Greg Piper - Rock N Roll Addict - Cover Band vs Original Band

Hi, I'm Greg and I'm a Rockaholic!  Ever since I first saw The Beatles I always wanted to be in a band.  Like most bands, including The Beatles, I started out playing other people's music.  In fact, that is usually how you first learn to play any instrument.  You learn to play a song.  At least that's how I started out.  Eventually I met up with other musicians and we'd start a band, learn the popular songs of the times and eventually get gigs.  We'd play store openings, church functions, battle of the bands, school dances and eventually clubs.  I even put ads out in local newspapers that said "HAVING A PARTY?  RENT A BAND!"  We got loads of gigs.  It was great fun and very rewarding to know I could make a living playing music.  

It didn't take me very long to realize the way to potentially make really big bucks was to write your own music and either become famous or have someone else 'make it' with your song.  That was, and still is my dream.  Of course, what I didn't know in the early days was it takes connections, lots of financial backing, and sometimes getting on one's knees to make that a reality.  Oh, did I forget to mention, songwriting talent and stage presence and having a great band didn't hurt, either.  A lot of rejection is in the equation, too.  I was ignorant and thought I would be discovered!  But the bottom line is, if you can make an original song of yours become a hit in any way, you have set up a royalty situation for yourself.  That's where the real money is.  If you can write just one hit song (one hit wonder), you can live off that one song for the rest of your life!  How well you live depends on how successful the song becomes, how much radio play it gets, how many other artists cover the song, etc.

That doesn't mean writing your own music is for everyone.  I've seen some of the greatest musicians and super great cover bands attempt to do originals but the problem is they just don't come off as original.  It's not so easy to do.  Most band's originals sound like someone else.  How many Rolling Stones can we have?  Yet, to be original is very, very challenging.  When you're that unique, it can take people several listens to get comfortable with your 'original' sound and trip. And since everyone and their grandmother can 'write a song' these days, it really gets down to marketing, persistence, and a lot of luck to sustain as an original artist.

So, with me, it's both originals and covers.  I'm almost 59 years old and have been playing in rock bands, rock shows, tribute shows, theatrical rock productions, anything rock and roll related to pay the bills and continue to play rock n roll music!  And, at the same time I have my original trip, The Tooners and Rock N Rol Rehab.  Am I giving up?  Hell no!  Why should I?  Or, maybe it's more like, "What else Can I Do?"  Who's gonna hire me outside of music?  

Bottom line, it really doesn't matter whether you play originals or covers . . . as long as you keep on rocking!

The Electricity Of Rock And Roll

The Tooners had a recent show in a local bar and our lead singer, Greg Piper, kept getting shocked every time his lips got too close to the microphone. We had a soundman supplied by the venue but he didn’t seem to be able, or willing, to do anything about it. In this day and age this is unacceptable.

The Yardbird’s lead singer, Keith Relf, was electrocuted while playing an electric guitar while sitting in a metal lawn chair in his yard. Other musicians have actually died on stage from electrocution. My worst experience was when I was a kid and my friend and I dragged an amp and our electric guitars into his bathroom in order to make use of the echo. I sat on the toilet seat playing my blue Saint George electric guitar when my elbow touched the metal handle of the toilet. I got a shock that hit my funny bone, traveled down my arm into my hand and literally threw me off the toilet.

It always bothers me when I see these big outdoor rock festivals where the bands keep playng even though it’s raining on the stage. I suppose if you know what you’re doing you can ground all the electrical equipment so you won’t get electrocuted if it gets wet but you’re really trusting the roadies and soundman who may have gotten that job just because he’s the promoter’s brother and doesn’t really have a clue. I get real nervous when I’m onstage, under the hot lights, nervous and sweating like a pig and I watch these huge drops of sweat dropping off my nose, falling down to my electric guitar and splashing over the pickups. That can’t be good.

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The Job Of The Artist

Being an artist, and by artist I mean a writer, a filmmaker, a painter, a songwriter or a musician who is self employed, your job is not to please the public or the critics but to follow your own muse and create something that hasn’t been created before. Period. Forget about creating something ‘good’. The term good can only be applied to something that is a copy or at least derivative of something that has already been created and has weathered the critical attacks bestowed upon the new, the rebellious and the innovative and has eventually been accepted. Sometimes this process takes generations.

There isn’t a successful artist out there whose work is not hated by a large group of people. The ‘inoffensive’ artists do not stand the test of time. Art can been seen as method to elicit emotions, perhaps viewed as ARTificially created emotion. Those works that do not cause a strong emotional response are eventually forgotten, usually quite quickly. Strong emotional response means both love and hate. For every person who deeply loves something there is someone somewhere who really doesn’t like it.

