ldk
Joined: Nov 08, 2017
Posts: 356
San Francisco Bay Area
Posted on Jul 13 2019 07:03 PM
I was just seeing if an instrumental version would work for a Smithereens tune that I like. That got me thinking about instrumental versions of vocal songs in general. I can think of a few.
^ Yeah that cover sounds like Les Paul and Mary Ford influenced, that sound became big in 1951.
Another Martha Tilton song covered when she was with Benny Goodman was "And The Angels Sing" by Eddie & The Showmen. He asked his mom if she had any ideas for covers and she mentioned this song.
Lots of big band influence on surf anyway, especially on the drums and vamps etc (Gene Kruppa) ....Big Band lifted whole classical music riffs and created new songs out of it - one was Sing, Sing, Sing, or songs like that that were big hits in the 1930's and 40's Usually they only used one small part of the origional score, and had new instrumental arrangements to the point it no longer sounded like the same music. The same could be done today.
The fact is transitioning hits to other genres is nothing new in music - goes back hundreds of years. You could do that with any song no matter what era its from. People seem hung up on 80's type covers I guess because they grew up with that music, but like I said many songs sound totally different with new instrumentation or slight variations and arrangements even. It's just do you have the time to burn doing that.
Most music originated from instrumentals and lyrics were either added to or even written after the backing track was made in most cases. So to come up with new instrumentals based on vocal melodies could be done with any song. Ok Three Blind Mice might be a stretch.
stratdancer
Joined: Dec 11, 2013
Posts: 2532
Akron, Ohio
Posted on Jul 14 2019 04:58 AM
Surf covers of popular music generally gets the best crowd response at our shows. Everyone has heard the song whereas they may not have heard our songs so they have something they can relate to right off the bat at a show.
Here’s a shameless plug for our version of ‘Kids’, by MGMT.
I love that y'all did this one. I was a freshman in college when the members of MGMT were seniors, Kids was a staple of dance parties when I was there. Their first LP didn't come out until my senior year.
Here’s a shameless plug for our version of ‘Kids’, by MGMT.
I love that y'all did this one. I was a freshman in college when the members of MGMT were seniors, Kids was a staple of dance parties when I was there. Their first LP didn't come out until my senior year.
Thanks! Really glad you like it!! Didn’t know you went to school with those guys - that’s pretty cool!!
tahitijack
Joined: Nov 03, 2006
Posts: 690
San Clemente, CA
Posted on Jul 14 2019 11:02 AM
Footnote....The original theme of Hawaii Five O was a vocal sung by Sammy Davis Jr....called You Can Count on Me. Nobody remembers Sammy's version after the Ventures hit.
Yeah tahitijack The Ventures made a career out of reworked covers, they even did a Classical Music type album on the 10th anniversary.
Stardancer had a point, if you look at early careers of bands they usually have good covers they developed along with origional material up to the point, till originals become hits and then they take over usually. I saw where the average listener needs to hear a song about a 100 times before they begin to like it enough to buy it. I guess the trick is to get your music out there as much as possible.
zunrj5, revmike and sysmalakian it all sounds great very professional sounding playing and mix wise. Nice job guy's
Delrin96mm has a point too covering late 80's early 90's material, the music is almost 30 years just like many songs were when Surf began, A lot of covers were almost that old then, hey it worked back in the day right?
April Birthdays 
