Choosing Songs In A Covers Band

[Woodinblack]

42 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

On the subject of doing alternate versions of songs, whatever you do, don't do a mashup.

 

We do You should be dancing going into Does your mother know, and it goes down a storm. We were going to do you should be dancing but we couldn't get the big gap in the middle to sound anything other than a big gap, so instead we go into does your mother know, which we already did.

Done it 3 times now and it really is a high point.

[Jackroadkill]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

We do You should be dancing going into Does your mother know, and it goes down a storm. We were going to do you should be dancing but we couldn't get the big gap in the middle to sound anything other than a big gap, so instead we go into does your mother know, which we already did.

Done it 3 times now and it really is a high point.

 

We go straight from For Whom The Bell Tolls into Los Angles Is Burning and it goes down well.  I didn't think it would, but sometimes it's nice to be wrong!

[Greg Edwards69]

It's not so bad doing a medley. This can work quite well if the genres or rhythms work well together, and it keeps people on the dancefloor. We've done the same thing several times. One old classic for us was "Shake A Tailfeather > Do You Love Me > Twist And Shout".  We've also done "Pinball Wizard > Summer of 69" and "Good Times > Superstition" a few times too.

 

But proper mashups... meh, not so much.

Edited July 16 by Greg Edwards69

[Muzz]

On the mashups/segues, we do Superstition -> Relax -> The TFF Shout, which goes down surprisingly well. We can chuck 7 Nation Army in there if needs be, but that's a call on the night.

 

Just for the record, I've never, ever seen/heard Sit Down go badly; I must have played it hundreds of times over the years. It might be a NW thing, along with Oasis...

[tauzero]

"Twist and Shout" to "La Bamba" and back again a few times. The two guitarists swap lead vocals, the one who normally sings does "Twist and Shout" and the other takes "La Bamba". Final song of the night and we stop when either we or the audience are knackered.

[Marky L]

Segue rather than mashup - We do The Kinks All Day & All Of The Night, that slides into You Really Got Me and is a bit Van Halenesque and then back into All Day. 

 

At the end of the night we do Nutbush that rolls into Whole Lotta Rosie and that always goes down well.

[Stub Mandrel]

On 12/07/2024 at 09:32, SuperSeagull said:

I'm interested in how those of you in covers band go about selecting new material. My band has an aspiration to refresh our set list but we (I!) keep banging up against our guitarist and band boss who simply dismisses anything by artists he doesn't like eg Fleetwood Mac, Oasis, Killers, or genres he similarly doesn't like eg anything vaguely punky. He is a lovely guy, a very good musician and he works very hard on managing gigs, rehearsals etc but has what I think is a blind spot in this area. I'm of the view we are entertainers, need to give the punters what they want which is stuff they recognise, can sing along to rather than more obscure numbers from 50 or 60 years ago. How do others do it?

 

It always amazes me how difficult some bands make the task of choosing songs. There are, literally, thousands of well-known songs to choose from that general audiences will happily enjoy, and as many again if you focus on a particular genre (e.g. ska, classic rock, country...)

Assuming that any band has a basic genre or style and that the band members don't actively dislike the music that fits the band, it shouldn't be hard to pull together a couple of dozen songs that everyone agrees on.

 

Both bands I'm in regularly share videos on what'sapp and rather than actively chucking songs out we tend to have songs that come up where we all say 'yes'. Yes, we have the usual constraints -  the vocalist says he's been in a band singing Dio songs, and he doesn't want to do that to his vocal cords any more. The drummer likes things that stretch him. I don't like songs that just have root eighth notes.... But this positive discussion has brought in a lot of songs that are new to at least one or two of us. I have never thought of doing Audioslave or INXS before. We all have been pretty excited by the suggestion of a Manic Street Preachers song. Despite scepticism, we enjoyed doing a Tom Jones song (Sex Bomb) so much, we're going to rock up Delilah as well.

[Bassfinger]

Ooh, Delilah is a bit frowned upon now, domestic violence and all that.

[Mickeyboro]

11 minutes ago, Bassfinger said:

Ooh, Delilah is a bit frowned upon now, domestic violence and all that.

My choir of geriatric females love Delilah!

