NWB - Community Blog

hiya m8, we used to be in exactly the same position. we started as a covers band and then began writing some of our own stuff. even though it might not have been the best material in the world we were proud of it and started puuting it straight into the live set. however we soon found the venues that in we were playing (pubs mainly) it was just lost on people. when people go and watch a band in a pub they generally wanna have a good time and singalong to songs that they know. there are noticable exceptions but they are few and far between. my advice is to stick to playing your own stuff at specific venues where original artists are welcomed. we've since dropped all original material from pub gigs and noticed in massive difference in crowd reaction. hope this helps. ben - the fix

Most landlords on the covers circuit in Yorkshire are happy for a GOOD band to do just a few of their own songs. For example Motus do 3-4 of their own. Just be prepared for them to possibly not go down well with most punters.

hey scott yeah our decision was solely based on the crowd reaction. we never had a landlord mention anything about original stuff at all. but more than a few times when we went to drop our posters in at venues a few weeks before they were printed up with "playing covers and originals" and when the regulars saw them they couldnt wait to start salgging us off!!! however if your confident in your stuff give it a go, everyones gotta start somewhere!!!

thing to do is, in pubs, do covers mainly and then stick maybe a couple of originals in (one each set)....if you play the gig regular then the audience will get to know em. Gradually you can introduce more.
Speaking with my other head on...I also run acoustic open mic sessions and ran the north west songwriting competition for several years....and if I'm honest (no disrespect to anyone on here cos I aint heard any of you doing original stuff) what the songwriter thinks is a good song and what the audience thinks is worth listening to are two different matters! LOL

A lot of musicians 'write' songs that frankly aren't very good...and I include myself here...the writer thinks they're good but no-one else does. I once met a girl who told me quite openly that she had written more than a thousand songs...and she was only around 28 years old
! Now bearing in mind that Lennon & McCartney only wrote around 100 , and Bob Dylan's only written about 500 in nearly 50 years...thats some claim.

We're basically a blues based rock band...we can take our pick from thousands and thousands of old blues songs, and if we wanted say we'd written em...nobody would ever know, but even then we'd be in trouble if we didn't do certain standards or did a whole night of obscure stuff.

Look at it another way...if you go to see your favourite artist in concert you'd be really pissed off if they just did two hours of stuff you'd never heard before. I like Dylan, but if he did a full show of brand new numbers I'd miss some of the classics. And that would be in a concert situation....at a pub gig where you don't concentrate fully on the music anyway cos there's other things going on, that would be even harder to take.

I guess it all boils down to why you're playing in a band anyway...I do it for the laugh..its fun!If you're serious about being a recording band then pub gigs aren't for you anyway. There's an awful lot of people who write songs, and an awful lot of people who write songs that really aint worth a bean...and there's very few (even from professional songwriters) that I would like to spend an evening listening to in a pub....unless I'd first heard them and familiarised myself with them at home.

Just slip the odd one in both sets see how they go, and take it from there.

I know one band...not on here yet, but I still won't name em...who did all originals...they were really catchy numbers, but then after a while I realised they'd just picked a good song eg a ZZ Top one, slightly altered the arrangement and stuck new words to it. They'd done em all like that...so you'd get say ...Whole lotta Rosie, slightly different and revamped, then a Motorhead one, slightly different etc etcetc. And they got away with it for years :o)

amen night trains earlier comment. the amount of bands that you speak to and theyve writtend over a hundred songs for their next deme when you hear them and you realise all 100 are shite!!!
i like listening to bands live, be it covers or originals but i havent heard a band play a decent original tune for about 5 years now.
if i hear another daft band singing about his ex girlfriend or just blatently ripping off oasis etc im gonna go mad.
theres one quite big local band who i wont name and every single one of their tunes is a fucking stone roses or smiths rip off! it does my head in!!!!

"Alec, that Thai Bird Flu Blues song you wrote was amazing!

Do you still play it?"

I deny all knowledge of said song, your honour! LOL

no mr nwb. and i wont be dragged into naming names as ive already been on the wrong side of this band in the past and its not pretty!!!!!

a wise man once said to me.. "PEOPLE DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE...BUT THEY WILL ALWAYS LIKE WHAT THEY KNOW"...thanks dad

scott-there are two bands on here-furyuk and decadenze, both consisting of, relatively, young musos-who have followed night "trians"(!) words of wisdom. by mixing in some covers with their own material they are now both well on their way to being major players on the circuit.my personal opinion, from being on both sides of the mic, is that a 60/40 split in favour of covers seems to be about right at first, then, as you gain ground, fit one or two more of your own in/? :-)

I don't see the point in doing both me. Listening to original music you've not heard before challenges the listener, something that cover band audiences aren't really after. I might be wrong, but I'm getting this from the fact that when we play a pub-style venue and run through some lesser known U2 numbers, even if we've given the performance of our lives sometimes people barely muster a clap!
For me cover bands are an extended version of a DJ, they want to hear the tracks they know.

Do all your own orginal material and fuck em!if you really do believe in it? there the rub?

you wont get many gigs but the one's you do get you will always remember!!

be yourself and express yourself, be passionate and be known for what you really are and what you say

It matters in the end if only to yourself!

elias.t.hoth