but judgment calls are not!!ThTh

This is the thing, Opinions are fine, but that's all they should be.

Warren

Squonk wrote: Well at least the two of you are on the same page!

I am getting sick of all this freaking Guthrie Govan is God (check out all the G's) and everyone else is crap syndrome you guys find yourself in.

Why have this condescending attitude to millions of guitarists that aren't interested in playing like Guthrie, If they play a boring 4 chord song so be it.

I saw Crowded House on the weekend and their 4 chords seem to work alot better than Guthries 27 chord songs :?

Guitar is all about enjoyment, and if I am happy playing Celine Dion covers, who are you to judge me? What gives you the right to walk in on gigs and make judgement calls. opinions are ok but judgment calls are not!!ThTh

This is the thing, Opinions are fine, but that's all they should be.

+1;

And Guthers writes some really brilliant columns (in addition to his books) where he explains how various classic licks work, and also how to alter them and turn them on their heads. So even he uses the same building blocks that everyone else does. Sometimes it helps to know the rules before you can really set out to break them.

It's also news to me that all cover songs are 4 chord crap. ? I guess it depends a bit on which ones you're talking about...

robmac

I wonder if classical musicians have this debate ?

singemonkey

Chad Adam Browne wrote: Wow it's nice to see so many people being so butt hurt about it ?

No. Most people are simply explaining how they have a different opinion to yours. You're the one using emotive language.

Anyway I get the idea of people treating it like a training ground but the point is that money is the driving factor here which makes it insincere, other than stage presence I'd say that all the other pros are negligible. If you wanna play someone else's song why not just do so in your bedroom?

You just answered your own question before you asked it. "It's the stagecraft, stupid." (paraphrasing Bill Clinton - not accusing you of being stupid, in case this thread goes haywire).

I understand that some people find solace in being able to hide behind other people's licks but I just don't get it,

Nice straw-man, Chad. If you wonder why people get upset, it's not your argument, it's these derogatory, unfounded comments.

to be a musician is to create an intangible product of emotion that may or may not be able to resonate with an audience. There's a communication there that you just don't get with a cover band, there's no musicianship involved in being a dot matrix printer and yes I don't doubt that many of you will try and defend it further by saying that to capture the same feel or to interpret the works in x and x a way counts but I still don't see the logic in that. If I took Lord of the Rings and rewrote the whole book but using my own sentence structures does it suddenly make me a good writer? Surely it proves that I have a grasp of the language and the rules that apply but I've accomplished nothing and it's hollow.

Well, you've proved it man. I'm never going to see another Shakespeare play. I mean, it was one thing to see one in 1605 when Shakespeare was directing and acting, but this lame, empty "interpretation" they do now? Waste of time. And going to hear Rachmaninov by the symphony orchestra? Why can't those soulless hacks write their own material?

I've played covers professionally and if anything it taught me how to recognise the boring and over used chord structures of this century and helped harbour a massive loathing towards the "cliches".

From your arguments I would have thought that all it would have done was rip out your soul and leave you a worthless, commercial whore. Strange then that you say it helped to shape your original material by helping you to avoid cliches.

There were one or two challenges in terms of remembering everything, but I never went "ooh I'm so worried that I have to play a Jimmy Paige solo cause he's such a technically ferocious player" ? I think that a lot of people just have fairly low standards on what they consider "good" - we could of course get into the redundant "feel" debate for an hour here but honestly at the end of the day that's just personal opinion and I'd rather listen to Guthrie Govan everyday of the week than Paige, Clapton, Mayer or whatever the next big flavour of the guitar world is going to be.

Now you happily muddy the argument. Now it's about people's respect for the technical skills of guitar players you think trivial. What's that about? A cover band could be a Zappa tribute outfit. Your contempt for people's admiration of guitarists you feel don't deserve it has nothing to do with this argument.

Honestly I'd rather listen to a crap originals band than a good cover band, for the same point though I don't think you can have such a thing if the people making the music have their hearts in the right place. I can go into a club to watch a band and literally within the first 4- 8 bars I know if they're there to make the music they love that they honestly believe in or if they want to be the cool kids who get all the girls, and if I find it leans towards the latter I can simply leave, whether it be to step outside or vacate the premises entirely. Ah free choice is a marvelous thing.

