PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic The Songs We Should Retire

Thought provoking!

I say keep 'em. It's not like you hear them every time you turn on the radio, or even on the decade specific Sirius/XM radio channels.

I've never changed the channel because one of these songs comes on occasionally.

And maybe playing them introduces them to a new generation. If you want to retire a song, then retire the theme from "Titanic". My "heart will go on" even if I never have to hear this song again. (Showing my bias, yes I am! I actually liked it the first thousand times or so I heard it on the radio; now I cringe).

But hey, maybe that's just me.

I hear you loud and clear.
However, agree that some of those songs are absolute classics. Keep them all. That's what the station selector is for.

OH NO!! Not FREEBIRD!!!

Seriously I urp,gurrgle,aargh,cough,cough ACK...

Sorry, someone threw a tomato at me and it stuck in my throat. I actually had to play the friggin thing last summer. Here's my list of true clunkers, this is from the perspective of a gigging musician:

Brown Eyed Girl
Mustang Sally
La Bamba
Wooly Booly
Margeritaville
THE CHICKEN DANCE
Louie Louie
Wild Thing
Feelings
Gloria
Suzie Q
Johnny B Goode
Satisfaction
ANY 50's ballads with ice cream changes.

Unfortunately these types of songs comprise about 80% of the Biab songs you find on the internet.

There's more but I have to go wash my mouth out.

This is not to say if someone puts a twenty in the jar and requests one of these? Well...

Yes I will hate myself in the morning.

Bob

OK, agree. Chicken Dance (and Hokey Pokey) HAVE to go.

They're not actually musical songs anyway, are they?

My solution: the songs stay, But *I* retire

I totally agree!

Also retire anything that is rap
They're not actually musical songs anyway, are they

This list reminds me why I stopped listening to the radio. It's a mix of stuff I just don't like, and stuff I once loved that I heard so much that I stopped liking. Examples on the list are Yesterday and Free Bird - absolutely incredible songs, but after hearing them multiple times a days for years - not so much!

Yeah, I hear ya.

Remember Snoop Dogs famous quote:

"If you don't like something, it wasn't made for you."

Not much in the modern world is made for us anymore but luckily when it comes to music even though rap is huge there's still plenty of good music for us old guys out there.

Bob

To that I will add Moondance, At Last (I have NEVER heard that song done without the girl singer over emoting for effect, like "Oh look how soulful my white self is!!), ANYTHING by Jimmy Buffet, ANYTHING by Journey (because nobody has a singer who can do it justice), Play That Funky Music White Boy, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, ANY Skynard, not just Freebird. ANYTHING by Kiss. Learn a 4th chord already!

I don't retire anything that people still want to hear.

I don't listen to some of the songs people say were overplayed every day, but when I do hear them, it's like visiting an old friend I haven't seen for a while.

But I don't listen to the radio anymore very much. I have a digital Walkman with over 10,000 songs on it culled from my CD, LP, and Amazon/iTunes/etc. Download libraries. I listen to this when I'm in the car. No song appears too often.

And some songs stand the test of time for me better than others.

When gigging, there are songs we rarely play unless they are requested, and many of those don't get requested often any more. We will also pull them out if we think it's just the right thing to play at the time, but for those songs, that is even rarer.

As far as Alley Cat is concerned, it pretty much died on it's own. Chicken Dance rears it's head up a few times a year, and so does Yakety Sax. Once the music starts and the part of the brain goes that thinks words goes dormant it's just music and we enjoy playing them anyway.

But I wouldn't want to play the Chicken Dance every day.

Insights and incites by Notes

It should be a Capital offence to want to sing or worse,want ME to sing My Way at any of my gigs. There's always someone off their face at a Wedding who thinks he's the new Sinatra. Its a dull tune at best and would have sunk without trace (like the equally dull Titanic tune)if a non-name had released it. I have upward of 200 BTs in my Flipflop and it doesnt include either.
Ah I feel much better now.
WendyM

You giggin’ at retirement homes?

Bud

PS being one of the oldest on the forum I can get away with that ...hopefully

...Etta James too white?, What are you smoking in that enclosed RV?

Larry

The girls in the bands covering it are white trying to sound black and soulful by over emoting. I was never a fan of that song anyway. Wasn't that the only thing Etta James was ever known for?

I heard it once and this little white girl sang "My love - mylovemylovemylove has come along". I ALMOST sent up a note telling her to stick to "Walkin' On Sunshine" (Another song that should be on that list) or some other such marshmallow fluff.

I have like 2000 CDs and 35gb of music on a hard drive and I NEVER listen to music anymore. I won't listen to the 22 minutes of music and 38 minutes of advertising per hour that is commercial radio so that's out.... Once in a while I watch a video of a concert but pretty much music has run its course for me. I tried to listen to our country station yesterday in the car, but they played 2 songs and then 12 minutes of commercials and DJ drivel so I gave up.

I'm laughing my butt off. Nothing like listing a bunch of old crap songs to get things going.

Notes, I'm a very commercial guy. If the gig calls for it I'll do it. I'll hate it but I'll do it and everyone will think I love it too. Even when I did (lowers voice to a whisper) Freebird, everybody thought I was really getting into it. I'm such a BS artist...I'm also a very old school type going back to my literally starving musician days. I never, ever, turn down a gig unless I'm already booked. I'm still afraid I'll get a bad rep you know? So yeah, I'll do all these tunes if I must. Luckily I haven't had to in some time now. Someone wanted Brown Eyed Girl a while back so we did it. Talk about being on automatic pilot...

No, I'm not doing retirement homes yet. I could and a friend even gave me a list of contacts to call but I'm still thinking about that one. My latest claim to umm fame in addition to my jazz gigs is a classic rock group that's pretty decent. They do some pretty good stuff with lots of keyboards like Santana, Joe Cocker, Spencer Davis, The Doors, etc. Still old, still overplayed but I have fun doing my best Greg Rollie impression.

Bob

this whole discussion has served to clarify why I lost the desire to play music. Not just because the average list of songs ends up becoming toxic to the musicians who play them for years... but radio and streaming have made the audiences every bit as jaded and inclined to roll their eyes unless they get to hear whatever music THEY like.

If Spotify and Pandora have accomplished anything at all, it is to expand the musical awareness of the masses to the point that any given audience's musical taste is so diverse that it's become impossible to prepare a widely accepted set list.

