Cover bands or original bands?

The band i'm in at the moment does a mixture of covers and our own original stuff.. We do some decent covers, and we do them well. The kind of covers we do arent mainstream - we do more stuff like Rancid and Suicide Machines, and occasionally Chili Peppers, as opposed to Snow Patrol etc. Over here, though, there arent that many venues where you can play live music and get paid for it. The best paying venue over here (Chambers, az66 will know where i mean) doesnt allow you to play original stuff, its the kind of place where people wanna listen to music they recognize.. So we wanna start playing there - we're mates with a few of the bands that play there and the main band that play there, but we dont just wanna be known for covers, so we're gonna do covers in places that pay well for covers and original stuff in the not so well paying places but we'll do it for fun and coz its what we enjoy. There are quite a few cover bands over here, and they get respected too, so i dunno.. we dont wanna be a cover band, but theres more of a market here for cover bands than original bands.. The 'main' band on the island, Velofax, is probably the best band on the island but hardly ever does gigs because most places here just wanna hear covers.. So, what do you guys think about cover bands compared to original bands?

PS whenever we do gigs, people always really enjoy hearing us play, but i wanna know if they enjoy listening to us, or just enjoy the covers we do, you know?

I can understand doign covers as being path of the course - you know, intersperse your first couple of gigs with a few covers, but venues refusing you just because you do both originals and covers.....fuck them man. What if...I dunno, U2 turned up, and said 'well, we'd like to play, but is it right we can only do covers?"

No, music will never eveolve and develop if you are constrained like that. Conider the group that have been the big thing for the kast 24 months over here: Franz Ferdinand. They got out of the 'covers or no venue' thing by finding, funding and prmoting their own venue, and it really worked to their advantage. I admit that when you <18 and cannot even afforda new set of strings for your axe, trysing to do something like that seems an impossibiliyt, but give it a try man. If it comes to it, just do open air free-bies, and if you get audiences, make sure your local paper covers it. Then throw that infront of the venue owners and see if they can be arrogant enought to refuse you then!

Keep on rocking man!

Cover bands are crap, thats what Dj's are for, at least dj's tend to put a bit of a spin on the songs.

Any cover band ive heard is allways shit, very few of the 'musicians' know music at all and probobly learnt the song off tabs, i wouldnt mind cover bands so much if they did a cover of a song, but improvised a bit, or extended the break(s) or just put their own personal twist to it, theres nothing great about copying something else.

With regard to Franz ferdinand,(who i think are shit but thats a differant story) I Hired a hall from the council a few years ago for a gig with a few local bands including my own, had I funded it all myself (insurance, rent, etc) it would have cost under 200 to put the night on, after the gig, i had over 400 quid cash. It helps if you have your own Sound gear, or you can borrow it from somewhere, and you MUST have someone who knows how to operate it, the gear is useless without knowing how it works.

Flyers are probobly the best way to advertise, as well as local websites, make sure tonnes of people know about your event as they wont all come

well my bro works for an audio-visual conferencing company.. actually, THE A-V conferencing company over here, and they put on pretty much every major gig over here.. so we can get anything we need from his work for free - a PA system, amps if we need them, lights, cameras, etc.. we've been talkin about putting on an open air gig over here, charging a few quid for tickets, etc, and getting all the local bands we can find to do it.. it'll cost a few quid to organize, but our drummers dad is a 'centenier' (umm hard to explain what that is.. sort of a politician/policeman) over here so he can get planning permission, permission to sell alcohol, etc, and he would be up for risking some cash to organize it as long as he can get it back.. its a good idea, but itll take some planning :)

With alcohol you need people to sell it and they cost money, as does the security you might need if people get rowdy from drinking...

Its not easy, but its so fucking rewarding on the night 5 minutes before the end when you realise while everything may not have gone to plan(because SOMETHING will happen to challange your quick fix problem solving) but it happened because you put the hard work in to make it happen...

Best of luck.