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help me remember a song

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lead solos
3K views 20 replies 9 participants last post by  Laobi 
#1 ·
Hi fellow jemsters, I have a problem, Im in a rock covers band in which every song we do is totally awesome although all the songs we do are not stuff i would normally choose to listen to as i'm a die satch fan and have lost touch with popular rock songs. all the songs bar 2 of them were all new to me (the 2 i knew were my choice chickenfoot oh yeah, which has become our anthem and foxy lady) i had to get my self familiar with the rest and learn them all which was very easy. cutting to the chase though theres one song i hate with a passion, the drummers not keen on it to but the crowds love it, problem for me is its very different to everything else we do. the song is "dont look back in anger by oasis" groan groan groan. i've played it live several times so shouldnt be a problem but it is, all i play is the lead stuff but for the life of me i can never remember it. it just slips out of my head. the other 40 songs we have im fine with, i can also play a lot of satch tunes without even thinking about them.

does anyone have any advice on how to remember how to play this god awful song without me having to cram 2 hours before the set to relearn it, This involves having to listen to oasis which is akin to jamming an ice pick into my brain through my ears.

Or does anyone know of any songs that we can do to replace it which is equally well known and audiences can sing along to it when they are drunk at the end of our set that is infinitly better than the oasis rubish.

Gigging tonight so keep your fingers crossed that i remember it tonight.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and whoever gives me the winning answer will have this song secretly dedicated to them every time i play it.
 
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#2 ·
Just pretend it's by the beatles. :)

I recall it being a very simple song - I think ten minutes to learn the verse, chorus, and bridge chords and then playing along with it twice to make sure you've got the arrangement down ought to suffice.

And, bigger picture, I've heard a LOT worse than that Oasis tune. I wouldn't worry so much. :lol:

EDIT - and, if you need incentive... You can nail Satch's solo in a Chickenfoot song, play your ass off all night, and then butcher something simple like "Don't Look Back in Anger" because you didn't bother to practice, and the crowd is going to leave thinking, "Wow, their guitarist sucks..."
 
#4 · (Edited)
If you are in a cover band your sole job is to please the audience, not yourself. This is why you are hired.

That's why I never was in cover bands. Learn the heck out of the Oasis song and realize that if it pleases the crowd, you may be asked back next time where you can slip in the cool Satch songs. When it's playing in somebody else's club, it's about compromise but doubly so if you are doing covers. I give all the credit to those who could compromise that much (which is akin to pleasing a terrible boss at work) and have the strength to keep coming back and play covers. You are always going to get a drunk who yells out, "Do Stairway or do Freebird" and if you do covers, you have to oblige if you want to keep working steadily.

I once remember a cover band who knew literally hundreds of tunes in all styles but of bands that didn't use the piano. They could do any band spot on and entertain like nobody else on the scene. They were the "it" band of the county for a few years and drew a very large crowd. One drunk yelled out to do Bob Seger. The lead singer yelled back, "Do you see a f-ing piano on stage?" I just busted up to no end. It was worth the price of admission alone. It turns out the bold 300 pound lead singer was a great pianist in his own right, but he was busy trying to be the local version of Meat Loaf. He had the obligatory vest, trench coat, wide legged stance, and sweat dripping off of his face. "Do you see a f-ing piano on stage?" Precious.

 
#5 ·
British audience, eh? I suggest the following...

Get Myself Arrested - Gomez
Bohemian Like You - Dandy Warhols
The Jean Genie - Bowie
Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
Lola - The Kinks
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers
High and Dry - Radiohead
Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think) - The Specials
Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum

All of these of course depend on the state of the audience by your final song!

Or you could give the singer some percussion, play Chicken Man by Alan Hawkshaw and watch every british child of the eighties lose their mind! Don't know it? Oh yes you do!



Anyone else not from the U.K. won't get this but I've seen clubs literally go bonkers when this is played.

Good luck newblues!
 
