General Music Chat

I can't believe a recent e-mail and telephone correspondance with a prospective lead guitarist. I get contacted a few times a month by various musicians. This one has to take the cake. First of all for those who know me I'm about originality. I seldom perform covers like the original recording. We cover a lot of different artists and frankly many of those bass players (I play bass) are more advanced than myself. On top of that I'm the main lead vocalist. Suffice it to say it's very tough to sing AND play the exact bass-lines of somebody like Keith Ferguson or Nate Applewhite. I'm a competent bass player, but I'm not going to be able to play the exact bass-line AND sing. Anyway this guy calls me and says we HAVE to play covers EXACTLY note-for-note. Then he tells me we are NOT going to play any originals. I always play covers AND originals in every set we perform. Then he tells me we are going to play through his PA because it's superior to ours AND we HAVE TO have a keyboardist in the band. Also if the accoustics of our rehearsal room are not up to his standards we MUST find a better room to rehearse in, even it means renting a better room. All this and he hasn't even auditioned with us. I've never heard this guy play in my life. So I sent him an absolutely scathing e-mail. Among other things I told him that he was so anal retentive his sh*t could turn into a diamond. I told him that if he plays with us IN FACT we PERFORM originals. If he would prefer to stand on stage doing nothing while we play the originals that's fine with me. Or he could dance around like a monkey. I don't care, we ARE going to keep performing originals. I told him that we rehearse at the drummer's house PERIOD. He's welcome to bring his superior PA over there, but the drummer isn't packing up and moving his drums every rehearsal. Basically I told the guy in no uncertain terms that he's a musical Nazi commandant, and that he would regard me as an insubordinate muscial heretic, and that he seriously needs to consider adding a box of chocolate Ex-Lax to his daily diet. I figured he wouldn't return my scathing reply. Not only did he return my scathing reply, he is planning on getting together with us and a keyboard player over his house and have a complete four set show of all covers (of his choosing) ready for us to start working on! Alll this from an ad that I placed for somebody to join us! This idiot absolutely takes the grand prize. Unfrigginbelievable...

Damn. In my younger years, I probably would have tried to work something out with a guy like that. Nowadays, I'd show up, pretend to go along with him, and proceed to play all of the covers in my own way before breakng into an endless stream of originals. In other words, I'd intentionally frustrate the sh!t out of 'em!

People like that ONLY have their own interests at heart. Screw 'em.

Bob,

I laughed so hard I nearly fell on the floor.

There were too many jewels of yours in that post to even pick one out to quote.

I am gonna dub them: "Bob-isms"

Reminds me a little of George Carlin. Funny, with a unique way of looking at things and expressing them, but also conveys wisdom along with the humor.

You are one of those people in life, I see as a complete original. We will only know one.

And that is truly a compliment.

You help give the world flavor brother!

What a nut! I'd have to meet him just out of curiosity! Then again maybe he's looking to "score" some gear.

I'd expect an e-mail response like that guy gave you only on one day out of the whole year. APRIL 1ST. Other than that, my response would have been, "Kiss my ( i ).

personally i dont like doing covers.
but if I do do covers, I do them likewise to how children of bodom would, I take a great song and add a tablespoon of us, and a teaspoon of awesome solos that werent played, and a pinch of leads that could have but werent.

I hate when people butcher a song like the cover of holy diver from killswitch engage. They took a perfect song, ruined it sooooooooo bad i can hardly listen to the original now.

whats note for note anyways? uncreative? tell him to learn how to be creative. Im on your side fisher bob!

The guitarist we tried out yesterday started immediately giving suggestions for material before he even started to play what we know. Then he began to give us new possible band names.

I just laughed at him & suggested he start out by learning OUR style, OUR material, & try to fit in a bit at first...& we LIKE our band name, it's worked for over 15 yrs, & we already have an established rep that HE needs to live up to..."Gee, little guy, I know you wanna do this or that, but you really need to do this 1st..."

I'm not usually so nice...I think I've been spending too much time with my grandson, & now I treat everyone like they're two years old...

Still, he might work out. I'm trying to remember that he was nervous as heck, & trying to impress, & stuff...

Lots of ppl just don't do job interviews well...esp us artistical types...

Believe it or not he just sent me ANOTHER message. This was a conciliatory message. He suggested that we go ahead and scrap our entire repertoire. I never even told him what songs are in our repertoire. Then he suggested we don't perform any originals because we "need to get a signature sound first." How the hell do you get a signature sound if you copy everything note-for-note? It doesn't make any sense. Then he said we are going to rehearse at his place because he has everything set up (except drums) with superior equipment and sound than ours. He has never set foot in our rehearsal space. How the hell does he know his room sounds better? I guess this guy is the gift from Hell that keeps on giving...

