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People just don't feel like going to see/listen to unfamiliar people play familiar songs.



For me it isn't so much that it's cover music but that every band plays the same song list.

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Same if you compare to the walkman era of cassette playback which was popular in my youth.



That makes me start thinking that this topic is largely generational. The Walkman was in your youth. I was 30 when it came out.

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I tip my hat to you if you were able to make a living playing other people's music. I think that era is likely over.



In my part of the country it is 180 degrees opposite. In 99% of the venues you are required to play ONLY music the audience knows.

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I could snap a picture of my CD collection for y'all, and I've got my 70's rock in there, almost nothing but U2 from the 80's, fusion/jazz from the 90's, and more and more new folk rock from time periods after that.



Again becoming generational, but also possibly just ME and my generational perspective. I have one iPod Shuttle (the green one - green like an apple) that is 100% Beatles. The other one (the silver one - silver for no reason) is all funk and soul. I rarely listen to anything I consider "corporate bow down to the man" bands who just cranked out album after album of music that sounded the same because their contract said they had to produce one album per year. Styx, Journey, REO Speedwagon, U2... they all crossed that line early on. I liked U2 early on, but are they ever going to play anything other than that one groove? I saw a cover band one night do a spoof where they did a song called "I still haven't found the street I am looking for because the streets have no name" where they "intermeshed" those 2 songs into one and it was great, funny and beautifully done. The point is, how sad is it that you can almost overlay one over the other and not notice?

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However, lately, I've been absolutely loving what the kids call dubstep



WTF is dubstep? I have steps, but I never dubbed them with any other name than steps.

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Probably my favorite group is Deepspace 5 and all of their associated artists. I enjoy the heavy funk of Soulive and Niacin and can't wait to see what twist they will bring with the next releases, all using both old (B3) and new (who knows what they use) technology with NEW songs.



Once again, generational. Who is Deepspace 5 and why do they have associated artists? Niacin? Isn't that a pain killer pill or some nutritional component of milk or something?

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the guitarist can usually hold his own with Steve Perry



Did you mean Joe Perry?

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Kid had a John Mayer vibe



And you bought his CD anyway? John Mayer should join Kenny G and Michael Bolton on the national Wimpathon Tour. Boy got no soul!!

As Mr Mammal said, it's us old goats that are disappearing, not the scene. I won't venture far from my house to hear a cover band anymore, yet I will drive 45 minutes to songwriter night. I have a lot of friends in copy bands who ask why I never come out, and my reply is the same every time. "You guys are doing the same songs IN THE SAME ORDER that you did when I knew you in 1986! Give me a REASON to come out. Excite me musically. Stimulate my mind." (More importantly, "YOU don't come to see ME at our reunion. Why? Because we play a concert venue and charge for tickets and you play bars with no cover? PS. We sell that room out every year. Playing half originals.") As I said in an earlier post, bands are not really bands anymore. They are just guys who throw together a 4 piece and go wing it. That is not aurally exciting to me to listen to a band that doesn't end songs together because they never rehearsed how they will end a song that faded out in the original. I absolutely HATE HATE HATE sloppy bands. Rehearsal makes you tight. Rehearse. One of the best bass players in town plays in 4 bands. None of them are any good. All of them COULD be if they would focus on one band and rehearse, but there is no pay for rehearsal, so they won't do it. Yet those same guys go to jam night and play free.

Bottom line, people still care about their music, but most care about the money first. I make enough money at my job to live comfortably and music has not crossed the line out of a love for the art and into a need for supplemental income. I am like Mike Holmes. "If you're gonna do it, do it right."