#6 ·
I feel your pain. It reminds me of briefly getting back into playing in the late 90s, looking for a band and finding myself in rooms full of dicks who either wanted to be either Oasis, Nirvana (spit, wretch, vomit) or the Cranberries (basically horrible off key solos and a singer who sounds like a drunk new age traveller). It put me off playing with people for a long time until I decided to get back playing recently with a please myself attitude.

I hated Oasis with a passion and that song burned itself into my mind like a bad memory of witnessing an accident or torture. If you hate it, it's going to slip from memory, rather than doing the solo come up with a melody that you can live with based on what the singer does in the chorus and play around that as a solo, at least you can improvise around that rather than trying to remember something by a very limited guitar who thought he could be George Harrison. We used to call that song "Don't look back, you wanker"
 
#17 ·
I feel your pain. It reminds me of briefly getting back into playing in the late 90s, looking for a band and finding myself in rooms full of dicks who either wanted to be either Oasis, Nirvana (spit, wretch, vomit) or the Cranberries (basically horrible off key solos and a singer who sounds like a drunk new age traveller). It put me off playing with people for a long time until I decided to get back playing recently with a please myself attitude.
Hey, for what it's worth, Kurt Cobain was the reason I picked up the guitar. I always liked rock music and though there was something "cool" about the sound of the guitar, but somehow hearing "Unplugged in New York" made it real to me; you listen to something like Jimi playing "Voodoo Child (slight return)" and it's the coolest thing you've ever heard, but it's also like it's coming from outer space. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," meanwhile, is very simple, concrete, and attainable - it seems like something that you can actually go out and try to do.

Now, you could interpret this as a knock against Cobain's technical abilities (which let's be honest weren't expansive) or say something instead about the democratization/DIY aesthetic of the music making process that the grunge era brought with it, but I'll say this - a LOT of guys (and girls) my generation went out and picked up a guitar because of Kurt Cobain. Some of them didn't stick with it, and some of them did but stuck with pretty simple music... But there's also a bunch of us who went out, got hooked on the guitar, and started going deeper down the wormhole and ended up here today because of the spark ignited by a guy playing pretty simple rock music.

And, the way I see it, that's never a bad thing. :)
 
#7 ·
I understand this because it's the reason I can't find a band.

Most people here want to do covers of music that I find beneath me and will not fulfill my desire to improve my playing in a direction that I want to go in. It's also music that makes me want to go all Picasso on my ears.

One time I met with these 2 guys about joining their L'arc en Ciel (terrible Japanese punk rock band) cover band. They weren't very serious about playing and weren't thinking about a live environment. Also, they wanted me to play rhythm guitar in clean channel while another guy plays with high gain. Ummmmm no.
 
#8 ·
Dude, if that's how you feel about music, then you are going to find it tough to find anyone to play with. No music is beneath you, it's just not your preferred thing. It's perfectly fine other people to do music that you're not interested in.

If you really want to improve as an adult learning a musical instrument you've really just got to get out there and play with who ever you can. There's always something to learn.

You've got a long way to go with your playing, and playing simple stuff with other people is going to be a lot harder than you realise. You've got to work on rhythm and timing, and just working with other people is a challenge in itself. There's no way you are going to play shred, neoclassical and complex metal rhythm and lead if you don't even have the basic fundamentals of rhythm and timing, so you may as well learn on the simple stuff. Jam with who ever you can, and learn. ;)

To the OP, you know the drill already. You're in a covers band, and there are songs that make the crowd to off. Those crowds buy drinks, and the bars pay your way. It may be a ****ty song, but I'm sure you can get it all into your memory to the point where you can get to the point that you don't have to think about it, and you can just enjoy the fact that the crowd is digging what you are doing. Playing music and having people dig that you're playing it is a great thing, and sometimes you've just got to remember that it makes even playing songs you're not really into fun. :)
 
#10 ·
Guys thanks for the advice, my problem though was actually remembering it, i had played twice before and nailed it both times whilst giging it. during rehearsals before fridays gig just gone it just simply popped out my head and for the life of me couldnt get it back in there, i did a bit of cramming on it before the gig on friday though which didnt seem to help at all, however come the last song of the set it all just popped back in there and i nailed it to the wall for all to see, the crowd loved it, a few minutes of cheering and applause and chants of encore, we were back on for 3 more songs. we got 2 more pub gigs off the back off it and we were booked for 3 weddings straight after the gig. so a huge success i would say.