Believe it or not he just sent me ANOTHER message. This was a conciliatory message. He suggested that we go ahead and scrap our entire repertoire. I never even told him what songs are in our repertoire. Then he suggested we don't perform any originals because we "need to get a signature sound first." How the hell do you get a signature sound if you copy everything note-for-note? It doesn't make any sense. Then he said we are going to rehearse at his place because he has everything set up (except drums) with superior equipment and sound than ours. He has never set foot in our rehearsal space. How the hell does he know his room sounds better? I guess this guy is the gift from Hell that keeps on giving...

he just sounds like a lot of "musicains" do nowadays. There are entertainers and then there are people who can play their instruments friggin great. Sounds like he is not option 2. A signature sound from playing note by note... ask him how in all reality that is possible.

Believe it or not he just sent me ANOTHER message. This was a conciliatory message. He suggested that we go ahead and scrap our entire repertoire. I never even told him what songs are in our repertoire. Then he suggested we don't perform any originals because we "need to get a signature sound first." How the hell do you get a signature sound if you copy everything note-for-note? It doesn't make any sense. Then he said we are going to rehearse at his place because he has everything set up (except drums) with superior equipment and sound than ours. He has never set foot in our rehearsal space. How the hell does he know his room sounds better? I guess this guy is the gift from Hell that keeps on giving...

It almost sounds like he's not getting your emails.

He's getting them, he's just not "getting" them.

Bob did you get my last email

practice 7pm sharp, dont be late!

If this guy truelly thinks hes note for note it might be cool just to get with him and hear if he can play or not.

As long as Ive been playing note for note just never seems to happen. We were playing around with Brickhouse the other night and our bassist hit the record button. My guitar came back sounding like Joe Walsh on Funk 49, then our bassist has this electric upright bass and we were playing around with Lou Reeds Wild Side so he could do those neat slides. He hit record on that and again it came back a lot heavier than the album version I wound up fingering the C and F chords structures and then tapping the neck an octave up to sound off the Do-Dee-Do-Dee-Do parts. I dont think we would ever get our singer to cover this song, but it might be fun to record it to see what it would turn out like.

Once again I would love to hear someone that really plays note for note. Even cover hacks like me have our own nuances that we introduce to any song we do.

Who knows you might have a monster player there, but the reality is if his people skills arent any better than they seem to be, I dont know how anyone would work with him unless he just hires people to play with him.

Bob did you get my last email

practice 7pm sharp, dont be late!

If this guy truelly thinks hes note for note it might be cool just to get with him and hear if he can play or not.

As long as Ive been playing note for note just never seems to happen. We were playing around with Brickhouse the other night and our bassist hit the record button. My guitar came back sounding like Joe Walsh on Funk 49, then our bassist has this electric upright bass and we were playing around with Lou Reeds Wild Side so he could do those neat slides. He hit record on that and again it came back a lot heavier than the album version I wound up fingering the C and F chords structures and then tapping the neck an octave up to sound off the Do-Dee-Do-Dee-Do parts. I dont think we would ever get our singer to cover this song, but it might be fun to record it to see what it would turn out like.

Once again I would love to hear someone that really plays note for note. Even cover hacks like me have our own nuances that we introduce to any song we do.

Who knows you might have a monster player there, but the reality is if his people skills arent any better than they seem to be, I dont know how anyone would work with him unless he just hires people to play with him.

IMHO, if anyone plays any recording- note for note needs to get a life. What is on a CD or album is never exactly what the performer played in the first place unless the engineer is not doing his/her job. However, if I knew someone wanting to play for my band, their ability to sh*t diamonds may be a profitable talent. However, I would not audition anyone who thinks he needs to be my boss.

I've been to well over a hundred live shows of famous artists and I would say almost all of them don't perform THEIR OWN famous songs note-for-note. Could you imagine playing the same songs the same way over and over and over again? It would be like eating the exact same pizza at every meal with the same toppings. Wouldn't you like to change toppings once in a while? Or how about substituting a nice bowl of spaghetti in place of the pizza? I would probably heave the pizza before it ever turned into a diamond...

Could you imagine playing the same songs the same way over and over and over again? It would be like eating the exact same pizza at every meal with the same toppings. Wouldn't you like to change toppings once in a while? Or how about substituting a nice bowl of spaghetti in place of the pizza? I would probably heave the pizza before it ever turned into a diamond...

Sounds like a neanderpaul analogy. It's food, music, or cars in all of my analogies.



So I totally agree with that one.