[Stub Mandrel]

8 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

We do You should be dancing going into Does your mother know, and it goes down a storm. We were going to do you should be dancing but we couldn't get the big gap in the middle to sound anything other than a big gap, so instead we go into does your mother know, which we already did.

Done it 3 times now and it really is a high point.

 

The band after us on Sunday mashed up Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra (drummer played trumpet) with Money, Money Money...

TBH Abba songs are all ripe for rocking up.

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, Bassfinger said:

Ooh, Delilah is a bit frowned upon now, domestic violence and all that.

 

Not around Cardiff!

[Stub Mandrel]

5 hours ago, Muzz said:

On the mashups/segues, we do Superstition -> Relax -> The TFF Shout, which goes down surprisingly well. We can chuck 7 Nation Army in there if needs be, but that's a call on the night.

 

Just for the record, I've never, ever seen/heard Sit Down go badly; I must have played it hundreds of times over the years. It might be a NW thing, along with Oasis...

 

I've depped with a band who do a mashup of Play That Funky Music and Superstition. Which seems a bit pointless, and it's really tricky shifting from one riff to another almost but not quite identical one.

[tony_m]

7 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

It's not so bad doing a medley. This can work quite well if the genres or rhythms work well together, and it keeps people on the dancefloor. We've done the same thing several times. One old classic for us was "Shake A Tailfeather > Do You Love Me > Twist And Shout".  We've also done "Pinball Wizard > Summer of 69" and "Good Times > Superstition" a few times too.

 

But proper mashups... meh, not so much.

 

Our drummer went to see a new-to-us local cover band the other week, and thought they were very good indeed. Something he did note was they did several medleys which kept people dancing, but the key to each medley was that they switched songs whenever there was a tricky bit coming up, which is either very clever or a bit sneaky depending on your point of view!

[Bassfinger]

12 hours ago, Mickeyboro said:

My choir of geriatric females love Delilah!

I love it too, great song and old Tom hams it up marvellously, but there no escaping that in this modern age some folk get jolly upset by it. It's been banned from being sung at Welsh rugby matches.

Edited July 17 by Bassfinger

[SumOne]

14 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

It always amazes me how difficult some bands make the task of choosing songs. There are, literally, thousands of well-known songs to choose from that general audiences will happily enjoy, and as many again if you focus on a particular genre (e.g. ska, classic rock, country...)

Assuming that any band has a basic genre or style and that the band members don't actively dislike the music that fits the band, it shouldn't be hard to pull together a couple of dozen songs that everyone agrees on.

 

 

A Ska covers band I was in had an advert for a singer, someone applied and we'd arranged for them to come to a practise session, we sent them the set list of about 30 songs and two of them were Madness songs. Their response was 'actually, I won't come along, I don't do Madness songs'.  No attempt at finding any middle ground. 

 

A few of the band aren't overly keen on those Madness songs so we could've potentially dropped them (although there is a certain expectation that a pub ska band will play some Madness - there's always at least one punter shouting for it). Seemed a bit niche to want to be a singer in a Ska covers band playing pub gigs but will not even meet up with any band that has played any of their songs!  

Edited July 17 by SumOne

[Mickeyboro]

13 minutes ago, SumOne said:

 

A Ska covers band I was in had an advert for a singer, someone applied and we'd arranged for them to come to a practise session, we sent them the set list of about 30 songs and two of them were Madness songs. Their response was 'actually, I won't come along, I don't do Madness songs'.  No attempt at finding any middle ground. 

 

A few of the band aren't overly keen on those Madness songs so we could've potentially dropped them (although there is a certain expectation that a pub ska band will play some Madness - there's always at least one punter shouting for it). Seemed a bit niche to want to be a singer in a Ska covers band playing pub gigs but will not even meet up with any band that has played any of their songs!  

That is indeed nutty…

[Greg Edwards69]

15 hours ago, Bassfinger said:

Ooh, Delilah is a bit frowned upon now, domestic violence and all that.

Indeed. When the #BLM movement gained a lot of traction following the death of George Floyd, I mentioned something on FB cover bands group about re-evaluating some of the songs a lot of cover bands play. I used "Brown Sugar" as an example (a song I haven't played in donkeys).