Not me. I'd far rather hear a great song done well, than hear a titanically boring, hopelessly derivative original, no matter how well it's done. I suspect there are many others who feel the same.

@Singemonkey - You speak sense, isn't it better to watch a good band play a good cover or two and then show you what they're all about, for the same token though I don't consider playing someone else's song note for note counts as a good cover - take for example All Along The Watchtower, now I'm not a Hendrix fan on the best of days but props where they are due, you listen to Dillon's version, then Hendrix's and then Michael Hedges' and all three of them are unique and yet somehow the same song, that's what I call a good cover.

Another straw-man. No one said anything about note for note. Anyway, according to your statements above re interpretation, there's no such thing as a good cover.

Now just to speak from experience for a moment here, I'm in a prog-metal band. The whole genre is kinda about breaking the mold so by default I would hate the most exacting form of the mold. Personally I find pretty much 90% of everything on the radio & TV boring and repetitive, and I think the last 10% only comes from when I listen to Classic FM... I don't understand how anyone could want to learn any of it, I don't get what you feel you could learn from it unless you honestly consider U2 to be the pinnacle of song writing. In which case "yeah yeah yeah!" and all that but at the end of the day being a musician and being a good one at that isn't about other people's music - it's about you and your own personal growth and what it is you want people to feel when you communicate a piece of yourself in what you do, how you could ever learn that from someone else's music escapes me, been there done that - don't want the T-shirt.

Again you say, "I've done it. It's a part of what made me the musician I am today. But I don't respect anyone else doing it." ???

Of course I don't doubt that there's going to be a major backlash against what I've said, people will no doubt just be so annoyed by my obvious lack of good taste that they'll have to verbally assault me over the internet ? No doubt most people will try to correct my obvious errors of judgement and tell me they know better than how I feel, but there's the thing about it - I don't feel anything when I watch a cover band, I don't very often feel anything when watching local original bands but when I do it's better than all the cover acts I've ever seen combined. This is of course my opinion, another great thing about the internet is that you can randomly just assault forums with whatever crap you feel like. The best part is people often misunderstand, or assume the worst of your opinion but none of it matters cause "you can't read my, no you can't read my, no you can't read my poker face." ?

Now you are officially being a douche. And if you don't see that, re-read. This is a kind of ad-hominem in which you are implying that any criticism of your arguments is so biased that it can't be taken seriously. It's a very dishonest tack to take. You make plenty of good points here, but it's so wrapped up in contempt for opinions other than your own, that you shouldn't at all be surprised if people miss that and start a "backlash." Yes, most people don't like prog metal. And you're sick of people putting it down. But it's totally unfair to assume that attitude in a largely unrelated argument.

bloukie

I was trying to imagine a world where e.g. the London Symphony Orchestra would not be allowed to play covers, or what a good ole blues gig would be like without covers.

Then I thought how poorer we would be if we only had the fab four's version of With a little help from my friends and not Cocker's as well.

Then all this thinking and wondering started hurting my head and I stopped doing it.

MIKA-the-better-one

Squonk wrote: Well at least the two of you are on the same page!

I am getting sick of all this freaking Guthrie Govan is God (check out all the G's) and everyone else is crap syndrome you guys find yourself in.

Why have this condescending attitude to millions of guitarists that aren't interested in playing like Guthrie, If they play a boring 4 chord song so be it.

I saw Crowded House on the weekend and their 4 chords seem to work alot better than Guthries 27 chord songs :?

Guitar is all about enjoyment, and if I am happy playing Celine Dion covers, who are you to judge me? What gives you the right to walk in on gigs and make judgement calls. opinions are ok but judgment calls are not!!ThTh

This is the thing, Opinions are fine, but that's all they should be.

this refers to the two chord thin / 4 chord thing....... would you like to make a comment on that ?

singemonkey

MIKA the better one wrote: this refers to the two chord thin / 4 chord thing....... would you like to make a comment on that ?