So people create their own unique play lists, listen from private devices with ear buds, and have little tolerance for live music anymore.

Which explains why people like us participate in forum discussions about selling our instruments.

I did not lose my desire to play music. I did lose my desire to play out because when you do that you must play what the customer wants and not what you want to play, otherwise you will not get many gigs. Now I play what I want when I want and I'm loving it. YMMV

I was never a big radio listener. I always played the same vinyls, cassettes, CDs or MP3s--as the times shifted--over and over again. I always bought albums of the artists I liked, usually because a friend showed me. It wasn't until the last few years that youtube started becoming my main source for listening to music while at home. I like looking up a song that I know and love and letting the other videos load.

I guess, for me personally, a song cannot be played too many times. I do not stop enjoying it after the 1000th listen. If I love the song, I adore it and it stays in my library (I refer to it as my "musical diary") with all the other stuff I've collected and kept since I was twelve.

Funny enough, I have Freebird on my iPod.

The one radio station I do enjoy is KSQM fm.

We listen to music more than ever but confine it via Apple Music to what we want to hear or at least to the genres we are interested in. Quitting our band 12 years go and later discovering BiaB are the two best music moves we ever made. The 175 collaborations we have done, yep that many, with members of this forum have restored, in spades, our love of making music.

I gig and play what they want.

I also play songs for myself.

It's give and take. Once I have the audience on my side they'll listen to a song they don't know as long as it isn't too out of character. And I play variety gigs for the 50+ audience. I can put pop, reggae, rock, light jazz, salsa, country, and so on into most gigs. 50+ is a big market here, the pay is good, and the gigs are usually 3 hours. They often feed us, and appreciate our performance.

And all except for two corporate day jobs that I did while seeing what normal is all about, I've made my living doing music and nothing but music most of my life. The two corporate day jobs taught me that normal is so over-rated.

I'd much rather play "Proud Mary" or "My Way" for a living than work a day job for some thankless corporation so I can play 'art music' at night. I see each as a different kind of sell out, and I like my option much, much better.

I remember a day in the phone company. Climbing poles is dangerous, you are held up by two spikes, each no more than an eighth of an inch into the wood and if you get too close to the pole so the angle is wrong, or if the pole splinters, down you go.

One day I had to climb the pole in the back yard. Four chain link fences joined at the base of the pole and metal cans are in one yard. Falling means a possibility of hitting the cans or worse coming down straddling one of those fences.

So I climb the pole, open the terminal, and about 100 paper wasps had built their nest in there, and weren't happy to have the cover removed.

Now moving quickly and not carefully means a possibility of coming down on that fence so with heart pounding, I slowly climb down the pole. Fortunately the wasps didn't realize it was me who exposed their home and although they were buzzing around in quick circles around the nest and pole, I didn't get stung.

Playing "Yakety Sax" or any of the other war horses again is much better than climbing a pole with wasps!!!!

But I'm weird. When one of the old war horses come out, the worst part is starting the song, once the music starts and I start playing and/or singing, I forget that I've done it too many times, I give it my all, and get lost in the song.

It's all just attitude. So I'm playing "Old Time Rock & Roll" for the zillionth time. The audience is digging it, sending good energy back to me, I'm enjoying the groove and I've got two improvised solos coming up, one on the sax and one on the wind synth. And I've already played a few songs just for us in the night, so what's the big deal?

How many people get off watching another football or baseball game? Come on- they are basically only two kinds, the one where your team wins, and the one where it loses. Other than that it's the same thing.

Or eating the same meal? Watching the same sitcom? Playing the same golf course?

There are a lot of fun things we do over and over and over and over again. Playing those old war horses are just like eating another big juicy hamburger or serving of pistachio ice cream. It's all good, and it's all attitude for me.

YMMV

Insights and incites by Notes

That is a great attitude and one that I’m sure brings a lot of joy to folks.

Kudos!

J&B

Let’s add The Girl From Ipanema to the list.
I agree we should play what our audiences want to hear and I try to do that, but there must be limits.
I hope we don’t just cover these hackneyed songs verbatim. We should put our own spin on them.
For instance, I play Hotel California with jazz chord substitutions to a Latin beat.
How about Cat's Cradle as a rumba, or Yesterday as a minuet?
How about With A Little Help From My Friends as a swing tune? Oh wait, it already is.

Somebody called Ipanema a couple years ago and the drummer said, "Didn't you hear, she died".

I definitely should have added that one to my list along with All The Things You Are, Mack The Knife and As Time Goes By. Oh, and Unforgettable. Don't worry, Notes I'll happily do them as requests but if no requests they stay locked up along with Misty and Black Orpheus too. All great songs in their day but that day is long gone just like 20's stride stuff. Who does that on gigs any more? One as a novelty maybe, that's it.

Lately on jazz gigs I've been doing Caravan and Well You Needn't with a hip hop house beat. Works well.

Bob

Bob, "Well You Needn't" is almost hip-hop to start with. And any day you get to play a Monk tune is a good day.

We play one gig, about twice a year, and the guy who still lives there and used to be the one who booked us loves "Misty". So we play it for him, without him asking for it. He's visibly delighted. And you know, playing "Misty" a couple of times a year is like visiting an old friend. Comfortable and enjoyable. And when I improvise a sax solo, I forget the lines I used to fall into and the solo comes out fresh and as an adventure.

"New York New York" used to be a big deal around here 20 years ago. Recent Big Apple transplants retiring in Florida would request it. I'd prefer it if they liked Billy Joel's "New York State Of Mind" better, but they didn't.

Anyway, we were playing this supperclub. Nice club, manager/maitre d' in an obviously expensive tailored suit, real linens on the table, nice china, and good, well prepared food.

This customer came up, put a 5 in the jar and asked for "NYNY". We played it. About a half hour later, another 5 for "NYNY". We played it again. Another half hour, and another 5 for "NYNY".

Leilani thinks well on her feet and she got on the mic and announced playfully in an auctioneer voice, "We've got a 5 to play NYNY again. Do I hear 10 not to play it?" At which time I started the intro, it got a laugh, and it solved the problem. The customer dropped another 5 on the way out.

We played Thursday - Saturday at that club for about 3 years. It finally closed. The owner made a bunch of money there but went to Miami figuring he could make even more down there. I never heard from him again, and hope he did well.

