Black Crows Hard to Handle. I have been playing it wrong all these years.

[Count Bassy]

It's not wrong, it's different. Unless you are trying to be a Black Crows Tribute, and even then I'm not sure that it matters much.

If the whole band play it "Perfectly" as per the CD then you might as well stick the CD on.

[Count Bassy]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Kinda reminds me of discussions I've had with bandmates and deps around playing a part that fits the song vs playing the bass line / guitar riff / drum pattern of the song.

 

Must admit I really appreciate working with drummers who include the fills and nuances of particular songs we cover vs simply bashing out a rhythm and tempo that fits the song. Maybe that's equivalent to us just playing the root notes?

 

Sure it can be "fun" to keep things simple, and horses for courses, if that is all we want to be doing with our music - getting out and gigging can be massively fulfilling in itself! But equally if we don't have to settle for less, then why not aim to be the best musicians we can? And I'm saying that knowing I've got a very long way to go...  

However: Playing the notes exactly as the original is not nessecarily being the best musician you can!

 

It's the same old argument. Do you think that the Black Crows played it the same every time? I suspect not.

[Terry M.]

4 minutes ago, Count Bassy said:

However: Playing the notes exactly as the original is not nessecarily being the best musician you can!

Thank you 👍

[dave_bass5]

8 minutes ago, Count Bassy said:

It's not wrong, it's different. Unless you are trying to be a Black Crows Tribute, and even then I'm not sure that it matters much.

If the whole band play it "Perfectly" as per the CD then you might as well stick the CD on.

What utter rubbish 🤣

[Terry M.]

10 minutes ago, Count Bassy said:

It's not wrong, it's different.

This.

[peteb]

Just looked at a recent version of them playing it on the Howard Stern Show with the great Tim Lefebvre on bass and he plays the A, not the G#...! 

 

[Geek99]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

 

 

Worst case ive witnessed is a band i auditioning on keys last year. They were doing Crazy Little thing call love. The bass player played just repeating root notes for each chord, instead of the walking bass line. When i mentioned it (as diplomatically as i could), it turned out they have been doing it this way for about a year, at gigs. No one had ever complained or commented at gigs, although they realised it wasnt right. The bass player ‘just didnt have time to work it out’ I walked away from that one. 

 

I Assume Google doesn’t work for him.
A tab or two gets you close enough 

 

well that took ages…. Who is this @TKenrick dude anyway ? 
https://freebasstranscriptions.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Queen-Crazy-Little-Thing-Called-Love-edit.pdf

Edited 10 hours ago by Geek99

[Count Bassy]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

What utter rubbish 🤣

[Terry M.]

59 minutes ago, peteb said:

Just looked at a recent version of them playing it on the Howard Stern Show with the great Tim Lefebvre on bass and he plays the A, not the G#...! 

 

And I bet it didn't sound "wrong?"

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

I learnt loads of songs quickly back in the day, and over the years ive gone back and fixed them. When i find im playing something wrong ill try and fix it, not just go ‘meh, the audience are still dancing so how cares’ etc. For me its about self pride. There is no reason on earth not to try your best at anything you do. 

 

When I joined the current band there were a few songs I'd done before, and I went back to some of them to check I was playing things right. Discovered I hadn't been playing "Run to you" exactly right, so I corrected that.

 

I'm house bassist at a couple of open mic nights and the host plays certain songs regularly, so I have checked most of them out to see that I was reasonably consistent with the original.

 

Something that annoys me at another open mic, where there's no house bassist but the host's assistant is a guitarist who owns a bass, is that said guitarist who owns a bass (who is, in fairness, f*cking awful as a bassist) is the favoured one to accompany a couple of the regulars, and one of the songs that one of those regulars does regularly is "Folsom Prison Blues". Possibly triggered by the word "blues", the guitarist who owns a bass always plays a walking bass line (extraordinarily badly) to this rather than the proper root-5th country line.

[Geek99]

3 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Something that annoys me at another open mic, where there's no house bassist but the host's assistant is a guitarist who owns a bass, is that said guitarist who owns a bass (who is, in fairness, f*cking awful as a bassist) is the favoured one to accompany a couple of the regulars, and one of the songs that one of those regulars does regularly is "Folsom Prison Blues". Possibly triggered by the word "blues", the guitarist who owns a bass always plays a walking bass line (extraordinarily badly) to this rather than the proper root-5th country line.

Loser 

totally get why that would piss you off 

[tauzero]

9 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by tauzero

[peteb]

31 minutes ago, Terry M. said:

And I bet it didn't sound "wrong?"

 

Of course it doesn't, it's Tim Lefebvre playing it. I'm sure that he wouldn't play anything that sounded 'wrong', or that the band wasn't happy with! 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by peteb

[Terry M.]

13 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

Of course it doesn't, it's Tim Lefebvre playing it. I'm sure that he wouldn't play anything that sounded 'wrong', or that the band wasn't happy with! 

 

That's my point,no matter who played it an A is an A and it sounded good. Had no idea this cover version even existed before the start of this thread. Otis Redding fan here.

Edited 9 hours ago by Terry M.

[Doctor J]

I recall a similar major/minor line issue at a Stone Roses tribute many years ago. The bassist in question constantly played one passing note of the chorus of She Bangs The Drums one fret from where it should have been. Most people didn't notice but, to me, it came across as half-arsed. If you're charging money, and it's as hard to get it wrong as it is to get it right, it's just laziness not to get it right, regardless of whether anyone but you notices or not.

[TimR]

Doesn't the original have brass?

 

To be honest, I can't be bothered to bring a brass section into the pub for a single song.

 

So the bass and guitar will have to have a different arrangement to cover that song. Black Crowes arrangement, Otis Reding, Committments, or our arrangement. Most people are just listening to the singer. 

 

 

[Dan Dare]

"I'm sticking it to The Man/making a stand for artistic freedom by playing a load of wrong notes". Cool.

Edited 1 hour ago by Dan Dare

[Terry M.]

6 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

"I'm sticking it to The Man/making a stand for artistic freedom by playing a load of wrong notes". Cool.

We're discussing one semitone 🤣

[Dan Dare]

26 minutes ago, Terry M. said:

We're discussing one semitone 🤣

 

No, we're not. As someone who has stated above that reworking entire songs = artistic freedom, etc, you should know that. That one semitone started the discussion, but it's broadened a lot more since.