I have played some gigs where we played mostly cover tunes. We played what ever the crowd wanted to head to the extent we knew it. That was before cell phones and being able to look up any song ever written. I never thought it was a good idea to play something we did not really know to begin with.

As far a the "Last Band", things were very different. We had paid rehearsals on Wednesday for two hours. There was a setlist and written music. Two sets one and one-half hours long. The first set was all original, in the second set we played a few covers between songs from older albums.

The problem with our band and I guess every band was finding the right people.
The lead guitar player could play anything. The keyboard player was a monster, we sometimes had to tie one hand behind him to keep him from overplaying...lol
The vocalist was professionally classically trained and could sing in many styles.

The drummers and there were many, were a bunch of dumm azz problem child thorn in my side words I can not say here. Occasionally a pro drummer from one of the studios would come to play with us. Greg Bissonette would come to play when he had the time.

We had a super good bass player but she was playing in another band who that year got nominated for a Grammy and only played with us when she could She wanted to play with us but it was her cousin who got nominated. We had access to a couple of good bass players but they could not read.

The sound man Benny, was a god send, one of the nicest hard working people I ever met.

Money was never an issue. I worked my butt off 100 hours a week and we did some super good shows and a few that were really 3rd rate. Had our share of BS trouble, fined for being too loud. Fined and shut down for having too many people at the venue. Fined for not having enough stage security.

It's called "Pay to Play in LA" Pay the cops that is....

One day I had enough, I only play music for fun. I shoved all that equipment in the back of the garage and flew to Cabo San Lucus and went fishing. I helped Lewis finish one more album and that was the last 30K I dumped in the toilet playing "Live IN Los Angles". No more dealing with people with black sunglasses, black shoes, black pants, black underwear, black shirts. and their.XXXXXXX black attitude.

After all that crap I moved back to Europe.

Just so you don't think it's all like that, there are some very nice intelligent, warm, and friendly people in LA. There are thousands of wonderful musicians. That was a different time and a different world.

It is extreamlly difficult to find a group of musicians who are all on the same page at the same time. How many bands have come apart when some member of the band left for whatever reason.

“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”