Nigel Harisson, may contain Blondie

[Phil Starr]

My new project is a covers band that only play female led songs. I got so bored playing Sex On Fire and Mr Brightside when there were just so many other songs equally iconic which almost nobody was doing. Why have a female singer if all you play is 70's male fronted rock plus a couple of 25 year old bangers to show you aren't really 70 years old?

 

Anywaty after the first couple of gigs together we discovered that our drummers idol was Clem Burke and one thing led to another and we decided to look at including a Tribute to Blondie into our set. The boot was suddenly on the other foot. I'd been pressuring (gently I hope) the new guitarist and drummer to learn our existing set but now I had to learn a dozen Blondie songs. I'm struggling with a couple but I'm absolutely loving it.

 

I'm thinking tributes might be a thing for me. Looking at a set of songs with the same bassist you find they re-use certain tricks and play in a certain way. It's a real education. These Blondie songs have such tighly written bass lines, there's usually a trademark key change but the fills aren't just fills they usually take you somewhere and it's all thought out or at least worked out. Whether that's Harrison or Chapman I don't know but for me its a real discipline learning a song from start to finish note for note. Picture This is a little bass gem four verses all start the same with some interesting bits of timing but then there are four different 'turnarounds' each with different chords and with a varying number of bars. I hadn't realised this project would be so much fun. I'm just hoping the audiences respond. We aren't planning on going the whole tribute band route just offering a Blondie and Friends set alongside our Female Anthems set but I'm loving being made to learn songs properly. Respect For Nigel Harrison too.

[Phil Starr]

Ooh "May Contain Blondie" that could be a band name

[dave_bass5]

We started doing Picture this, and yeah, it took me a few goes to get it right. Love playing that song. It seems to jump around a bit, but in a good way. 

 

Hanging on the Telephone is another one that we kept getting wrong for quite a while. mainly the singer. It's one of my favs to plat though. We even use a sample of the phone ringing at the start. 

 

We already do One way or another, but even with two guitarists we still have to get the keys player (me) to platy the guitar line at the end of the verses. They just can't get it. 

 

About to start Call me as well. Looking forward to that. 

 

Good luck with the songs, as you say, great fun to play. 

[Pow_22]

One of my favourite songs to play is Dreaming.  Great bassline and great tone on the original recording