A good example of this phenomena is The Three Stooges. People either are fans, or they can’t stand them. You’ll find few who know their work at all and are ambivalent. My sons and I are fans since I turned them onto the original Columbia shorts when the kids were small. My wife, like most women I know, find them useless. When my sons and I recently went to see the Three Stooges reboot movie I heard behind me, among all the male laughter, a lone woman’s voice saying, “This is STUPID!”

This LOVE / HATE relationship that artists (entertainers) have with the public is what fuels the fans. Some people will like something because they’re inspired by the hate that is generated in others. The Three Stooges are perhaps only rivaled in this love them or hate them category by The Rolling Stones. Their fans love them because other people, usually their parents, hate them. Liking both these acts seems like an act of rebellion. Certainly, you’re not suppose to condone the violent antics of The Three Stooges so laughing at them gives you both a sense of guilt as well as a sense of rebellion which feels like liberation. This is a major appeal of Rock and Roll as well.

As my old band mate and member of The Free Radicals, Randy MacKay, has said; “If you don’t offend at least twenty-five percent of your audience you’re not working hard enough.”

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The Demographics Of Rock And Roll

I’m a big believer in demographics, that is, if you want to see the trends of the future look at the population. After a major war you will probably see a baby boom as the returning soldiers start families. This baby boom will cause a rise in car and home sales, both big indicators of a growing economy. After a few years clothing and entertainment will  start to show some action as children need to be clothed and have toys to play with no matter how bad the economy may be. This trend continues into the teenage years only substitute toys for bikes, CDs, electronic gadgets and small cars. Then the population swell hits its twenties and the economy tanks again as a huge number of people enter a job market that has for years maintained an equilibrium.

The economy is like water; it seeks its own level. There will be jobs for those who desire them but unless there is a boom in technology, the job market will not substantially increase over the size of the population. When a new generation enters this flat job market it causes a surge in unemployment as there are no jobs for these people. Why should there be? We didn’t need these jobs when the kids were all fifteen years old, but now that they’re eighteen they’re expected to find employment.

Apply this to the music business when the largest segment of the population, the aging Baby Boomers of the late 1940s to mid 1960s, ceases to buy new music. Boomers love music but they love their music. They’ve had forty years of music from which to choose and are not particularly interested in what their childrens music sounds like. After all, it mostly copies what came before, as did their own music, but now they’re more musically educated and can spot unoriginality much easier. Why buy something ‘Beatlesque’ when you can just listen to your Beatles records?

Folks may lament the passing of the neighborhood record store and blame digital downloading by the kids but it’s really the gigantic population swell that is the Baby Boomers no longer buying music that’s more to blame. We Boomers have our music and that’s all the music we’ll need for the rest of our lives. That music we loved in the 60s, 70s and 80s (and maybe a little 90s) still hasn’t gotten old to us. In fact, listening to the old songs helps us retain our youth. it’s not that we old folks don’t need music anymore, it’s that we already have all we need.

Levon Helm Of The Band

Last week Levon Helm of The Band died. The Band were a hugely influential band of the Sixties that Eric Clapton said inspired him to quit Cream after he heard their first album. I think what Clapton heard in The Band was the white man’s version of roots music. Clapton was a blues purist but he realized that the Blues came from rural black society and as a white Englishman he could only pretend but The Band’s music was reminiscent of rural white society of about the same time frame as the birth of the Blues.

Called ‘Old Timey Music’ or the current term, ‘Americana’, the folk music of the white poor of Appalachia of the late nineteenth Century / early Twentieth Century had the same feeling and attitude as that of the Southern black blues and a lot of both American and English musicians instantly felt a kinship to it. It was, of course, reinterpreted through the filter of Rock & Roll as was a lot of other musical styles such as Jazz (by the Zombies), Country (Flying Burrito Brothers) and Classical (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) and made into pop/rock hits while still maintaining an aire of authenticity in songs such as The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

Elton John has said that The Band’s Music From Big Pink album inspired him to record his Tumbleweed Connection album and many young pop and folk artists of today site The Band as a major influence.

Levon Helm’s death from cancer means that three fifths of The Band are no longer available for a band reunion. Although their image was one of old fashion styles and mores, none seemed the typical Rock Star type, they are now perhaps the most decimated of the Sixties bands. If the sex, drugs and rock and roll don’t get you time eventually will. Rest in peace, Levon.

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Recharging The Music Industry

By Chris Gordon

If you think about it, the internet did as much harm to the music industry as good. Yeah, it’s nice to think that independent artists can now get their music out there at little or no cost to them. Yes, it is nice that fans can seek out new music and new bands with a simple click of the mouse, however they have to wade through a cesspool of crap to get to something decent and even then most of the stuff that is self produced is mediocre at best!

