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My 4 cents...learn enough cover tunes to fill up a set. If you only play
originals, then the only audience members who'll repeatedly show up are the
same hardcore FEW that show up at every surf gig, and you know who you are!
The reason for playing covers is to give the audience members something
familiar they can grab on to. Otherwise, every instrumental surf song will
start to sound alike after about 15 minutes if you're doing 3 minute songs.
However, make sure you sandwich your originals into the set as much as you
like.
Now, here's the key, in my opinion, to regurgitating covers. MAKE THEM YOUR
OWN STYLE! Don't learn songs note for note, beat for beat, off of records
and play them that way. Then you'll just sound like the records, and you'll
only satisfy those same few guys at the gig. Learn from the original
version, but alter it to represent your style and approach. And here's
another trick I've used in my bands...(1)play some of the more obscure surf
tunes, and people will think you wrote them. (Except for those few in the
audience that have memorized every surf song written between 1960 and
1965!!); and (2)pick some songs that are NOT surf tunes, and make them surf.
Nothing's cooler than hearing a song from say, Celine Dion, done as a surf
tune [Los Straitjackets did it with the Theme From The Titanic]. We also
liked to combine two songs and make one longer song from it.
Here are a few examples as explained above:
My first surf band, THE SHOCKWAVES, did "Minor Chaos" and "Similau" (not too
common); we did "Batwipe" [Batman and Wipe Out combined] and "Lee's Hearse"
[El Aguila and the Hearse and Baja combined] and "Downhill Curl" [Downhill
Run and Curl Rider combined]; my last surf band, THE SUB-MERSIANS did "Love
Pipe" and "Egypt Tx" and "Los Rancheros" (not too common); we did
"Interstellar Caravan" [Interstellar Overdrive and Caravan combined] and
"Mongoloid Rebel" [Mongoloid and the Rebel combined] and "Walk Don't Leave"
[Walk Don't Run and Lullaby Of The Leaves combined].
If you do some quick research on these song titles you'll find out that we
covered many strange choices and mixed surf and not surf together. The fun
part is learning these, arranging them, and playing them live. How many surf
music fans expect to hear Devo?!?!? Doing all this allows you to be creative
and still interject your own feeling into it.
YES, there are exceptios. There are many great bands out there who only do
originals. But even they pull out a cover or two and the audience often
comes alive when they hear them. As great as Slacktone is, and they are the
best, we still talk about their version of 'Misirlou'.
REMINDER=show up at Phil Dirt's Tribute Surf Party Bash on October 22nd at
the Brookdale Lodge, and you'll hear the first reunion by THE SHOCKWAVES
since 1986 with all four original members. We'll do most or all of the songs
I mentioned above!!!
Stretch Riedle
(drummer)
At 08:50 AM 10/9/05 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>As I've mentioned earlier, I'm in the process of putting a band
>together, and it's going well - I'm actually finding people who want to
>play this music! But there's one question that inevitably comes up
>when discussing the direction of the band: should we play covers of
>classic surf tunes? A simple question?... no it isn't. Buried in the
>heart of that question are some more questions, such as:
>
>Do you want to get gigs?
>Do you want to make enough money to cover expenses?
>Is it more important that more people get to hear some of your
>originals, rather than some people hear all of your originals?
>Will you be bored playing songs you've heard a thousand times over the
>last 30 odd years?
>Will your band-mates get frustrated from not getting a lot of gigs and
>quit the band prematurely?
>
>
>Music for me is about creative expression and doing something unique
>(however slightly) and I've found that building the songs are just as
>much fun as playing them. However, by limiting us to strictly
>originals and covers of songs that we like, I may be "cutting off my
>nose to spite my face". So I look to my "Brotherhood of the Springs"
>for their vastly greater experience in these matters and for some
>sagely advice.
>
> Danny Snyder