Matias as for songs being beneath you, that was never my thought on dont look back in anger. my drummer and myself both believe the song to be to slow paced and find ourselves slightly bored playing it. To be honest we were thinking of dropping it after the first gig however it had such a good reception we decided to keep it in the set. Not all music is created equal however everyone has their taste and i would never make the assumption that their music is off lesser quality than anyone elses. After all we are all here(guitarists not the whole world) for one reason and thats to be a guitar god and what to guitar gods do, they entertain. if that means i have to play i song i hate that is what i will do and i will damn well make sure i do to the best of my ability and make it look like i'm enjoying it more than the audience
 
#13 ·
Matias as for songs being beneath you, that was never my thought on dont look back in anger. my drummer and myself both believe the song to be to slow paced and find ourselves slightly bored playing it. To be honest we were thinking of dropping it after the first gig however it had such a good reception we decided to keep it in the set. Not all music is created equal however everyone has their taste and i would never make the assumption that their music is off lesser quality than anyone elses. After all we are all here(guitarists not the whole world) for one reason and thats to be a guitar god and what to guitar gods do, they entertain. if that means i have to play i song i hate that is what i will do and i will damn well make sure i do to the best of my ability and make it look like i'm enjoying it more than the audience
Well you have to remember: Over here, what people call "rock" is mostly "punk rock" without the attitude. It's also a lot slower than what we all know is punk rock. Every time I hear that stuff my ears bleed. It's not even about technique, it's mostly just strumming chords and the strumming, when I see it, just looks like it's wild and out of control. Yes I need to practice strumming more but I'd rather practice it playing the blues. I actually like the blues and while it's usually pretty slow, the openness of it makes it appealing. I can really dig my teeth into something so simple yet so hard.

So it's about what I perceive is my ultimate goal and my goal will not be reached playing J-pop. I will get stuck and not be able to go beyond a certain level in my playing and I don't want to be stuck as a half-arsed player when I could still reach my ultimate goal without the help of J-pop and J-rock.
 
#14 ·
Dude, it's your wording. "Beneath me" is extremely arrogant. Sure we can all get like this about music sometimes, usually more when we're teenagers, not so much as adults, but any opportunity to play with people is a good opportunity. You can sit around and complain that you have no one to play with based on a narrow stream of music that you want to play, or you can get out, play with people and develop some seriously important skills that will carry over to any style. You're not going to miss out on achieving your goals, that's for sure. Being narrow minded is far more likely to stop you. Food for thought. ;)
 
#15 · (Edited)
I think I stretched myself by playing in a coffee house doing country style folk and rock for many months. It certainly got me out of a certain rock shredder mentality. Also spending some years doing acoustic only, and for a long time not owning an electric guitar, was a huge boost to my overall skill set. I never got good at country guitar but that wasn't the point but more to show me some new directions and get a really healthy respect of country pickers. It was kind of like the year and a half I spent as an English composition major when my skill was in math and science. I never got anywhere in that arena but I met a ton of great writers who couldn't garner up enough math skills to count the change in their pocket but this showed me that this world has many types of people with strengths in different areas.

Finally, I was in a band as the singer and that added the skill of learing about how a band fits together and how it's important to let the vocals breathe. I haven't played jazz or r & b out but that's something I would love to do. I found I can't start to get good at something unless I make it like work, in the sense of keeping a schedule and setting goals.

