clinton wrote:roachie wrote:I have zero taste in music apparently. Too bad I do it for a living, must really be missing my call-center opportunities... (sorry, I didn't mean that) I write songs too.
this was kind of a lame post brother....
I think Roach is just venting a bit of frustration... and I doubt it's aimed at you specifically.
The thing is, is that's it's easy to get narrow minded about the whole thing. I tend to let others do their thing when it comes to their art. I can't expect the same treatment out of others though, because I can't control them.
It just seems to me that the there may be a lack of respect from both camps. Maybe the local original artists are pissed because they don't get compensated nearly what they should for their art. Maybe the cover bands are upset because they'd rather be writing music and creating something wonderful of their own. I don't have the answers...
I have not noticed however, as much disrespect from the cover bands , as from the original artists. It seems that one side spends way more energy of this matter than the other. For that I say... Does it really matter what others are doing? The important thing is that you are fortunate enough to have the ability to continue what you are doing. If you are a songwriter, then be exactly that, there's no reason you have to waste precious energy disliking someone else because they have chosen to do something different.
We're all artists in our own way, and some of us are closely related than you think. None of us really know that much about each other.
Some people would actually be surprised to know that I've been playing piano for years, and that most of the work I do isn't live gigs, it's composition for film/TV/corporate video. So yes, I'm a cover band guy when it comes to playing in the city. But to the producers I work for, they probably have no idea that I even play the drums. So what catagory am I in? Also, since I technically write music to custom specification on commision does that somehow lessen my creative legitimacy?
I love playing music that makes people happy to be out. We happen to have a very successful cover band that has had the good fortune of having a house gig for the past 3 years. People always come out we haven't had a dead night in over a year, and the summer time gets pretty crazy. People love us, and we also offer the opportunity for other to get up and cover songs or perform originals. Bottom line though, it pays, it's fun for us, and the rest shouldn't matter.
Sometimes I find that songs written by others are the perfect expression of what I want to let out, a cover band allows me express (through the ideas of an other) my own feelings too. That's why we all listen to music to begin with, because it envokes certain emotions in us. Playing a cover of that song is just the next step in evolution. Composing ideas that give you the same feeling is yet another step in evolution, but the big thing to remember here is that musically you'll never have all of your own answers, you'll never say "I have enough material, so I don't need to listen to anyone elses music," Thus cover bands will always have their place for two reasons: The general public still likes to hear the familiar, and musicians like to re-create the works of the artists they respect.
Can't we all just be musicians... no labels? It's not a contest or anything. No matter how many award shows we end up having telling us otherwise, music is not a fucking olympic sport that we play to get recognition. It's an expression of self. It's that simple. Everything else that we create around it is completely irrelevent.