General Music Chat

4. Freebird

Ha ha. Not when we do it.

OMG... That song literally makes me so damn ill! It is so bland and repetitious it actually gives me a freakin' migraine! Nothing spectacular about the lead at all... I should know... I used to do it...note for note... just tons of hammmer-on's and pull offs. Hell even I felt like puking when we used to play it... It was actually a song that gaves most peeps a break to go outside and have a butt or something... the only ones that hung in there were the seriously inebriated folks!

We used to do Allman Bros., Skynnard, Hatchett, Marshall tucker, ZZ top, etc... but I finally put my foot down and replaced that song with "I know a little" from Skynnard... I forget the name... so long ago... at least that tune was a little more challenging! Honestly if that song were played out here in my neck-o- the woods, the band better be fenced in! LOL

I have to side with JW here, I've played many of the songs listed, rarely have I seen them clear the place. I don't like Freebird or Sweet Home AT ALL, hate playing both and I have to hear a dozen requests before I give in, but crowds do like them. Don't even like hearing them any more.

Crip is right, Freebird is way repetitious, [lessee, how many fast riffs can we pull off] I don't like to even hear it on the radio the rare occasion I listen to radio. I'm much more into melodic guitar, not much of that in most of Skynyrd's stuff, with the occasional tasty exception.

Crip - "I Know A Little" is the right name, good song, I've done it quite a few times too and may be doing it again before long if this band in Baltimore that contacted me pans out. Along with the Skynyrd songs that won't be mentioned any more...Also on the list are What's Your Name, That Smell, Possibly Curtis Lowe, Call Me the Breeze and a few others.

Mustang Sally - fills the dance floor just about every time. Depending on key I can sometimes do some good sax and that seems to be a great crowd pleaser, even though I'm not really that good on sax. But they still love it.

House of the Rising Sun - not often requested for some reason, I usually try to avoid it since I'm absolutely sick of it, but if it gets a few requests I'll give in. (like Howlin I've been listening to it and playing it since the mid 60's Animals version) When it does get played it usually gets a decent response.

Jumpin' Jack Flash - I rock it up Johnny Winter fashion, it usually gets a good response and I actually like playing that one, since it's not done a lot around here for some reason. If I play Johnny B Goode I do it Johnny Winter style too, makes it a bit less boring.

Wonderful Tonight - play it and watch those belt buckles get polished. I dupliccate Clapton's guitar work and sound, most guitar players I see don't even get close to the sound although the notes are usually pretty close. One tip though, turn that damn distortion pedal OFF. Clean on the neck pickup and you're in the ballpark. To get that one to turn heads you have to put some feeling into the guitar part, no way around it. Oh...no vibrato either. A lot of the time I finger pick it.

Turn the Page - one of my "signature" songs, once the locals see me a few times it always gets requested and they love it. I do that one on acoustic.

Some of these I really really don't like playing, and avoid if possible, but if we get persistent requests, the band will usually give in, but also it's usually late in the night. My main problem with Freebird is that it's too damn long, aside from the fact that I'm just plain sick of it. Sure they start out liking it, but halfway through they're tired of it and ready to move on. Then you start to lose your audience and it's not easy to get them back...

Guess I'm a HO too...

:shock: Wow... that was a mouthful... You always say you gotta get over my way...ummm... it should be the other way around... IT'S TOUGH GETTING THESE FOLKS OUT OF THEIR HOUSES OVER HERE IN NY!! I guarantee you'll be very dissaponted if you ever booked a gig out here... very dissapointed... Takes quite a few years to build up a solid following and people are staying home now... we gotta work like hell to get them out of their houses and the clubs aren't frekin' helping with their high cost cover charges and their ridiculously high priced drinks!

We do: Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, Ozzy, Halen, Yngwie, Priest, Purple, Zep, Alice in Chains, In Living Colour, Metallica, Motorhead, Kiss, Chili Peppers, Thin Lizzy AC/DC, and a lot more... the audience is smart... they know exactly where and when you screw up...ya see... they don't drink as much... A freakin' beer now costs 6 bucks plus tips... It's very hard over here and only the strongest will obtain the gigs and the crowd... all the others will just keep gigging for free with a million other bands....

We gotta move down south...

Maybe we should meet half way.

The cover charges in my area are 5-10 dollars, a beer is anywhere from 3-5 dollars. I try to set the cover at $7.50 when we are in charge of the door, 120 people that is $900, this is all basic math. Our goal is to generate around $1000 a gig these days, I think we are averaging $865, so we are getting where we want to go slowly but surely. The average band gig in our area pays $400 a night for 4 hours, the multi band bills generally pay noithing. We are getting $300 for an hour and a half set, plus free bar for us and crew, and a week of radio advertising. This is where we play on a multi band bill. I want the middle slot, 10:30 to 12:30, so far this is working really good in that situation. We dont have to fool with pa gear lights and all that bull, i can show up 30 minutes before time to play do my deal and go home right after, of course we stay around and smooze for a few hours promoting our band.