"Yakety Sax" is the song sax players love to hate. It's corny, technically challenging until you get it under your fingers (and I did that in the 1960s), and there is no where to explore.

I only play it when requested, and when I do, I do a little playful shtick. As the song speeds up I give horrified looks at Leilani as if she is pushing me to the limits and at the end I'll make some remark about my partner having too much coffee before the gig. And yes, once the music starts and the sax is in my hands, it's not bad at all. And a lot better than those wasps.

I met a man playing the piano bar when I did cruise ships back in the 1980s. Irving Bloom, a past president of the New York AFofM. He's no longer with us.

He started playing piano for silent movies. "Made $14 a week, more than my father was making."

Anyway he said he always played what the public wanted and they never let him down.

When Leilani and I started "The Sophisticats" http://www.s-cats.com back in the 1980s, we figured we could play jazz standards mixed with "the American Songbook" because the retirees were of that era.

But we collected requests. Pretty soon Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and even Glenn Miller tunes were no longer requested. And mixing in a not too difficult to listen to Horace Silver tune like "Song For My Father" dribbled off the stage in a puddle on the floor. The requests were for Elvis era songs. Now Elvis is mostly passe. We're all the way up to Clapton era songs. Although I miss some of the more challenging standards, I also enjoy the more physical rock tunes.

Of course, there is more than one way to do music right. It depends on you, your tastes, your skills, and also the area you find yourself in and the supply and demand for different kinds of music in that area.

If you can make a living doing nothing but original material, that's great. If you make a living in a tribute band and like it, that's great too. (To me a tribute band would be better than the wasps, but not much). If you work a day job so you can play art music on the weekends or Monday nights when the regular band is off, and like it, that's good too.

On the other hand, if it evolves to where I have to do rap tunes all night, that's when I retire. I can't move my mouth that fast, and if I can't improvise sax, wind synth, or guitar over even a simple chord progression, the thrill will be gone.

Insights and incites by Notes

I used to be able to still listen to Imagine--until Yoko Ono stuck her name on it. Now I would rather listen to a pan flute getting ground up in a food processor.

Hotel California: First time I heard it I wanted to ask my Mom: "Mom, if I ever smoke enough weed will I be able to go to Hotel California too??" Great dueling guitar solos though.

Hallelujah. Ok, I got the heebie jeebies the first time I heard this song and I have to plug my ears whenever people sing it. I think: "For the Love of Jesus, Please Stop!" No, wait a minute, that's not what I think. I think:

"Hey totally bummed out and depressed songwriter dude, did you shoot up some smack with Charles Bukowski and fall asleep in a flea bag motel with bed lice and wet yourself while drinking some Smirnoff out of a plastic jug? Is that why you are singing a broken Hallelujah?" Jeez, talk about songs that make you want to shoot yourself.

Ok, I've come clean. Moving right along. Nothing to see here folks.

Personally, I'd much rather do the gig where I would "have to play":

Brown Eyed Girl
Mustang Sally
La Bamba
Wooly Booly
Margeritaville
Louie Louie
Wild Thing
Feelings
Gloria
Suzie Q
Johnny B Goode
Satisfaction

Then...

All About That Bass
Blurred Lines
Call Me Maybe
Sorry
Gangham Style
Roar
Single ladies
We Are Never Getting Back Together
Etc,etc...

You noticed I did leave out The Chicken Dance:)

Just my two cents.

Man, I will come to hear you and pay you some really good money if you don't play All About that Bass and Single Ladies.

If you do, I will ask that you pay me.

Deal?

You guys have wiped out a large part of my set lists! So now I'm modernizing.

Hype is part of the problem. I've forced myself to listen to Amy Winehouse (Whine house) at length, because she was supposed to be an exceptional singer. I can't see it. To me she sounds like a wailing cat with moronic lyrics. I'm okay with a couple of tracks, but I just can't see the fuss. Nothing personal. The same with Oasis. Not bad songs, but comparisons to the Beatles! Only geographically. I do force myself to listen to a lot of the latest chart music, and I love some of it. With a 12 year old, female obsessed music fan and her mates I have to remove the ignorant, women hating, violent and moronic rubbish from the pop. I'm pretty liberal, but sadly about 8-9 out of 10 songs are unsuitable and I'm just talking blunt not the suggestive stuff (milk shakes, big bums, etc).

For listening: retire anything where the singer relies on auto-tune.

There are plenty of singers who can actually sing on pitch.

Notes

You’ll have to pry my wooly bully out of my cold dead hands.

The ironic thing is they use auto-tune as an effect even when they can sing very well. Massively overused in modern pop. There's a few interesting youtube videos showing artists singing their songs with and without auto-tune.

I dislike it when I can hear the auto-tune. It's a big turn-off for me.

Plus I think it diminishes the inflections that a singer puts into the song. I play with the pitch when I sing or play melody on an instrument.

I may hit a note flat on purpose and slowly bring it up to pitch in a blues ballad to create and relieve tension on one note, I might sing a high note sharp on purpose for effect, I might slowly waver the pitch off and on, and so on. These are expressive elements that auto-tune either removes entirely or greatly diminishes.

Plus when you hear those artifacts, you know that singer isn't even close to on pitch.

I know other appreciate that and my taste isn't universal nor am I the arbiter of good taste, but on my sax and voice I've worked on pitch since I was a little kid. I added wind synth and guitar later. I play with pitch. I'm able to be on pitch most of the time if I want and I am off pitch when I want to use it as a tension creating effect.

And IMHO anyone who cannot sing a song without auto-tune doesn't deserve to call themselves a singer.

But that's drifting off topic.

Back on topic. Songs will retire themselves when the public gets tired of them. Nobody requests "Camptown Races", "Sophisticated Lady", "When Sunny Gets Blue", "Stardust" or "Amapola" anymore. In the case of "Sophisticated Lady" and "When Sunny Gets Blue" I think that's a shame.

Insights, incites and a minor rant by Notes

I dislike it when it is used to mask entire poor performances. On my CD there were spots where my engineer used elastic audio to bring a note here and there up a few cents to lock it in, particularly where it stood out because it was matching a fiddle note or something that made it obvious.

But doesn't that really work in tandem with how music is now visual more than anything? The bombastic stage shows, all the background dancers (we used to have background singers), a large part of the shows prerecorded.... It stopped being about music years ago. How else can you explain Britney Spears or those Simpson people, whatever their names are? Particularly the one that was on Saturday Night Live and they played here first song when she was supposed to be on her second song? AND THEN she compounded the fracture by saying "I can't believe my band started playing the wrong song..." The purity of music is LONG gone. Remember when bands just stood and played and sang? The Eagles? CSNY? Chicago?

