I used to play in a band with a really talented guitar player. I don’t know what happened to him, the last time I met up with him he was already so drunk that he rambled incoherently for half and hour then passed out. Not seen him since. I called him a couple of times and both went straight to voicemail. I never bothered again as he was one of them people who was always losing his phone and getting another number.
When I played with him me and the bassist always had to try to hold him back. Get him to cut guitar solos to a minimum. If a song was going to have a solo then it would have to be a short burst of one that fitted into the song. Before then he had no concept that less can be more.
Then once a week or so he would have a gig with his cover band that did standard classic rock songs. This is where he would get his ‘look how good I am on the guitar with this ten minute solo’ fix. God did they play in some dives. Well actually they only played in dives. When at a loose end one night I went to see them play in a pub in All Saints, maybe the most shittiest part of East London. If Dawn of the Dead had a local pub then this was it. I didn’t stay long.
I can understand if you’re a bunch of old mates and just want to get together and bang out some tunes in a pub for beer money. But a young band getting together and playing someone else’s songs, usually badly. Why don’t you just play you own?
But what is much worse than playing in a cover band is playing in a tribute band. Pretending to be someone else. Copying all the moves. Please, have some respect for yourself.
I’m sure that most tribute bands are just having a laugh. But I have first hand experience that this isn’t always the case.
In my late teens a band I was in started off playing in a local venue. (we didn’t get much further than the local venue) After playing a few times there we got offered a gig on a Saturday night. Great, we can get a lot of people down on a Saturday night no problem. We were the second of three bands on. The headline act was a Status Quo act who took themselves ever so seriously. We got a ten minute sound check as did the other band. The tribute act took forever. Especially for the song In The Army Now. There’s a bit in the song that goes “Hand grenades flying over your head.” then the drums imitate hand grenades exploding by doing a plodding drum roll on the toms. The drummer took about twenty minutes getting every tom tom level and sound just right. They asked if they can have the grimy backstage room all to themselves. Well they didn’t ask they took over it and when we went in there they told us the owner said that’s it’s exclusively theirs for the night. Bunch of wankers.
Well we did get a good sized crowd down to see us. Most of whom left when the tribute act came on, meaning that they played to a much smaller crowd than what we did.
Friday 28 May 2010
Saturday 22 May 2010
Gigs On A Tuesday Night
Whenever I try to venture out in a new city, if I get the chance I like to see some live music in a place where local bands play. Some other city’s version of The Water Rats or The Hope And Anchor in North London. When I was in Stockholm my mates band (http://www.myspace.com/letssaywedidmusic) had a gig in a nice little place above a restaurant. In Dublin I found a venue called Whelan’s. The first band I don’t remember at all. The second band were a three piece that I remember two things about. First that they did a really good cover of a Black Keys song and the second that the female drummer was amazingly good looking. Then came on a band that looked like they’d just wandered in from a travellers site and sounded like a Rage Against The Machine tribute act.
In Chicago I stumbled into a bar that quite randomly had a night of hardcore punk bands. Two hours of very short songs at a breakneck speed.
On the way back to the hotel that night some drunk bloke walking behind me called out at me. I ignored him. He then calls out, “Hey buddy, could you please sing me a song?”
This time I turn around and in bemusement say, “What?”
“Please, I need to hear a song." Then he holds onto my arm and pleads over and over with me to sing him a song.
“Please, I’m blind,” he says and tries faking being blind by half closing his eyes and putting his hands outstretched as a guide.
“What would you like to hear?” I say.
“Anything, anything at all. Please, I’m blind and need to hear a song.”
I tell him that I can’t think of anything, then I walk away from him very fast. And as I do I hear him singing himself.
When I was in Berlin I went out to see some music. The first problem is that it was a Tuesday night. The most dead night of the week in any city. I walked in on the sound check of a fresh faced emo/metal type band that went on for another twenty minutes. It was ten thirty by then. God knows when the sound check started. I go to the bar and get another drink and go outside to smoke a cigarette. By the time I come back their actual gig had began. There were two more people in the room than at the sound check. About ten in all. But did these ten people make up in volume and encouragement for what they lacked in numbers? Fuck no. Not one of them seemed like they wanted to be there at all. In-between songs they could only just about be bothered to raise their hands to put a few claps together. Meanwhile on stage they were acting like they were playing to a sold out crowd at whatever Berlin’s equivalent of the Brixton Academy is. For the first two songs the lead guitarist had on sunglasses that flashed red at the sides. Then he changes to a regular pair of sunglasses. Almost every song had its own signature move that the two guitarists and bassist did in tandem in a certain part of a song. On some there was a regular head bang. Then their was the side to side headband. And on one song they pulled out the ‘jump up and down at the same time’ move. All shockingly awful things to do, but I got to hand it to them for pulling out all the stops to the most disinterested Tuesday night crowd.
In Chicago I stumbled into a bar that quite randomly had a night of hardcore punk bands. Two hours of very short songs at a breakneck speed.
On the way back to the hotel that night some drunk bloke walking behind me called out at me. I ignored him. He then calls out, “Hey buddy, could you please sing me a song?”