It is easy to forget that one reason the records that we grew up with were so good was because they were produced, and branded! Yes, nothing was released until it was time, until all the parts were in place and ready to go. We as listeners took home the whole package from the record store. Now, most bands will take a photo, produce their music in their home studio, compress the shit out of it, mix quickly down to a load of MP3s and release it on iTunes. Simple, right? You bet. Too simple! No mileage, no real work, no true discipline in the creation. Now that audiophiles are far and few between most people just want the music that is convenient. Something that they can download quickly to their iPhone, etc., shove some phones in their ears and hit the track while your music becomes.... you you guessed it...... background music! This is what killed Jazz folks! It became wallpaper, and now that is what is happening to Rock and Roll! Background music, wallpaper, mediocre crap that doesn’t infringe on the listeners self absorbed important life. Where is the fun? Where is the wonder and act of listening? It has disappeared and so is the art of making great Rock and Roll!

So what do we do? Stop putting your music up on the internet folks. Your need for instant gratification and accolades has driven everyone to throw their crap up for all their friends to hear. Hey, When you give your crap away, even the bad or at best mediocre crap,you devalue it. No one will care in the long run. Trust me. Take a look around.

Get a band together, do a ton of shows and cultivate your show and your sound. Then go into a studio and bring an experienced ear in with you to help guide you through the recording process. If you need auto-correct on your vocals, you ain’t ready. Your drummer can’t play to a click? Better spend another month in the rehearsal hall. Stop jumping into things that you are not ready for and giving a bad first impression. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so make it count!

When you make that recording, spend the right time and money recording, mixing, and mastering it. Make sure the artwork is exactly what you want and that it looks good. Then, start your distribution research. Do your publishing research, get affiliated with ASCAP, BMI, etc. From there look into what is the best market for what you are doing. Get your merchandise together and head back out to the clubs selling your music and merch everywhere you play. If you put your stuff up on the internet, put it in Amazon and iTunes without free downloads. If you put anything up on the internet for free, only put 30 second clips up as teasers.

I would love to see some more Mom and Pop record shops pop up selling real vinyl and real cds again, making the record buying public work a bit for the music they love. This also weeds out the family and friends that will buy your music on the internet as a Mercy F#$%, to “Show Their Support”, even if they don’t like your music. This is a bizarre thing because it builds an unrealistic view of your music and band. Your job is to gain fans that find your music intriguing and want to be a part of your vision. It’s a hard job and requires constant attention to detail.

Well I hope to see things change by going back and learning from the ones that came before. Start listening to records again. Start really understanding what goes into making a record and a brand, it’s a business folks, and a business that needs to be cultivated on a daily basis. Be a great musician, be a great businessman, and be a caring artist.

Why “American Bandstand” Was Important

The news of Dick Clark's passing on April 18 came as a bit of shock to the entire world. Clark's apparent agelessness became something of a joke as well as a kind of legend and a lot of people found it surprising that the man could be felled by a heart attack and old age just like anybody else.

Most younger people probably remember Dick Clark as the long-time host of “New Year's Rockin' Eve,” a live show that has been broadcast on every New Year's Eve since 1972. He was also the long-time host of the game show “$25,000 Pyramid.” However, the show that really made Dick Clark a household name was “American Bandstand.”

There probably aren't a lot of younger readers who will remember “American Bandstand,” but for more than 30 years it was the place to hear the latest music and learn about the latest trends and dance crazes. It didn't invent rock and roll, but many feel that it helped to bring it to a nationwide audience when ABC began to broadcast it nationally in 1957.

The road to become a famous musician or recording artist has always been a strange one. Technically, the only really important part of becoming famous in the world of music is being able to play music, whether that be classical music, rock, jazz, blues or anything else. Musicians practice hard, they write songs and they might even take the time to earn an MFA degree. It's all so that they can excel at playing their music, but that doesn't seem to be enough in this day and age. The biggest and most successful artists in the world do far more than just sing and play their instruments. A great recording artist has to be able to perform on stage or in front of a camera. Younger audiences might be more familiar with their favorite artists thanks to music videos on YouTube (or MTV back when that station actually played videos) or live performances on television. Artists need to be personalities as well as musicians and that doesn't always come across over the radio as well as it does on TV. “American Bandstand” gave hundreds of artists the chance to show their personalities and allow fans across the country to truly connect with them. In a lot of ways, it was almost a precursor to MTV. There may not have been music videos the way we know them, but the idea of having live (or lip-synched) performances on TV in front of a live audience definitely paved the way for that.

“American Bandstand” took a relatively simple concept and turned it into an institution that changed the way music artists were perceived and marketed for all time. There probably won't be anything like it ever again. Not only did it no doubt inspire countless musicians and singers, but the fact that such a simple concept had such an impact may to this day inspire some to seek an education online in music or television production.

Sources

The Pop History Dig (2012)

The Museum of Broadcast Communications (2012)