Why do I hate cover clubs you may ask?

Interesting weekend friends... In an effort to track down new talent my brother and I hit the road to check out some local & not so local shows. What we found was rather disturbing. We did find a "few" good original bands but most were cheesy cover bands beating Breaking Ben, Blink 182, and Creed to death. At one point, after 6 or so cover songs I began to shake and twitch as if I was going through alcohol withdrawal. During this barrage of Top-40 turmoil I began to scan around the club to see who really likes this junk. I noticed I was surrounded by drywall hangers donned in Baseball caps & camouflage shorts. Right then I new I wasn't in Kansas anymore. To even horrify me even further I noticed the band on stage was dressed the same!!! What about the chicks you might ask??? Well, I did see a dozen or so that were rather focused on their triple wing orders while sporting their newest fashion of NEPA sweat pants.

To get to the point. It seems that most clubs / bars are filled with cover bands and cover fans. The funny thing that occurred to me is that cover music attracts (2) specific type of people. (1) The people that treat music as nothing more than background noise. I'm sure that if I got on stage and played a cover for these people and swapped out the lyrics with profanities they wouldn't even notice. Basically they don't know or care about music. (2) The people that LOVE covers. The people that only listen to music they've already heard. These are the guys that get drunk and yell FREEBIRD or ask the band if they know any Bob Seager. (I AM NOT JOKING)

So we hopped into the car and headed out of the valley to an Irish pub. We dig all kinds of music so why not. We had a bite to eat while the 2 man folk band played. I thought wow, these guys are pretty good! Then it happened... They did a change up to Beatle songs followed by Simon and Garfunkle!! This was the last straw. There's nothing I detest more than Simon & Garfunkle. Unfortunately, I gave them my business card prior to the intonations of the 60's. I can only hope they didn't empty their pockets before doing laundry.

Bottom line, keep it ORIGINAL people!! Those of you that won't please stay where you are.

See me on myspace!

-JOE


P.S. No disrespect to drywall hangers :-)