As I said, Straw-man. It's like talking about whether to love or hate cricket, and then someone says that they're only talking about 20/20 cricket. I could claim that with originals we're only talking about corporate rock. But you'd see instantly that I'm narrowing the argument for my own purposes.

cas·u·ist·ry
/ˈkæʒuəstri/ Show Spelled[kazh-oo-uh-stree] Show IPA
–noun, plural -ries.
1.
specious, deceptive, or oversubtle reasoning, esp. in questions of morality; fallacious or dishonest application of general principles; sophistry.
2.
the application of general ethical principles to particular cases of conscience or conduct.

vic

bloukie wrote: I was trying to imagine a world where e.g. the London Symphony Orchestra would not be allowed to play covers, or what a good ole blues gig would be like without covers.

Then I thought how poorer we would be if we only had the fab four's version of With a little help from my friends and not Cocker's as well.Then all this thinking and wondering started hurting my head and I stopped doing it.

Excellent example in this context.

@Chad...the fab four... meaning The Beatles. ?

Riaan-Combrink

Jeez, I've been away from the forum for a looooooooong time, and this has to be the first post I read! Phew. The winds of change are blowing...

singemonkey

Riaan C wrote: Jeez, I've been away from the forum for a looooooooong time, and this has to be the first post I read! Phew. The winds of change are blowing...

Naah. I wouldn't take it personally, Riaan. This topic is going to bring out these opinions, you know.

Malkav

lol and there's that backlash I was talking about ?

@ Squonk - No Guthrie's not God, he'd most likely have been a millionaire if he had come out in the 80's but alas timing ruined it :-[ Guitaring is about enjoyment, and I'm against cover bands - not covers...If you enjoy playing Celine Deon songs, cool no doubt you can find something in them that works for you, but now to take that harmless practice of wanting to play and enjoy her music to the next step of wanting to play her music in front of other people for money - That's the step that I'm quite against.

@ Warren - We're talking about South Africa here, cover bands here play what you hear on the radio. The day I walk into a bar and someone says right we're gonna cover Dream Theater's In The Name Of God will be the day pigs grow wings and learn to fly.

singemonkey wrote:
Chad Adam Browne wrote: Wow it's nice to see so many people being so butt hurt about it ?
No. Most people are simply explaining how they have a different opinion to yours. You're the one using emotive language.

Note the ? the ? denotes humour...I was joking

singemonkey wrote:
Anyway I get the idea of people treating it like a training ground but the point is that money is the driving factor here which makes it insincere, other than stage presence I'd say that all the other pros are negligible. If you wanna play someone else's song why not just do so in your bedroom?
You just answered your own question before you asked it. "It's the stagecraft, stupid." (paraphrasing Bill Clinton - not accusing you of being stupid, in case this thread goes haywire).

Yeah okay my wording is a bit off, what I'm saying is that the only thing you learn from it is stage presence - which honestly you could gain just watching DVDs or live footage of concerts of good performers - I hardly think that being in a cover band is the only way to attain stage persona.

singemonkey wrote:
I understand that some people find solace in being able to hide behind other people's licks but I just don't get it,
Nice straw-man, Chad. If you wonder why people get upset, it's not your argument, it's these derogatory, unfounded comments.

A bit out of context on it's own but the general idea is still - I'd rather hear you be you than hear you be Jimmy Paige.

singemonkey wrote:
to be a musician is to create an intangible product of emotion that may or may not be able to resonate with an audience. There's a communication there that you just don't get with a cover band, there's no musicianship involved in being a dot matrix printer and yes I don't doubt that many of you will try and defend it further by saying that to capture the same feel or to interpret the works in x and x a way counts but I still don't see the logic in that. If I took Lord of the Rings and rewrote the whole book but using my own sentence structures does it suddenly make me a good writer? Surely it proves that I have a grasp of the language and the rules that apply but I've accomplished nothing and it's hollow.
Well, you've proved it man. I'm never going to see another Shakespeare play. I mean, it was one thing to see one in 1605 when Shakespeare was directing and acting, but this lame, empty "interpretation" they do now? Waste of time. And going to hear Rachmaninov by the symphony orchestra? Why can't those soulless hacks write their own material?

he's dead and theater isn't really the same art form so I'm not even going to hazard at that cause I just don't get it. As for the Rachmaninov thing, he's also dead so it makes it a little hard, if he were alive and they were the orchestra commisioned to do his work then fair enough but if he had not chosen them for the interpretation then yes the soulless hacks should write their own material or find another composer to have elect them.

singemonkey wrote:
I've played covers professionally and if anything it taught me how to recognise the boring and over used chord structures of this century and helped harbour a massive loathing towards the "cliches".
From your arguments I would have thought that all it would have done was rip out your soul and leave you a worthless, commercial whore. Strange then that you say it helped to shape your original material by helping you to avoid cliches.