I saw a video as part of a news story that was a dig at Mariah Carey. The story pointed out how much of a footnote she has become. She was on stage, stuffed like a kielbasi into some outfit that was borderline obscene, and as she sang, she WALKED 3 steps left, then 3 steps right, back and forth, all while a line of 8 dancers flanking her were actually dancing, the illusion supposedly that she was part of the dance number (and she was not - she was barely moving). At one point, she sneezed. During both the "aaaaah" and the "chooo" part of the sneeze, her singing never stopped. It was SO obvious that her show was being faked. As fat and out of shape as she has gotten, she ain't dancin' NOWHERE!! Sad too, because she used to be good back before she went crazy.

And that was the perfect example of the state of commercial music today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E8zeJipm1s



There is still some great music being played. And what a live mixing job!


Regards,

Bob

We've sort of beaten the dead horse enough about old songs so I'll relate this story since Gangham Style was mentioned.

A sax player buddy is a member of the Manhattan Beach Country Club. It's not golf, it's tennis. We've done one or two gigs a year there for 20 years doing mostly Real Book and light fusion stuff. They had a nice restaurant/bar with a Yamaha grand and a small dance floor. This is exactly your type of place Notes. They decided to completely shut down and remodel about 3 years ago. My friend calls me to say he got us gig by the pool about 18 months into the renovation. We show up, and start doing our stuff. The gig was for the end of the tennis tourny. They always have a few touring pros show up for it every year. I notice the crowd around the pool is mostly 25-35 or so. In the middle of the third song the manager comes up to him and says "Sorry, Jerry I have to shut you down, here's your check. We're bringing in a DJ who's going to be here in 15 minutes, please clear the area by then."

The DJ shows up, I had managed to get my keyboards packed up and off to the side but I hadn't schlepped my stuff out to the car yet. The DJ immediately set up one of his speakers and plugged in his phone just to get things started and what was the song? Gangham Style. It was blasting right in the side of my head while I grabbed my stuff. That got the party going, seriously. This was what that gig truly was. At the Manhattan Beach Country Club!! The cheapest house in MB starts at about 1.5 mil and goes up from there. I said the crowd was mostly young. There were maybe a half dozen older folks lounging by the pool and they immediately left along with us. Talk about getting booted off a gig! At least we got paid.

That's when I knew it was the beginning of the end for all of our traditional classic jazz, MOR type of gigs I've been doing for 30 years. This crowd is the kids of the older members and they are taking over.

It makes sense when you think about it. How old are the children of 55-70 year old parents? What music did they grow up with? They come from wealthy families, they're professionals just like their parents, have plenty of money and they're the drivers of the culture now not us. I guarantee these kids wanted to do this 10 years ago but the old guard dies hard.

Like any other revolution it doesn't happen all at once, it's gradual but man, what a wakeup call that was. The renovations completed a few months later, my friend is still a member but the bar is gone, the piano is gone along with the dance floor. No more inside gigs, they'll book parties by the pool and afaik, it's mostly DJ's.

If this happened at the MB Country Club, it's happening at other clubs too.

Bob

I do agree with 90 db that "there is still some great music being played". However, you have to search it out. It's not what you see on the Grammys...someone needs to explain to me why Beonce is a "genius?"

A lot of good music is coming out of the Americana genre, which seems to be pretty broad, and includes styles ranging from as roots rock n' roll to old time country. I'm encouraged by the fact that there is a whole new younger generation playing this music, and by the way, playing it quite well.

As far as age groups are concerned, I play 50's and 60's instrumental guitar (Duane Eddy, Ventures, surf music, etc.) with BIAB backing tracks at various wine bars and restaurants in my area, that cater to all age groups. Of course the older crowd appreciate hearing the old tunes, but I'm impressed by how many younger listeners are digging what I'm doing.

My belief is that "good music, played well, equals an appreciate audience".

Yes and in spite of my last post, I've seen that too. There are young people who dig what we do but the problem is the lack of venues to play. Around LA they are few and far between and they pay squat. There are several high end places like the Catalina Bar and Grill where you go to see big names like Chick Corea and others so that's good from a fans POV but as far as the little local places I used to play 20 years ago? Pretty much all gone.

Bob

Eddie, it's nothing new.

Many years ago I went to a big rock fest. I wanted to see Dr. John (who didn't show up) and during the Alice Cooper part of the show, he went to the gallows to be hanged, and the tape broke (it was pre-digital so it must have been tape). The band continued to march around the stage, pretending to play their instruments. The only sound was from the parade drum the drummer was marching with and Vince/Alice was eventually hanged. Then the stage went dark for about 20 seconds and the show started again.

That must have been in the 1970s.

When I worked on the cruise ships in the 1980s, the main show was all taped, except for the lead singer who was live. The band played from charts accompanying the click track, the background dancers lip-synced the backing parts and the lead male dancer lip synced the duet parts with the live production singer.

I wasn't in the band, Leilani and I were the duo in one of the small lounges.

Later, probably in the 1990s the music store/recording studio I used to patronize and get sax session work got some new Korg sampling keyboards from a Madonna tour, and if you pressed the keys of one in chromatic order you got Madonna saying "Are you ready boys" (up a half step) "Let's hit it" and so on.

I'm also old enough to remember American Bandstand where the guest singer would come and lip-sync to his/her record.

When I was on the road, monitors were non-existent so the background singers always shared a mic so we could hear each other, and watch each other's lips so we could articulate at the same time. After years of doing that, it's pretty easy for me to see if someone is lip-syncing and believe me there is a lot of that going on.

I suppose a good number of the major shows are prerecorded now. The venues are huge, and if anyone important enough to be a show-stopper gets sick, the promoters are out a lot of money. Cancelling the show, paying the venue anyway, refunding the tickets, and so on. Not that I agree, it's just what it is.

And there has also been a lot of fraud in the business. At one time there were 4 groups called "The Platters" touring the country. None of them had Tony Williams, the lead singer on their records in the group.

The Kingston Trio is still touring with no original or recording members. How can you have Earth Wind And Fire without Maurice White? That would be like the Rolling Stones touring without Mick Jagger.