This time I turn around and in bemusement say, “What?”
“Please, I need to hear a song." Then he holds onto my arm and pleads over and over with me to sing him a song.
“Please, I’m blind,” he says and tries faking being blind by half closing his eyes and putting his hands outstretched as a guide.
“What would you like to hear?” I say.
“Anything, anything at all. Please, I’m blind and need to hear a song.”
I tell him that I can’t think of anything, then I walk away from him very fast. And as I do I hear him singing himself.
When I was in Berlin I went out to see some music. The first problem is that it was a Tuesday night. The most dead night of the week in any city. I walked in on the sound check of a fresh faced emo/metal type band that went on for another twenty minutes. It was ten thirty by then. God knows when the sound check started. I go to the bar and get another drink and go outside to smoke a cigarette. By the time I come back their actual gig had began. There were two more people in the room than at the sound check. About ten in all. But did these ten people make up in volume and encouragement for what they lacked in numbers? Fuck no. Not one of them seemed like they wanted to be there at all. In-between songs they could only just about be bothered to raise their hands to put a few claps together. Meanwhile on stage they were acting like they were playing to a sold out crowd at whatever Berlin’s equivalent of the Brixton Academy is. For the first two songs the lead guitarist had on sunglasses that flashed red at the sides. Then he changes to a regular pair of sunglasses. Almost every song had its own signature move that the two guitarists and bassist did in tandem in a certain part of a song. On some there was a regular head bang. Then their was the side to side headband. And on one song they pulled out the ‘jump up and down at the same time’ move. All shockingly awful things to do, but I got to hand it to them for pulling out all the stops to the most disinterested Tuesday night crowd.
Thursday 13 May 2010
Shoot Out
So the football season is over, (well apart from the play off finals, the FA cup and Champions League Final) so no football until August then. No wait, the World Cup is this summer. I’m looking forward to it and will be watching every game like I always do. I want England to win but for me it’s always club over country as it doesn’t feel right cheering on Arsenal and Chelsea players that I can’t stand.
But there’s a few things that I won’t be looking forward to like people who have no interest in football talking about the match the previous night. I know that at some point I’m going to phone up my mum and she’ll say something like, ”It was a good game last night wasn’t it? It’s good that they got through but I don’t think that Rooney should have been sent of do you?”
To which I will reply , “Mum please don’t talk to me about football,”
Then I guess she will say, “I know about football, when you were a kid I used to watch you play sometimes.”
Finally I will say, “Yes and it was embarrassing when you used to shout things out like ‘go on kick the ball’. Could you put me onto dad please.”
At least my sister is honest about it. When the last World Cup was on she said, “Yeah of course I only like football when it’s the World Cup and England win.”
No doubt there will be some penalty shoot outs, and what will really get on my wick is that the commentator will say that it’s came down to the lottery of penalties. It’s not a lottery. A lottery is random chance. Say that Germany have fifty penalty shoot outs with New Zealand then I reckon that Germany would win about forty eight of them. And New Zealand would win about forty eight times against the Cook Islands. Doesn’t sound like a lottery to me.
When England went out of 1998 World Cup to Argentina in a penalty shoot out, the manager Glenn Hoddle said that they didn’t practice penalties because you can’t recreate the pressured of a penalty shoot out in training. But surely if you practice you get better which in turn will make you more confident of scoring. With Hoddle’s kind of logic why practice anything. What’s the point of strikers practicing one on one with the keeper when there isn’t the same tension and the crowd in training. Might as well not train at all. Just turn up and play.
But there’s a few things that I won’t be looking forward to like people who have no interest in football talking about the match the previous night. I know that at some point I’m going to phone up my mum and she’ll say something like, ”It was a good game last night wasn’t it? It’s good that they got through but I don’t think that Rooney should have been sent of do you?”
To which I will reply , “Mum please don’t talk to me about football,”
Then I guess she will say, “I know about football, when you were a kid I used to watch you play sometimes.”
Finally I will say, “Yes and it was embarrassing when you used to shout things out like ‘go on kick the ball’. Could you put me onto dad please.”
At least my sister is honest about it. When the last World Cup was on she said, “Yeah of course I only like football when it’s the World Cup and England win.”
No doubt there will be some penalty shoot outs, and what will really get on my wick is that the commentator will say that it’s came down to the lottery of penalties. It’s not a lottery. A lottery is random chance. Say that Germany have fifty penalty shoot outs with New Zealand then I reckon that Germany would win about forty eight of them. And New Zealand would win about forty eight times against the Cook Islands. Doesn’t sound like a lottery to me.
When England went out of 1998 World Cup to Argentina in a penalty shoot out, the manager Glenn Hoddle said that they didn’t practice penalties because you can’t recreate the pressured of a penalty shoot out in training. But surely if you practice you get better which in turn will make you more confident of scoring. With Hoddle’s kind of logic why practice anything. What’s the point of strikers practicing one on one with the keeper when there isn’t the same tension and the crowd in training. Might as well not train at all. Just turn up and play.
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