 

It didn't go down well. I was accused of being overly woke and being in shit band if that's the sort of crap I play... even though I said I don't.

[neepheid]

Just now, Greg Edwards69 said:

Indeed. When the #BLM movement gained a lot of traction following the death of George Floyd, I mentioned something on FB cover bands group about re-evaluating some of the songs a lot of cover bands play. I used "Brown Sugar" as an example (a song I haven't played in donkeys).

 

It didn't go down well. I was accused of being overly woke and being in shit band if that's the sort of crap I play... even though I said I don't.

 

There's your mistake - expecting rational, reasoned discussion on FB.

[PaulWarning]

52 minutes ago, SumOne said:

 

A Ska covers band I was in had an advert for a singer, someone applied and we'd arranged for them to come to a practise session, we sent them the set list of about 30 songs and two of them were Madness songs. Their response was 'actually, I won't come along, I don't do Madness songs'.  No attempt at finding any middle ground. 

 

A few of the band aren't overly keen on those Madness songs so we could've potentially dropped them (although there is a certain expectation that a pub ska band will play some Madness - there's always at least one punter shouting for it). Seemed a bit niche to want to be a singer in a Ska covers band playing pub gigs but will not even meet up with any band that has played any of their songs!  

we've had similar experiences, I wonder if they just get cold feet and pick any excuse to bail out

[Muzz]

18 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

I've depped with a band who do a mashup of Play That Funky Music and Superstition. Which seems a bit pointless, and it's really tricky shifting from one riff to another almost but not quite identical one.

Did that in another band for years, it's dead easy; end PTFM on the riff, 4/4 kick for a bar (or two, it you're feeling particularly tantalising), then the drummer switches to the Superstition pattern, and off you go again...very similar songs, I'll grant you, but never give the punters on a a full dance floor the chance to slink off... 🙂

[grapefruitmoon]

Choosing songs is a problem in our band (one of many at the moment). The guitarists are very inflexible in terms of styles and complexity. They only want to do simple songs and half the time the want to cut out bits...intro's, middle sections, basically anything interesting. Really frustrating. They both want to do Rock You Like A Hurricane by the Scorpions. Our female singer doesn't want to as the lyrics are both sexist and pish. So BL rewrote them...or rather, got AI to rewrite them. Brutal, never heard anything like it, just a ridiculous idea IMO. It's still a no from singer, me and the drummer.

[Muzz]

20 minutes ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Choosing songs is a problem in our band (one of many at the moment). The guitarists are very inflexible in terms of styles and complexity. They only want to do simple songs and half the time the want to cut out bits...intro's, middle sections, basically anything interesting. Really frustrating. They both want to do Rock You Like A Hurricane by the Scorpions. Our female singer doesn't want to as the lyrics are both sexist and pish. So BL rewrote them...or rather, got AI to rewrite them. Brutal, never heard anything like it, just a ridiculous idea IMO. It's still a no from singer, me and the drummer.

Ohhhh, go on; show us the AI rewritten lyrics... 😁

[Mykesbass]

1 hour ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Choosing songs is a problem in our band (one of many at the moment). The guitarists are very inflexible in terms of styles and complexity. They only want to do simple songs and half the time the want to cut out bits...intro's, middle sections, basically anything interesting. Really frustrating. They both want to do Rock You Like A Hurricane by the Scorpions. Our female singer doesn't want to as the lyrics are both sexist and pish. So BL rewrote them...or rather, got AI to rewrite them. Brutal, never heard anything like it, just a ridiculous idea IMO. It's still a no from singer, me and the drummer.

 

42 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Ohhhh, go on; show us the AI rewritten lyrics... 😁

[Muzz]

I've just looked at the lyrics (for the first time, despite 'knowing' this song for decades) and Oh My Sainted Trousers it is indeed a shocker.

 

I mean, it's not the lyricist's native language, but even so... blimey.

 

Now I really want to hear what AI made of it... 🙂

[Jackroadkill]

4 hours ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Our female singer doesn't want to as the lyrics are both sexist and pish

 

I'll bet she doesn't; they're pretty misogynistic and utterly without artistic merit.