The groups touring with no original members or no original lead singer are nothing more than tribute bands but getting premium ticket prices.

When I was young I saw The Ink Spots. They were all in their 20s and the front man mentioned that his uncle was one of the original Ink Spots.

But at least the Ink Spots were live.

Even Leilani and I are not 100% live. We'd love to be in a bigger band, but we like to eat and pay the mortgage too. Before the duo we were in a 5 piece band. The price we get for the duo is $100 less than what they paid for all 5 pieces.

But I do make my own backing tracks, sometimes with the help of BiaB, sometimes from scratch playing live into a sequencer/DAW. And we play guitars, keyboard synths, wind synths, sax, flute, and voice over the top. I save all the fun parts to be played live, so it's kind of like playing with a band that reads charts.

There is still a lot of good, live music being played but good live bands, there are half and half bands like Leilani and I, and there are entertainment shows like the lip-sync kings and queens. I guess it's all show-biz.

Insights and incites by Notes

Let's open THIS can again.... Or Journey without Steve Perry.

Everybody on these forums are "half band using tracks" if they use BIAB/RB. 80% of my CD was Real Band. On so many of those tracks I used banjo, mandolin, slide guitar, dobro, fiddle... all things I don't play. Had I brought in people to play those instruments, I could not have afforded to do the CD, since I never planned to play it out live anywhere to see copies. As big a fan as I am of technology, my fandom stops at "I accept that bands can and are using backing tracks" and never crosses into "Let me go pay a cover charge and pay $2.00 each for cranberry juice and soda with a lime to see a guy who is playing either with tracks he created himself or stuff he downloaded from from the internet." There is a female duo here in town that I go see twice a year. They sing over downloaded karaoke tracks. I go see them because they are both great PEOPLE, and very good singers, but not with any expectation that I will hear a great song that they wrote or the tracks they just made in their studio. Not my style. And THOSE kind of acts are the ones who play "the list". It is my habit that if a band plays Free Bird (or ANY Skynard), ANY Kiss, Stairway to Heaven (or ANY Zep), Brown Eyed Girl (or almost ANY Van Morrison), or Proud Mary, I will leave immediately. The rest of the list I can tolerate for about half a set, but when the cliches just keep on coming, I will wave goodbye to whoever it is on stage that I know and head home.

BUT... not everybody is a difficult, grouchy old man like me, so whatever.

I always wanted to start a band and call it The B-Sides to do the back side of those cliches. Never happened, and probably not even an original idea.

Hey Wait a Minute Now BIABers,

I just finishing working up an almost note for note version of Roundabout on acoustic with the Rick Wakeman parts and the Steve Howe parts, with the vocals dropped down an octave because I am not a Soprano.

I think the ladies might dig it. I even manage to play the "in and around the lake" part in time though it is tricky. The "along the drifting cloud, the eagle searching down" part kind of goes airborne, sort of Flamenco...

or Flamenco...ish.

Am I allowed to take this out?

Whaddaya think people??? Little acoustic mushroom and poppy field cantata to celebrate the dancing pixies of old?

Allowable???

See?

We all get to play, and to listen to whatever we want.

Eddie, you'd probably walk out on us. We do "Sweet Home Alabama", "Brown Eyed Girl", "Mustang Sally", "Sweet Caroline" and quite a few other often requested songs. (Our audience is from 50 to the final coda).

3/4 of our 500+ song list came from audience requests. Whatever gets requested most frequently goes to the top of the list, and if we can cover it, we will.

The other 1/4 are songs we wanted to learn, Unpopular but sometimes recognizable songs by Mose Allison, Grover Washington Jr., Marcos Valle, A.C.Jobim, etc., plus some not blockbuster hit rock songs that we just like to play.

It's give and take and we are making a living doing music and nothing but music.

I even like making my own backing tracks, although it may take a couple of days to get them right, it's a labor of love. On a related note, I like making Band-in-a-Box styles. Playing music live into a sequencer/DAW, extracting the parts, and assigning the 'handles' on them is fun, especially when they turn out right (when they don't turn out right, they go into the discard folder).

I could buy karaoke tracks, but they aren't the same. I bought a couple for 'throw away' songs like that obscure first dance at a wedding cut that nobody else ever wants to hear, and (1) they aren't necessarily in our key (2) they are mixed for recording, not for live performance (3) somebody else is doing the solo in the middle and I admit, I'm a solo hog (4) they are often too short for live play (5) sometimes the intro is too long and the dancers stand there and wonder if they want to dance to it or not (6) fade out endings.

But my way is not the right way for everybody.

In our area there is a trio going around singing to Karaoke tracks. They play no instruments, the male singer is terrible, one of the females is decent the other barely adequate. They undercut bands by about one half, and have taken some work from us. But they haven't hurt our bottom line because we just got other work to fill the gap. If that's what people want, karaoke jocks on the cheap, that's what works for them.

And I would never-ever knowingly pay full price to see a tribute band masquerading as the real thing.

Nor would I want to be in a tribute band. I like being able to play a variety of music from different bands and different genres. I have a friend I grew up with who is happy to play in an Eagles tribute band. He is a great guitarist and is now playing note-for-note solos created by various members of the Eagles.

There is more than one right way to make a living doing music. The trick is to find one that works for you.

And to get back on topic.

We used to do "Kansas City", "Satin Doll", "In The Mood", "Be-Bop-a-lula", "Kokomo" and quite a few others a lot. The public decided to retire them. When they quit working we put them in mothballs.

Insights and incites by Notes

< I could buy karaoke tracks, but they aren't the same. I bought a couple for 'throw away' songs like that obscure first dance at a wedding cut that nobody else ever wants to hear, and (1) they aren't necessarily in our key (2) they are mixed for recording, not for live performance (3) somebody else is doing the solo in the middle and I admit, I'm a solo hog (4) they are often too short for live play (5) sometimes the intro is too long and the dancers stand there and wonder if they want to dance to it or not (6) fade out endings. >

Great explanation of the general deficiencies of Karaoke. Regarding point #2, I have seen you explain the eq'd differences between the live output and the recorded output but its slipped my mind. Live karaoke entertainment is very popular and one would think clients could opt for a choice between a live mix or a recording cover.

