General Music Chat

I dunno...we're billing ourselves as mostly 60s-70s classic rock/pop, so I suggest one of my fave pop tunes from the era, but it was just me that was feeling the love for "Dragging The Line" by Tommy James! Arrgghh, If I were a cartoon character, there would have been a black cloud over my head spitting out lightning, and hail for the rest of the rehearsal!

That sucks, man. Personally, I think the song is a good one, which leads me to think it's more of a power struggle-which happens all the time.
In my last band, I was the one shooting down song suggestions, but it was usually due to ability more than anything...at one point we had a singer that wanted to do "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Hair of the Dog"-and the guy could barely sing (not to mention that the "guitarists" in the band couldn't have played those songs either). Sometimes the shoot down is a quick way to end what will become a long drawn out debate.
In your case, though, I have to feel that there is some posturing going on. Good luck.

I always liked that song.
But . . .
One day I decided to play along with it, and then I kinda lost interest in playing it . . .
I still like the song, but it's not a whole lot of fun to play . . .

It's cool for what it is, & I've considered it, myself, BUT - it ain't really all that danceable, so I wouldn't play it in a band, after thinking about it.

Everybody in a band should get their fair share of song choices. I assume you're doing mainly or all covers, what difference does it make which songs you do? If there's four people in a band then each should get to pick 25% of the repertoire if they want to. One time I went to an audition and rattled off the names of about 30 blues songs that I play and sing, the band didn't want to do ANY of them, and they were a blues band. They had already fired their bass player and after the audition they were BEGGING me to join their band I told them to re-hire their old bass player. When somebody tells me we're not trying a certain tune I pack my gear and leave...

Speaking of cartoon characters, I feel like Grouchy Smurf.


I hate covers.

Speaking of cartoon characters, I feel like Grouchy Smurf.


I hate covers.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about doing covers either but in certain towns (like K.C.) you've got to do them to get PAID GIGS. We play a fair amount of originals (I don't even tell the audience they are originals) and people don't even know the difference. Eventually we'll have our CD, I'm thinking of making it half cover, half original. We don't do a lot of covers like the original anyway, so I consider some of them original in nature...