I kinda almost did turn me into a worthless commercial whore, common sense kicked in eventually...I'll give you that in it's own way it did help me know what I want to avoid, however if I had sat in my room and learned these songs then I would have gained the same knowledge - As I'm saying I'm against cover bands not learning someone's work for the sake of enjoyment or education.

singemonkey wrote:
There were one or two challenges in terms of remembering everything, but I never went "ooh I'm so worried that I have to play a Jimmy Paige solo cause he's such a technically ferocious player" ? I think that a lot of people just have fairly low standards on what they consider "good" - we could of course get into the redundant "feel" debate for an hour here but honestly at the end of the day that's just personal opinion and I'd rather listen to Guthrie Govan everyday of the week than Paige, Clapton, Mayer or whatever the next big flavour of the guitar world is going to be.
Now you happily muddy the argument. Now it's about people's respect for the technical skills of guitar players you think trivial. What's that about? A cover band could be a Zappa tribute outfit. Your contempt for people's admiration of guitarists you feel don't deserve it has nothing to do with this argument.

I don't think them trivial, but they're not technical it's simply a fact. Paige is quite sloppy live and I fail to see what would be considered technical about it, do you think that someone who is graded in music would feel he was technically advanced? If you put anything by Paige in front of someone who is certified a good player such as a grade 8 classical guitarist I don't think they'd be too particularly daunted by it. In fact in today's society there exists the Rock School sylabus by Trinity which has now categorically broken down technicality and put a grade system on it in respects of Rock n Roll and I've seen the grade 8 stuff, I've got the teaching guide at home and I can guarantee that it's harder than Paiges stuff. I can also definitly say that even if you've learnt up until grade 8 through Rock School there's still a hell of a lot more to learn, in my mind that's simply where the bar is set. We're talking about South Africa so no it wouldn't be a Zappa tribute outfit...

singemonkey wrote:
Honestly I'd rather listen to a crap originals band than a good cover band, for the same point though I don't think you can have such a thing if the people making the music have their hearts in the right place. I can go into a club to watch a band and literally within the first 4- 8 bars I know if they're there to make the music they love that they honestly believe in or if they want to be the cool kids who get all the girls, and if I find it leans towards the latter I can simply leave, whether it be to step outside or vacate the premises entirely. Ah free choice is a marvelous thing.
Not me. I'd far rather hear a great song done well, than hear a titanically boring, hopelessly derivative original, no matter how well it's done. I suspect there are many others who feel the same.

I don't think you read what I was saying there, but to clarify - you can hear when a band hasn't put any real effort in and you can simply walk out, when a band has worked hard to put out something they think is good you can hear it too and generally it's not titanically boring or derivative, if it is then yet again you don't have to be there ?.

singemonkey wrote:
@Singemonkey - You speak sense, isn't it better to watch a good band play a good cover or two and then show you what they're all about, for the same token though I don't consider playing someone else's song note for note counts as a good cover - take for example All Along The Watchtower, now I'm not a Hendrix fan on the best of days but props where they are due, you listen to Dillon's version, then Hendrix's and then Michael Hedges' and all three of them are unique and yet somehow the same song, that's what I call a good cover.
Another straw-man. No one said anything about note for note. Anyway, according to your statements above re interpretation, there's no such thing as a good cover.