I come across artists all the time that use a Karaoke backing track and it's always obvious that Karaoke tracks are in use. (1) Most of the time it's because the recording is mixed by the artist on generic consumer grade hardware equipment that provides little provision for tweaking and balancing the music and vocals. (2) Even the best Karaoke tracks manage to have a universal vibe of mediocrity about them from a performance perspective.

Would you mind refreshing your explanation regarding the mixing output differences?

Charlie

1. Use Real Band to move them.
4. Be a producer! Cut and paste a little bit to add more versus. Which leads to
3. After you have cut and pasted those extra verses, there's your solo space.
5. Once again, edit it.
6. This can be tough but I have done it by just adding a solid chord with a hold that I then apply a fast fade to.

Last year, the band (of which I am no longer a member) wanted to do The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again as the opening song. However, they wanted all the redundant guitar solos in the middle removed, as they were really just rhythm guitar (as Townshend is wont to do). That required 32 bars to be cut. I used a tempo reader to determine the tempo, set the RB tempo to the correct number, imported the file, and found that section. The downbeats lined up ALMOST perfectly, and it took 3 tries to get it perfect, but I snipped those measures out with a "cut - close gap") process, and voila. I also did a version where I connected it to the intro to Pinball Wizard, which I though would be a great move, but the powers that be dismissed that idea.

I do that kind of editing a lot. I like The Beach Boys "Darlin" a lot, but it's only 2:14 long. Simple matter. After the bridge, I looped it back to the first verse with a copy and paste and made it 3:25. That's the kind of stuff I find fun to do with Real Band. I once wanted to chain 2 songs together but they were a step different. One in D, one in E. I just used the pitch transposer and moved one up a half step and the other down. Voila again. Both now in Eb.

So you can get around almost all of the objections to karaoke tracks. In YOUR case though, you are so good at using this software, I'm pretty sure your home made tracks sound better than online karaoke tracks, many of which just use a vocal eliminator tool anyway.

Eddie, it's much easier for me to do it myself than to do all that tweaking, cutting, pasting, and so on. Plus when I do a song myself, I know the chords, I know the inversions used, and I know all the parts inside and out. And I can change parts to my liking to make the song more effective in a live setting. I can extend the solo or add an A or B section to the solo.

Charlie, about live mix. Each song is individual, and a lot is trial and error, but here are a few pointers to get you thinking in the right direction.

When you go to a club with live music, walking from the parking lot what do you hear first. Bass and snare drum if it's a rock, blues, or country band.

These things need to be louder in a live mix than they do in a karaoke or at home listening to the stereo or earbud mix. But they have to be EQ'd so the bass isn't boomy and the snare has a lot of crack to it. On funk or reggae songs sometimes it's the kick drum instead of the snare that needs the boost.

"Call and response" parts that are response to the lead vocals need to be pumped up. Especially if it's a peppy song and the parts are designed to have some punch.

No fade outs - ever.

If it's a dance club, nix the eerie or rubato intro and get to the recognizable part of the song right away. If the verse is not strong, and the people don't recognize it and start dancing right away, start with the hook as an intro if possible.

Never put reverb on the kick drum. It makes for mud in a live mix. Reverb on the snare is nice though.

Notes in the band that are accented, need to be accented even more in a live mix. I remember a band I was in, the trumpet player used to say he hits the accents like Bruce Lee. James Brown told his bands that they are to accent as if they were playing a drum.

No backing vocals, unless they are your own voices. I even prefer to play the backing vocals on an instrument, synth, brass, or whatever seems appropriate to the song. That way you get the call and the response without the audience wondering, "How did all those singers get there."

Not quite "live mix" but a couple of beats per minute faster than the recording is often a good idea. When you see the band doing it live, quite often it's faster than their recording. Sometimes pump up the B section a beat or two per minute, if the B is designed to add energy, or slow it down a tiny bit if the B is designed to calm down the song.

Groove. In a live setting, the groove should often be exaggerated. If the recording rushes or lags the 2s and 4s, rush or lag them even more. If the eight notes have a bit of swing to them, add a bit more.

Live arrangements should often be longer than the recording or karaoke track. Two and a half minutes is not enough live. Often by the time the dancers decide to get on the floor, almost two minutes have passed.

I've played in live bands for the first half of my life, and even though I'm in a duo now, I'm a member of a group that holds jam sessions (the core band gets paid well) and if I'm not working, I go to sit in. I want the mix of my backing tracks to sound as much as I'm used to hearing a band sound, and I will fuss and tweak them until I'm satisfied with the output.

We play a club about once a month, and another regular is a karaoke band. They sing over k tracks. A regular customer asked us to learn a couple of songs, and I learned them, but mixed them for live performance, not a listen to the recording or karaoke mix. The customer not only thanked us for learning the songs, but said that they sound much better than the record (by that he means the karaoke jocks because they sound like the record with background vocals and all).

When you go to hear another live band, analyze the mix while you are enjoying the music, and you will open your ears to getting better live mixes with your backing tracks.

Insights and incites by Notes

Great recommendations, there, Bob!

Thanks Bob. Great tips and explanations for why to do them.

Very useful Bob, thanks. The voice of experience.

I completely agree with everything Notes wrote about live mixes.

This is exactly why when I do a gig with my arranger keyboard I keep the parts limited to bass, drums and guitar. No horns or voice patches trying to emulate background vocals. My Korg Pa1xPro has nine sliders that double as a mixer or organ drawbars. As a mixer I control the mix instantly live. I don't have to worry about trying to guess what a live mix should sound like at home.

Guessing what the mix should be when you're putting backing tracks together at home is the real hang up for most people. You've been doing it for so long Notes you simply know what it should be but most folks have no idea. They mix at home using a set of studio monitors or computer speakers or whatever then go to a gig and it's running through a PA and the PA completely colors the sound from what they heard at home.

If someone is going to do that at home, you should mix through your PA in the largest room you have like in your garage maybe to simulate the acoustics in a live venue. Or at least test it on your PA before taking it to the gig. Some may remember Silvertones threads from several years ago describing how he set up Real Band to output live multitracks through a 12 channel interface into a mixer so he had the same live control I have using my arranger keyboard. This is expensive and complicated to set up at a gig but that's what's necessary to get the right sound if a solo or duo act is seriously trying to emulate a live band.

Bob

I have the same model mixer in my studio and I bring in my PA active speakers. But the studio is small and has different reflective characteristics.

