Your Most Difficult Cover Ever?

[QuickGig]

The title explains everything.

 

What was your most difficult cover that you did with your band (or by yourself)?

Explain why it was so difficult.

[Rudi]

Anything by Dexys Midnight Runners. We still have 2 songs in our set. 'There There my dear' and 'Geno'.

 

They are written in ways that owe nothing to any traditional structure. Learning them is not so bad, but when we have anybody depping on a gig, we usually leave them out. An old pal of mine once stood in for our bassist. He's a good musician and he wanted the challenge of busking the set. I told him he would have to learn these songs and gave him recordings. He didnt listen and he balled them up. We actually had to abandon one of them after starting.

 

I use to be part of a host band for jam nights. We would often have to try to play songs we didnt know too well to accomodate a 'new' player. I recall someone wanted to do 'Smoke on the Water'. I knew the riff, but went blank on the rest of the song. Stuff like that will happen.

[TapperMike]

It wasn't the song as much as the gigs

 

When I was just starting to get into traditional jazz I had a rough go of it.  I wouldn't know the songs for stuffing and the band I'd sit in with would always be playing at 200 bpm. Hard and fast. The one thing I leared back then was the piano players left hand never lied. He'd always drop the root of the chord with his left hand pinky.  He was brutal to me on stage but I kept on going back for more.  Everytime I'd think I had a number down he'd change the key..  "Yeah I know it's in C but lets try it in Ab" Then he upped the anti one more time by changing the key and not even giving me that.  I got really good at not only learning songs quick to be played fast but developing my ear and transposing on the fly.  They were the hardest gigs of my life and even when I was on top of my game I still didn't get my due.  Finally I figured as much as I loved the music it just wasn't worth sitting in.  I did one last jam with Bobby Cole and we got a big write up in the local papers entertainment section.  The columnist was throwing heaps of praise on to my performance but not Bobby who was a local legend.  I met up with BC a few weeks later. He was happy that I was no longer sitting in.  I was stealing his light. He never wanted it to be a jazz jam as billed he always wanted it to be about him. It wasn't too much later that his drummer and bassist left him. When i was no longer his punching bag he turned it on them.  Had I stayed in the area I would have been happy to take his band with me as they were younger players who like me still loved jazz but also could rock.

[Steve]

Message in a bottle - Police

 

I always had trouble playing this. Mainly because the singer wanted us to play it in the wrong key! (Can't remember what that was now) It was ok to start, but after a short while, I would start to get cramps in my hand!