Okay cool then I'll be mad at Michael Romeo for throwing in short quotations out of classical songs as well...to a certain degree a quotation or reinterpretation is a cover for the same we're talking about straight up cover bands in South Africa who don't reinterprate they just cover. Take the word cover out of their and replace it with reinterpretation if you must be pedantic.

singemonkey wrote:
Now just to speak from experience for a moment here, I'm in a prog-metal band. The whole genre is kinda about breaking the mold so by default I would hate the most exacting form of the mold. Personally I find pretty much 90% of everything on the radio & TV boring and repetitive, and I think the last 10% only comes from when I listen to Classic FM... I don't understand how anyone could want to learn any of it, I don't get what you feel you could learn from it unless you honestly consider U2 to be the pinnacle of song writing. In which case "yeah yeah yeah!" and all that but at the end of the day being a musician and being a good one at that isn't about other people's music - it's about you and your own personal growth and what it is you want people to feel when you communicate a piece of yourself in what you do, how you could ever learn that from someone else's music escapes me, been there done that - don't want the T-shirt.
Again you say, "I've done it. It's a part of what made me the musician I am today. But I don't respect anyone else doing it." ???

Yet again against cover bands not learning other people's material - have you heard the new U2 album? How in anyway does it contend with their classics? I don't hear another Sunday Bloody Sunday on there, it's this annoying disco pop stuff now. They're big on the radio now and I really don't think they've grown much in the last couple of years, they've stagnated and yet people will still defend them. People will do this because of the old hits and the meaning those had in their lives not because of the ability to be objective. I love Dream Theater but I think that their last album was a croc of shit compared to almost all of their previous work. You won't learn how to make people feel the way you feel by learning other people's music, this I stand by, chops & Chords you can learn - how to capture what's inside you, not gonna happen.

singemonkey wrote:
Of course I don't doubt that there's going to be a major backlash against what I've said, people will no doubt just be so annoyed by my obvious lack of good taste that they'll have to verbally assault me over the internet ? No doubt most people will try to correct my obvious errors of judgement and tell me they know better than how I feel, but there's the thing about it - I don't feel anything when I watch a cover band, I don't very often feel anything when watching local original bands but when I do it's better than all the cover acts I've ever seen combined. This is of course my opinion, another great thing about the internet is that you can randomly just assault forums with whatever crap you feel like. The best part is people often misunderstand, or assume the worst of your opinion but none of it matters cause "you can't read my, no you can't read my, no you can't read my poker face." ?
Now you are officially being a douche. And if you don't see that, re-read. This is a kind of ad-hominem in which you are implying that any criticism of your arguments is so biased that it can't be taken seriously. It's a very dishonest tack to take. You make plenty of good points here, but it's so wrapped up in contempt for opinions other than your own, that you shouldn't at all be surprised if people miss that and start a "backlash." Yes, most people don't like prog metal. And you're sick of people putting it down. But it's totally unfair to assume that attitude in a largely unrelated argument.

NO now you're being silly - I'm saying it's all opinion, if it's crap to me it's crap - I don't need to be apologetic about it. If you'd like me to explain why I feel the way I do about something I'll answer but I don't need to be apologetic about why I feel that way about it. See if you've just misunderstood what I meant as I pointed out people would - unfortunately text isn't a great way to relate the intricasies of human speech. If I've offended you I'm sorry but the basis of what I'm trying to get across is be the best musician you can be don't be the best at being another musician...Yes most people don't like prog metal, but I don't care. I'm pretty much apathetical to the whole thing, people will always dislike music you do like. It's like blues players coming down on shredders for not having feel and shredders coming down on blues players for being boring, it simply will always be. I think the only case where the whole thing changes slightly is in the case of rap & hip-hop these I simply don't consider music.

vic wrote: @Chad...the fab four... meaning The Beatles. ?

I lol'd cause I honestly didn't know who the f*** the fab four were ?

singemonkey wrote:
Riaan C wrote: Jeez, I've been away from the forum for a looooooooong time, and this has to be the first post I read! Phew. The winds of change are blowing...
Naah. I wouldn't take it personally, Riaan. This topic is going to bring out these opinions, you know.

Isn't it just more fun that way though ?