Most of the times I hit the mix first time (thankfully), but even with my experience and gear sometimes I get on the gig and think, "It needs a little more of this or a little less of that." Sometimes it's just a perceived volume difference, "I could pump that up 3db or take it down a couple." So I remix to correct.

The audience probably doesn't know the difference, but I do, and if I'm lucky I'll get to play that song thousands of times for many years to come. I want it to be as good as I can get it. Plus with a 'book' of over 550 songs, I want them to be 'mastered'/balanced very well.

I have pride in my work, I'm picky about my music, and I want it to be right. If it isn't right for me, it isn't good enough for my audience.

Of the few that I miss, it usually gets fixed the first remix. On rare occasions it takes more, and that is often a song with unusual instrumentation. I think the record is 5 tries to get it as close to perfection as my skills allow.

There is always something new to learn with music.

Insights and incites by Notes

It's not so much that I'd walk out on you as I would not likely frequent about 75% of the places you play. I am an old guy but I don't go to old people events and rooms. I have never and will never see the inside of a seniors community center. Yacht clubs? Nope. That's for rich snobs who have money to waste for a place to dock their boat. Outdoor festivals? With all those people bumping into me? Nope. The rare times I do go out, and that is maybe once every few months, it is to see artists who do their own music, usually for their CD release shows. I'll buy my CD, have the sleeve autographed, and head out after a set. Typically I am the oldest person in the room by a large margin. There are not a lot of 66 year old songwriters doing CD release shows. And the crowd is usually friends of the artist, so they'll be the same age as the artist.

Also remember that I am now and will remain single, so there is no socializing with the spouse or "date night" in my mix. Tried it many times. It doesn't work for me.

I really live a quiet life of solitude. I mean, I named the RV "Samotar", which is the Slovenian word for "loner" or "hermit".

So abso-frickin'-lutely do what makes you happy. Life itself is about being happy. The financial part of music stopped mattering to me years ago. Once I knew I was not going to be a star, I stopped playing for 15 years. When I got back into it, it was to write songs for a CD.

You guys that have managed to keep your enthusiasm for music have my admiration. That is behind me, and it's time to move on to other things. I have no desire to be the richest corpse in the graveyard, so I don't care to be concerned with amassing more money. I am not independently wealthy, but I live such a pristine and frugal life, both by design and by habit, that I don't need to work. I have all I need, and actually my life as it is now has many excesses and repetitions. I just sold 2 26" flat screen TVs to a guy who bought them for his kids rooms. That left me with "only" 2, the 55" and the 32". Why a guy who lives alone with a dog had 4 TVs, I have no idea. I am short of packrat, but I tend to hold on to things because at one time they cost money. As I cleaned out a closet, I found shoes that I bought in Italy and kept for no other reason than I bought them in Italy. I was in Italy in 2000. I have had those shoes for 17 years! Why? That's a great example of why this downsize and purge is going to feel good. But I digress...

I was fortunate to be able to retire and not worry about the "making a living" aspect. Not everybody can do that. Again, I am not rich, just comfortable. And to the many people here who are retired and stayed involved with music, bless you all. I just lost my taste for it. I am sitting at my computer in a blissful state of silence right how, the only sound coming from a small fan that keeps air circulating in my office. With 20 gb of music on a hard drive and about 1200 CDs, I never listen to music beyond a one time through on a new CD that a music community acquaintance may do.

So the list lives on. 'Twas I who retired!

I enjoy playing music for a living. It's the most fun I can have with my clothes on.

The yacht clubs, country clubs, retirement communities here are the highest paying one-nighter gigs. I can make in 2 nights, 3 hours of gigging each, what I would make in a hotel bar or night club for 4 to 6 nights of 5 hour gigs.

There is always an audience, because unlike a bar gig, everyone has been invited. There are no Thursday nights where a couple of salesmen are in the bar staring at the TV.

But I understand and agree with part of your viewpoint.

I wouldn't want to live in an old person community, nor would I go to many of the gigs I play for if I wasn't working. It's a lot more fun to perform.

I'll go out sometimes to hear my friends who are also my competition, and to tell the truth, I'd rather be on stage.

I could retire now, but what would I do? I define myself as a musician, and playing music is the most fun I can have with my clothes on.

I always said that I want to die on the bandstand. --- come to think about it, I've already died on a number of them

What works for one isn't necessarily best for another.

Adding to the live mix vs. recording mix.

This is the main reason why I don't use Real Tracks for my backing tracks.

MIDI gives me the ability to do things like pump up the snare only, or exaggerate the dynamics and/or groove. I can even change instruments to better interpret the song. MIDI is thousands of times more editable, and I don't think it's possible to get a good live mix from Real Tracks for the kind of music I play --- yet. Give PG and other audio software editors some time and it may happen.

Insights and incites by Notes

Something occurred to me that prompted me to add this little footnote to my thoughts. It isn't Mustang Sally that I don't like. It's Mustang Sally done by copy bands. Mustang Sally as done by Wilson Pickett with that great Muscle Shoals house band was killer. But bands don't have horn sections, most (around here) don't have a keyboard player. Playing Mustang Sally with no organ and horns is like eating tuna salad, just without the mayo and the relish. Tuna salad without mayo and relish is tuna.

So it isn't Mustang Sally that I hate. It's stripped down (plain tuna) Mustang Sally as done by guitar, bass and drummer that I hate. And most copy bands do it too slow as well.

That comment is right on Eddie. Not just with Mustang Sally either but all the classic jazz Real Book songs. All a Real Book is supposed to be is a way to fake your way through a tune you never played before maybe once or twice on a gig but the group should know everything else.

The problem is none of the bands I play with rehearse and that's true with most groups now. Everybody is just too busy with other things so we get together on a gig and basically fake everything. That can be fun if the players are good but many times one or two are and one or two are not. There are so many different ways these tunes have been done over the years that nobody knows which version it's going to be.

Just like Mustang Sally the original recordings done by the legendary artists have all kinds of very cool hooks, rhythms, breaks and other stuff going one. A jam band playing the same song out of a fake book isn't doing any of that.

Take Joy Spring for example, it has that intro that nobody knows, it has punches throughout the head that nobody knows. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tBJa8Ew6fQ

I know all that but I can't do it on piano by myself because nobody is doing it with me. One time a fill in bass player asks me if I do that intro and I said yes. I quickly told the band he and I were doing that and I would cue the entrance for the head. Since this was five second quick instruction on the gig, that entrance was still sloppy and it sucked. Just one minute of a quick rehearsal would have fixed that but on the gig we didn't have one minute so it was a waste of time to try to do that intro.

