Originally Posted By: Lawrie
Sooo Eddie,
While I absolutely "get" the preference for performing one's own work, but if I get what you're saying, then my art is worthless...


No. My point is that it isn't really YOUR art. It is you reproducing THEIR art. There is a difference between art and craft. From my perspective, the art is the writing. The playing is craft. Muscle memory. Do enough repetitions and you can't NOT eventually get it right.

Everybody can write. Whether they write well is the key. And the people who buy the music will decide that. We ALL think we write like Diane Warren with her 150 some #1 hits. Sit and write all your bad songs and get them behind you. Nobody sits down and writes White Christmas. I am not all that when it comes to writing, but I DO have a handful of good songs.

Everybody who is anti my position seems to miss my point of view. When I watch the Grammy awards, I don't care about anything but who writes the songs that win. But that's me.

Remember Bonnie Raitt and her beautiful "I Can't Make You Love Me" several years ago? I don't call that a Bonnie Raitt song. I call it a Mike Reid song. She was just the vehicle. Now, though it never won a Grammy, so many people have covered it that Reid has been able to pull royalties from like 10 different artists, and when your song is so popular that 10 artists cover it, you are one hell of a writer who doesn't NEED to perform! That has been my dream for decades. I don't like to play, I don't want to play, and I don't need to play. Particularly other people's songs. I have no desire to spend 30 minutes loading my car, an hour getting to a venue, an hour setting up, 30 minutes sound checking, and then playing for a crowd that wish the band would shut up so they can focus on whatever is on the big screen TV above the bar. Now, if that venue is a music only room with no TVs or video games, maybe. The idea is that if there is music being performed, the crowd is suppose to be there to listen to the music. Quietly. Not chatting so the people around them can't hear the music. And put those cell phones AWAY. Listen to, and watch, the talent.

Playing my own stuff vs playing covers is like comparing sex with a woman to masturbation. I prefer the former, but the latter would have to do if I don't have anybody with whom to do the former. In both examples, I prefer the former or nothing. When 100 bands play in this town on a given night, and 97 of them play covers, why even bother going out to hear them do "the latter"?

I shouldn't have to keep saying this but I will until everybody stops trying to tell me why my opinion is wrong. EVERYBODY DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY! Play Gimme Three Steps twice a set, 6 times a night if you like. Right after Brown Eyed Girl, Margaritaville and All Right Now. I chose/choose to not do that. If people don't want to hear what I write, I am either a failure as a composer or playing the wrong kind of venues. I don't need to play music. It does not define who I am. I am also a good cook, a decent woodworker, a writer of words to where I have twice had columns, once about computers and once about food. Music is just one small thing I know how to do. However, I know MANY guys who have nothing else in their life. They are unemployed outside of the 6 times a month they play in their little cliche copy band and have a girlfriend supporting them because they only make $500 a month, and a large part of that $500 is spent drinking and/or smoking weed. If it works for them, and they have conned that girl into buying into supporting him (because I'm just THRILLED to be with a cool musician!!), god bless them. I'm a man. Nobody supports me.

I have one venue near me that has a standard performer's guideline on her web page. Right in that guideline it says "NO COPY BANDS". In capital letters just like I typed it. I love her!! Bands go in there and may do one cover per set, but for the most part they are 95% original. Because of the standard thinking of almost every musician in this town, I can't find players who are willing to play in a band that does only originals, so I have no product to take to her room. She has actually reached out to me asking when I am going to bring my music to her room, and I have had to tell her that I have no band for the reasons I just stated. Ticks me off. Live performance means CD sales and I don't have that opportunity. Ever tried to sell music when nobody hears it until after they put out their 15 bucks? (Refer back to the "nobody with whom to do that" comment.... grin)