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By
Mick Fazz
Many of my friends whom I love dearly play in
cover bands. Every so often, they'll ask me why I don't have
the urge to play out much anymore. (I still perform with an all
original band these days, but those gigs are few and far between.)
I can never give them a straight answer, yet I CAN offer a few
reasons why I don't....
1) I'm lazy. Having to set up
all that gear on a Friday afternoon, then tear it all down
again on Sunday morning at 3 am is just not my cup of tea.
The days of making $600.00 a night are long gone, where
we could afford roadies to do that stuff for us. Nuh uh.
Not to put 80 bucks in my pocket. I'm 56. I'm old. No way.
2) Club owners. I resent criticizing
the club owners from yesteryear. They may have been difficult,
but at least they afforded you some control over what you played.
Nowadays, they practically write up your set lists demanding
that you perform specific tunes from specific genres, and if
you deviate from that list ever so slightly...you don't get the
honor of playing their club.
3) No more "A" rooms. The days of classy rock n' roll bars are gone, gone,
gone. Nowadays, you're either playing a biker-cum-sports bar, or a 2x2 smoke
filled sh*t hole without a full bar or a working air conditioner...and to make
things worse, the crowds are anemic. If a band draws 40 people to a club today,
that's considered great. Hell, we used to have 40 people at our PRACTICES back
in the day! Gigs would have folks lined up outside the clubs waiting to get in.
Not the same...not by a long shot. |
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4) Just plain bored playing the same old songs over and over
for the nine billionth time.
The two songs that should never
ever ever be played live again ...
A) All Right Now.
It's been beat into the ground, and I've never
heard a band accurately cop the groove.
B) Rock
n' Roll by Zeppelin.
There are only a few, if any drummers on this planet
that can play that intro like Bonham, and the subsequent spaz-out
that occurs when the band comes in is just too unnerving.
Epilogue:
If you dig it, go for it. I'll come hear you play...and I do
like it loud....unless I'm trying to strike up a conversation
with a cocktail waitress, an imaginary one, 'cause they don't
seem to exist anymore either...
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