Anyway in South Africa we have tons of cover bands and not so many original bands and even fewer good original bands and in someways it hampers the opportunities for original bands in this country - after all we're all technically part of the market and if the market called for originals we'd get them, and sure a lot of them would be horrible but eventually through public demand we'd be left with good original bands to go check out. Wouldn't it be nicer if you didn't have to learn covers to make money in this country? I know in lots of other countries there are opportunities for musicians to get by without becoming famous because there's a more open minded audience. Take Jean Baudin for instance, he plays an instrument in a style that many would deem non traditional, they'd say the same about his instrument but at least he can get by doing what he wants to. Not hyper fame not mansion living success, just an honest living making honest music. This isn't an option in this country because the accepted norm is the cover circuit, I don't know what drew South Africans towards this but having spoken to my boss about it (He used to be quite an in demand session player) he reckons that it's cause during apartheid you couldn't leave the country so what was the point in writing originals if you could never go anywhere with them. I don't know if this was the outlook everyone had but damn that's bleak, now this may or may not be true, but assuming it is why hasn't anything changed?

singemonkey

You certainly don't have to be apologetic about your opinions. No one was asking you to be. Neither are you being asked to respect anyone else's. But you should respect the people who have those opinions - rather than assuming they're going to tell you Page is a technical wizard or that they're offended by your distaste for cover bands. Give them the respect of letting them answer you rather than answering for them.

And btw, I can call you an asshole (I'm not, btw) and no amount of ?? s will help if the context suggests you're serious.

I'm certainly not offended.

But you're confabulating different issues here. People's defense of bands that are past their prime? What's it got to do with covers? People claiming guitar players like Jimmy Page are technical wizards? What's that got to do with covers? People preferring cliched songs? What's that got to do with covers?

Basically it sounds like you're putting all your pet peeves into one argument whether they fit there or not. I agree with you on some of these points. What I don't agree with is that they have any particular relevance to whether covers are bad.

But onto the points about covers:

Learning stagecraft from DVDs is as good as learning from playing live? C'mon. Do you really think so?

You could have learned the same stuff without playing covers? How do you know? How can you tell what your experience would have been like if you'd done it completely differently? You might have been sitting home right now writing 20 variations of the Kill 'em all lick ? Point is, your experience made you hate cover bands, but didn't do you any harm as a musician, did it. And it'd be difficult to argue that it didn't do you any good.

You think it's ok to listen to covers of someone's stuff if they're dead, but not if they're alive? It kind of limits the number of people who get to experience their stuff. And what about when they're alive and past it? We shouldn't listen to their material from anyone else, even if the original artist can barely play? I dunno man.

People put effort into original stuff = good music? Not my experience. A lot of bands seem overly focused on technical stuff or gimmickry and have never learned to put a song together. I'm not singling out any genre. That applies to all of them. So it's not uncommon to see a band that works really hard to produce boring, derivative stuff.

The South African cover scene exists at the expense of the original scene? I kind of agree with you there. It would be nice if there was a path people could take to go from a successful covers career to a successful original music career. But at the same time, it's the audience demand.

In the eighties there was the Satanic Panic that put a lot of South Africans off even some really innocuous hard rock music. While high-school jocks in the USA grew up listening to Ozzy, Metallica, and AC/DC, in SA it was Roxette. I think the very limited audience here is generally quite naive about modern, popular music. And I think it's rare to find people who've been exposed to enough stuff to appreciate anything away from the mainstream. And so you get the Parlotones, and you get covers. They meet the demand of the audiences.

So covers bands, I think, get to enjoy playing in front of an audience - whether honing their skills or just doing it because they enjoy it - and get paid to do it, and they wouldn't get to both play and get paid regularly any other way. I don't think their absence would result immediately in a huge rush of popularity for original music. People who play covers - some on this forum - often derive a significant proportion of their income from them - income that they couldn't guarantee playing originals. Is what they're doing so wicked that they should give up that income?

Even in the USA, bands playing original music are only a modest part of the market for working musicians. Many would have to give up playing if they had to survive on their original music. And that's a very recent phenomenon. Throughout history, musicians didn't usually have to write to be musicians. Composers wrote. The odd folk singer added a new song to the standards that stuck. But mostly, they just played songs or pieces as best they could for an appreciative audience.

Again I say, I'm not a huge fan of covers. I just think the intense feeling about them among SA musicians who like original stuff does more harm than good. They should be normalised, IMO. Where most young bands, or even new bands, would start playing a lot of covers to get audience interest and drop their originals into the line-up as they go along. Maybe I've missed something, but that still seems quite a common path for bands in the USA and Britain.

I think it can be a big help, because bands can then tell whether a song needs a lot of work by how the audience receives it. If they're nuts for the covers, but the same people night after night use your original as the excuse to go to the bar, I'm thinking the song needs work.