When I happen to do some of these standards what do I think of a lot of the times? Biab. Biab is fun and useful and all that but it cannot create a cover version of anything and we've talked about that lots of times.

If you find a Biab version of Joy Spring, the chords are there, the swing style is there but there's zero elements that can be heard on the original I just posted and that's exactly what happens when a group does these tunes out of a fake book, it's sort of like live Biab. Either the players know this tune or they don't so everybody just counts it off on the head, everybody can play the changes ok and solo ok but all these cool little elements in the original recording are not there.

The only reason I still do these gigs is I'm one of the biggest hams on the West Coast, haha. The audience doesn't know any of these things, they still think I'm great, they are still having a good time, I get positive comments and I love that. It's just that I know it could be so much better but alas, it probably never will be.

Bob

I hear ya Bob. I really don't respect bands that don't rehearse. I also have an extremely hard time with bands who DO rehearse but when you get to rehearsal 2 of them haven't learned the song, so what should be rehearsal turns into a learning session that should be done at home.

But I am so snarky and persnickety about this subject, if I am at a performance that is NOT a jam night, the first time someone points at another player to indicate it's time for him to solo, I will leave. You are supposed to KNOW who solos when from the many hours of rehearsal you put into your job.

You should have been a Manager Eddie!

Heh. I beat players up so bad for not doing their job that I can't keep players. So, yeah, my role would have been more Miles Copeland than Stewart Copeland.

It's all about money and doing this as a career. If it's a real career then of course everybody is on the same page and working hard every day. We were booked by MusArt Corp and all their acts either did it their way or it literally was the highway. They had dozens of class A rooms all over North America including Hawaii. I got to spend a year there performing 3 hours a night and chasing chicks on the beach during the day. Not bad for a 25 year old. They also had dozens of class A acts that could be plugged into the job we were playing at any time if too many bad reports came in from management at the venue.

After I left all that and became a weekend warrior that all changed. The lack of professionalism will drive me crazy if I let it but what else am I gonna do on a Friday night?

Even decent, so-so performing is better than nothing at least for me. I completely understand your pov too Eddie.

Bob

In actuality, no songs should be retired.

They should just be played less.

Some of them 'Much Less'

Yes, the 'swampers' were among the best studio musicians of the day.

Mustang Sally was originally done by Mack Rice (the songwriter) and the second recording was done by The Young Rascals. Wilson Pickett followed with his fine version after the Rascals, but I've always preferred the Young Rascals version.

I did my own MIDI backing track, loosely based on the Pickett version, but I sing it in my style and play my own improvised sax solo, which of course to me is the high point of the song. I would have preferred to do it loosely based on the Rascals version, but I've been at this long enough to know what the public wants to hear.

I'll completely rearrange a song that isn't requested as often as Mustang Sally, for example we do You Are The Sunshine Of My Life as a swing jazz tune, and people accept it, but for one of the 'standards' I feel it's better to do it closer to the version they want.

And I agree with Eddie and Bob about bands that don't rehearse. The majority of the should, and the few that don't need to are a joy to listen to, but they definitely are few and far in between.

Jam sessions are different. I belong to a jazz/blues org that holds monthly jams. The house band gets paid well, and most of the players are my buddies. It's a lot of fun making things up as we go along over the changes we all know too well.

It's mostly blues and blues that has bled over to rock though. Jazz is pretty much dead around here. Oh how I'd love to do Joy Spring (thanks, Bob - I have the Stan Getz Quartet version playing right now) but there is no audience. The one jazz group that plays for $25/man (they all have day gigs and do it for the love) sticks to the old war horses that most people know.

Back in the early 1980s I was in a Sunday jazz band. The leader/guitarist used to teach at the University of Miami and also played with Ira Sullivan for a few years. Monsters came in to sit in that were way out of my league, it was challenging to keep up, and a lot of fun.

My jazz chops are all but dormant now. I don't mind, I'm having fun gigging with Leilani.

We constantly learn new songs and rehearse them before taking them to the audience. It's the right way to do it.

I do my own backing tracks, and it might take a few days to get the track right (depending on the song, some go in a day). I want the groove to be right, the mix to be right, and even the choice of instruments (I have MIDI sound modules with thousands of different variations of the common instruments and plenty of uncommon ones).

I play the parts live into a sequencer, sometimes I use BiaB for the comp work (if an appropriate MIDI style is available). I first have to figure out the parts, learn how to play them, then record them.

Then I choose the patches. We just learned Seger's Still The Same for a very good customer on our weekly going on 10 year house gig. I played the stock piano figure into the sequencer, and by the time I mixed, I tried about 70 acoustic and bright acoustic piano patches until I found the one that fit the best. This is another good thing about MIDI, and not only pianos, I have about 100 different clean guitar sounds, Teles, Strats, LPs, 335s, and so on.

My musician friends who buy karaoke tracks think I'm crazy to do all that work, but it's not work, it's just what needs to be done. When I'm happy with my track, I'll enjoy singing/playing over it.

But they don't have a once a week gig that has lasted for 10 years either.

I've purchased a couple of karaoke tracks for throw away songs like the obscure first dance at a wedding, and they always pale in comparison.

And new songs go through stages. At first a new song is exciting as you are still exploring what you can do, what works, what doesn't work and what you can get away with. Stage two is when the song peaks, you are settling into what works best for you, and you soar through the song like an eagle on the wind. Then the song loses some of it's peak excitement, but it is comfortable, like having dinner with a good friend.

I suppose if I had a day job, I could have spent my life doing 'art music' (jazz or whatever), but I would have had to work a day job. Instead I'm not working for anyone other than myself, nobody is running my life, I'm not a wage slave, I'm living it on my own terms. I take the gigs I want, turn down the ones I don't want, play music for a living, whether I'm making a backing track, gigging on stage, or playing music into a sequencer that will eventually become a new BiaB style. I make music with my lover/best-friend/bandmate Leilani, we enjoy life, and are pretty much free.

Life is good for me. I'm lucky to have been born at a time where a musician can make a living doing music and nothing but music.

And I'll play all those songs until they are retired by the audience.

My philosophy: You can play for yourself, you can play for other musicians, or you can play for the general public. If you are good enough, you will get the audience you asked for.

Insights and incites by Notes