I am not like others who just wait for inspiration to hit them. But all this stretching musically didn't happen until my late 20s. In the decade before that I was happy to just jam and not progress. I think our musical growth patterns and progressionis different with each musician and what they want. If a person wants to do music that they only like then that's what may work for them, but if a person learns and grows from playing a lot of music beneath them (often referred to many musicians as bar music or top 40) then that's great if it makes a person grow. As far as beneath me, I sometimes need to play something far too easy or boring or redundant to slow down and forever remind myself that the spaces/silence in the music is just as important as the notes themselves.

The best performer I knew of all the guitarists I went to high school with was actually one who did simple children's songs for a living. It's actually very hard to do well and I will suffer a fast lead guitar passage with less pain than trying to travis pick with the simple perfection that his songs had. And to sing with overemphasized annunciation and clarity is very hard to do and put keep it all together. There are different levels of difficulty and dedication needed that you can put into a three chord song. I don't know if my friend thought that the music was beneath him or not, but he made a living at it and that's a lot further than many other musicians got in this life.
 
#18 ·
For the original post - It's tough to remember something if your heart isn't in it. At least its that way for me. Find a connection of some kind with the guitar parts in that song... study the key and intervals and timing, etc. Maybe even improvise some little licks in it here and there. You might not use them playing live, but it will help you learn the song "in earnest" and cement it in your mind. Interesting Beatle-ish sound to it, not my style either, lol. Glad you are gelling with the band and making solid friends too... thats what its all about... 8) Just my 2 cents.

My dad was a rocker from back in the days of guitar driven music... Santana, Skynyrd, Allman Bros, etc... but ended up having to play popular country in order to make money as a musician in rural Arizona. Later on ended up finding his niche playing nylon string classical guitar and singing in 4 part harmonies with a band that did old western music... 20's and 30's style, upright bass, fiddle, you know the old stuff (Marty Robbins, etc.). They were pretty successful, made several cd's, played huge shows and festivals, and he absolutely loves it. Even flown here and there to record with other artists that dig his style. With his background he knows when and where to throw in a slightly bluesy or jazzy lick into the old western music... the crowd and other musicians eat it up. So you just never know where different musical paths can lead you! It is all good and expands your capabilities.
 
#20 ·
Yeah, but that was also the heyday of the 18 year old blues player, and just because shred solos weren't in demand at gigs didn't mean you couldn't still play them on your own time. There was a lot of great music that came out of the 90s, and some of it even had some pretty good guitar playing on it (I've always really enjoyed Billy Corgan's playing - it's so quirky, but kind of brilliant for it), and say what you want about Nirvana killing the guitar solo, a surprising number of Nirvana tracks had leads on them, even solos doing more than just restating the melody line - Cobain was clearly an Iommi fan.

There are few musical movements where there isn't SOMETHING redeeming about them. And, shred was pretty much pining for the fjords anyway by the time Nirvana came out - hip hop, rap, and candy coated pop were getting much more airplay than hair metal, which was pretty much choking on its own excesses by '91 or so. You don't have to like Nirvana or grunge, but there's no denying guitars were suddenly EVERYWHERE after they broke out.
 
#21 ·
^ Totally agree with you on the hair metal. It was generic, excessive, but there were great instrumentalists floating around. I wasn't a Nirvana fan in any form, but I listened to all their CDs when they came out because Teen Spirit had endless air play. It was more the movement that I disliked, with the rules evolving as fans being human tried to make sense of what they were hearing and in this part of the world it definitely felt like anything beyond a few basic chords and power chords was surplus to requirement.

At the time the only way of learning technique were tab books or joining bands, I guess around that time I got into a rut playing wise as many of the local players I learned from moved towards jazz or classical. All movements have their rules though, much of what was amazing in the late 80s would be considered mindless shredding today.

Now in the post internet revolution days it's easy to find exactly what you like, players you like and join bands you like, back then it was the card in the music shop, the phone call and rehearsal studio visit. At that time you were kind of stuck with what your local media, music store or MTV gave you, so when a new movement took hold that was it until the next new thing came along, now finding anything from Ethiopian sheep herding chants to soothing ambient music is just a click away - I really feel the internet democratised music.
 
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