This man's bottom is the wrong way round |
It’s a time honoured scenario, played out in grey community
centres almost every week. Down a dingy corridor, the walls painted hospital
blue, stands a room. There is a tattered, handwritten sign Blutacked to the
door which just hints at what lies within. Inside is the usual collection of
debris – metal backed chairs stacked clumsily in a corner, an upended table
tennis table with distressed nets and boxes of filthy costumes once used for a pantomime
a lifetime ago. As well as this flotsam and jetsam are some human detritus - a
dozen men sit in a ragged circle in the middle of the room. All are dressed in
various shades of grey or black. None are clean shaven. The main thing they
have in common is the haunted look they have in their eyes. These men are
pariahs. Outcasts. The dispossessed. Some nurse plastic cups of foul tasting coffee,
whilst others stare at their shoes. No one talks. No one has to. Occasionally,
one will look at the wall, with its sad collection of posters for Village Fetes
which were inevitably rained off or self-help groups which closed due to lack
of interest. The pendulous silence is broken only by the ceaseless rain on the
fly-blown windows and the buzzing of the strip lighting which casts a sickly
yellow glow over everything. I feel strangely comfortable here. These are
my people and we have shared much without ever having met. Few would be willing
to live how we do. After what seems like an hour, the door creaks open and
another grey man enters – younger this time and carrying a brown cardboard
clipboard, bristling with curling A4 paper. He talks for a while. No-one
listens. The words he speaks are as familiar to these people as The Lord’s
Prayer…or The Last Rites. Eventually he stops and gestures to me. Although I
have never been here before, I know exactly what I must do. Unsteadily, I climb
to my feet, feeling strangely calm in spite of the dryness of my mouth and the
clamminess of my palms. I start to talk – my voice sounding eerily distant as
the words come forth…
“Hi, my name’s Ian and I play Bass in a tribute band….”
Nowadays, it seems that
(to some musicians at least) if you play in a covers, functions or
tribute band you are up there with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot and should be
shipped off to some offshore correctional facility and made to play ‘Brown Eyed
Girl’ until you chew your own ears off. But to those musicians, the people that
write their own material are bungling, deluded amateurs who just get in the way
of the real talent and make them look bad.
Erm, aren’t we all on the same side?
This can't be the real Kiss...no one is wearing a wig. |
If I see one more post along the lines of ‘it’s all tribute
and cover bands round here and no-one else can get a gig’ I may cry. Speaking
as a humble Bassist who’s done both the covers thing and fought in the trenches
playing original music, I think I have a good idea of how it works. Guys (that’s
the non-gender-specific use of the word) in covers and tribute bands have an advantage in the early stages of
their career as Joe Public kinda knows what to expect. If you see Nearvana or
Byron Adams or one of the other imaginatively named combos on the scene advertised
on a poster or the Interweb, you know how your evening’s entertainment will pan
out. Whether they are any good or not is another thing entirely. With a band
that writes their own material, you get people to gigs by sweet talking, emotional
blackmail and low level bullying initially. And then you graft. And often it’s
the quality of grafting and the tenacity and persistence of the band that are
the deciding factors in the success of the group – more than the quality of the
material. I can name a dozen great songwriters and amazing musicians who have
bowed out of the musical rat race because they lack the stomach for the real hustle.
And who can blame them?
As a bassist in a covers/tribute band, I have effectively
capped my earnings. With the exception of The Bootleg Beatles, The Australian
Pink Floyd and Oasis (KIDDING!), bands like mine never rise above the 200-300
venue ceiling. If your career takes off in an original band – “Hello Wembley”… The
other gripe is that ‘Every local venue just puts on tributes’…well, that as we
say in Halesowen, is BullPlop. There are a handful of local venues round these
parts which specialise in cover/tribute bands, but by the same token, there are
WAY more that may turn their noses up at By Jovy or MaltLoaf etc. And if you
really are stuck in a venueless void, find a pub, community centre, leisure
centre etc, hire/buy a vocal PA and put your own damn gig on. Guerrilla gigs
are so 21st century right now.
The prejudice works both ways, with rather superior trib
musos looking down their noses at the ‘wannabees’ who write their own material.
To them I say that hopefully one of those ‘wannabees’ will hire your band to
play at the celebration party for their quadruple platinum album. Right now,
that band playing original material may not have ‘the chops’ but they may have
something way more useful – potential.
What we sometimes forget is that we’re all in the
entertainment industry. Some people like to be entertained by something
familiar. Some people like to seek out The Next Big Thing. These people pay our
wages and they deserve something which doesn’t insult them. Rather than wasting
time bitching, I suggest we go back to the rehearsal room, the kitchen table or
wherever the muse may strike and get better at what we do.
Just sayin’…
Have you ever considered putting tales of your life in the music biz together into book form? You have a nice flow to your writing and a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor, that quite often, actually brought tears of laughter to my eyes. Even the intros to your old music posts were always a delight to read. I'd buy the book in a heartbeat. Think about it.
ReplyDeleteYa know. Just sayin'....
ReplyDeleteRest In Peace, Scott Miller - Knowing what a huge fan you are, as you know I am, this absolutely sucks. I really have no words for it. It hurts as much as when Alex Chilton passed, if not more. I hope that Miller is someday recognized for the genius he really was. 53 fucking years old! For me, this is the day the music really died. God, I hope you're planning on saying something on your blog, Ian. You're a much better writer than I, and Scott deserves a lot more than I can give him. What a humongous bummer. There will be a black cloud overhead for a long time to come.....
ReplyDelete