A big thing we are doing is giving away free CDs in a wrapper, it has our name on it and our myspace listing. I found a guy who made 3500 cds for $1000, they cost me 29 cents apiece. I catch a lot of flack from other bands cause they try to sell theirs, my question it how many do you sell a gig? most of them say 4-5. Thats a damn joke to me, noone will ever actually hear your sh*t if you are trying to make money off of it. My advice, find the cheapest means to get some made up. At first I burned them myself, til I found this deal on Craigslist. So far weve given away close to 800 copys, and these people are getting in touch and keeping up with our schedule. We are using these cds to drive people to our gigs, I have them with me and give them to everyone I know. These are just ideas, but the guys that play with me were in an original band for 5 years and made an origianal cd, with all the foldouts and band thank yous, unless you are on major label my advice is dont waste your money with all the addons. They paid I think $2500 for 1000 of these units. Figure out the cheapest way to give people your music and drive them to your shows. Thats my advice for today.

Crip dont get me wrong I havent been out and seen any bands in our area drawing a crowd like we do. Not bragging but most bands here dont pull anyone in, and most of them just sit there like the crowd owes them something. It cracks me up, the number of guys that want to be in our band cause they think that we play what we want cause we are a lot heavier live band than anyone else can get away with in our area.

But our band has a 20 yr history to draw on, a lot of the 35 yr olds that come to see us were sneaking into clubs when they were 15 to see us so we are like their favorite band. As a band we kind of embrace this fact, but we truelly listen to the people that pay to see us, over the years Ive played Hootie and the Blowfish, Collective Soul, Steve Miller all kinds of stuff that I wouldnt pick on my own to play. As I said Im happy that so many people on this site seem to get gigs playing whatever they want to play, I havent been that fortunate, Im a ho thats sellling something that people want so I have to do what they say, even when its not what I would do. If some of you on here would embrace what Im saying I guarantee you, you will get more and better gigs. This isnt brain surgery, its not like anything anyone is playing on here is technically that hard. Dont work against yourself, its not you against the audience, if you give the audience something they will allow you to do what you want. We always did a killer version of Outshined by Soundgarden, but it allways left the crowd cold, but recently some of our old faithful have started requesting it again, so go figure.

Maybe it's not the song that kills a crowd but HOW you play it. A lot of the songs mentioned so far have been played to death. Maybe, just maybe, if you play it YOUR way it might be a little more interesting to the audience, and perhaps more importantly, a little more interesting to YOU. If YOU enjoy what you're playing the audience can sense YOUR excitement and might enjoy your performance a little more. They might even stick around and want to hear how YOU would play some other cover tunes. Just a thought...

We play roughly half covers, half originals, even though we have enough originals to skip the covers. The reason? People like to hear you do both. But our covers are a LOT different than what has been mentioned here:

Don't Pass Me By - The Beatles
Bop Pills - The Cramps
Into The Drink - Mudhoney
I Wanna Live - The Ramones
Wonderful Wino - Frank Zappa
Search and Destroy - The Stooges
Pills - New York Dolls

Mudhoney! Hell yea. Screaming Trees? Black Flag? Sonic Youth?

Pete, I haven't heard a really really good acoustic version of Turn The Page. I'm talkin bout guitar work, not vocals or otherwise. You got a recording of that?

Yeah, I'd probably leave if I heard ANY of the songs in this thread being played.

When my last band was out playin' (Three years back, unfortunately),
Some "not so run of the mill" Covers that we played included the obscure
Dirty Love - Zappa
The Man Who Murdered Love - XTC
Meaning of Lonelyness - Newer Van Morrison
Craw Back - Richard Thompson
We loved playing them but we got mixed reactions to them.(polite applause, if any at all.)

Some more "standardized covers included,

Friend of the Devil - Grateful Dead
The Weight - The Band
Searchin' -The Coasters
She's not there - The Zombies
Golden Slumbers, The Weight, The End - The Beatles
We seemed to get a better response, even though we were sick of them.
This bears out J.W.123's points of playing to the clientele instead of for yourself.

HJ

Yeah, I'd probably leave if I heard ANY of the songs in this thread being played.

You wouldn't get in the show, let alone leave. No pups allowed at most of the places we play.

Howlin, even the second batch of songs aren't too common. Props for that.

"This bears out J.W.123's points of playing to the clientele instead of for yourself."

Absolutely, but it's a fine art to play what you like AND what the audience likes (and wants). After a while you just learn what works, keep the ones that make 'em go nuts and that you don't hate to play, and toss the rest.

It's even better when you play YOUR OWN songs and the audience goes nuts. Later...

Not really, Bob. People who come to our shows rock just as hard to our stuff as to the covers we play. From the audiences point of view it doesn't matter who wrote it, as long as it rocks.

Andragon: No recording of Turn the Page yet, but it's planned. My best friend wants to send her daughter a copy of my original "Last Train", and told me her favorite song is Turn the Page so she wants me to do a recording of it to add to the CD for her. I just put some new strings on the Takamine, might try to get that done before long, if I can find some time between work and practice and polising up the original.