Awesome Stuff

I received a call earlier today from one of my former bandmates, the lead guitarist whose first name is Matt, and the conversation went as follows:

Matt: I had this idea that we could do a show and cover some 90’s stuff, no particular genre, just stuff we like.

146: That’s not bad, you could do pop songs, but good pop songs. Call it something like, “A Reminder of the Songs You Just Forgot.”

Matt: That’s not bad, but I said, ‘we.’

146: When?

Matt: I was thinking New Year’s Eve.

146: I can’t help you man, I don’t have the time to prepare for that right now.

Matt: Dude, it’s almost three months away. Are you forgetting about that wedding show that I helped you with on such short notice last year?

146: You seem pretty set on that date, why?

Matt: I may have…well…I might have already booked us.

146: WHAT!?

Matt: It’s at (Bar Name) remember? It’s still the same owner, that guy loved us!

146: What’s the pay?

Matt: Six-Hundred, or 10% of the bar’s revenue that night, greater of the two.

146: Six-Hundred dollars on New Year’s Eve!? See, that’s why I always handled that kind of shit, I’d have kicked you out of the band for that!

Matt: We haven’t played a paid gig in nearly seven years.

146: Why not get someone else? Just advertise it as the band name featuring Matt (Last Name) from Dethstryke.

Matt: Dude said he wants you to do it. It seemed like he just misses bullshitting with you than really wanting you to sing, but he said that we played all those shows there and then he never saw you again.

146: Maybe not. I was in there a few times after we disbanded. Maybe I saw him, maybe I didn’t. You already told him I agreed to it, didn’t you?

Matt: I may have. Jessica’s in.

146: My wife will like that.

Matt: Don’t bullshit me. Jessica told me your wife met her and thinks she’s great.

146: Fine, how long is the set?

Matt: Three hours, 10:30-2:00, there’s a DJ opening for us. Half hour intermission from 12:15-12:45.

146: Fine, given a half hour intermission, and some bullshitting and stalling, we’ll need 30-35 songs. You had better hope my voice holds up and I have something left to give post-intermission. You’re going to need to slide a few instrumentals in there, ‘Call of Ktulu,’ by Metallica, something like that, or you could just do an instrumental version of one of our songs and come up with a four to eight measure lead-in to a cover.

Matt: Shouldn’t be tough.

146: Two more conditions.

Matt: Okay.

146: I can’t practice weekly. I can find two hours every other week just to make sure we get the timing where it needs to be. I’ll take care of my end of the deal, you know that, I’ll know these songs. You, Jessica and whoever else you get probably needs to practice weekly. I’ve also got a family, so this is a one-off thing for me, at most I’ll do something like this twice a year, so if you want to seriously continue after this, you’ll need another singer.

Matt: What else?

146: I get half the setlist.

Matt: Deal.

See next post for setlist.

Matt and I continued talking and we have established the following 32-song tentative setlist of sheer Bad-Assness, and modified the show’s title a little bit:

Barometric Pressure (Formerly Known as DethStryke)
Brings You
The Songs You Just Forgot (The Best of the 90’s)

1.) “Man in the Box”-Alice In Chains

*I might as well start with a difficult fucking song, he chose this one. He demanded we open with it.

2.) “Ordinary World”-Duran Duran

*I chose this and wanted it to follow any Hard Rock song. I love abrupt genre switches during a live show.

3.) “Plush”-Stone Temple Pilots

*He loves it, kind of in the same vein as “Man in the Box.”

4.) “Punk Rock Song”-Bad Religion

*I picked it. I wanted to get something Punk out there nice and early to prevent the Emo kids from leaving.

5.) “Gangsta’s Paradise (Acoustic Folk Version)”-Coolio

*He loved it when we did this. I think it’s fucking ridiculous, but I love it also.

6.) “Cease”-Greg Graffin

-It’s a piano version (can be pulled off on keyboard) of the Bad Religion song from Graffin’s solo effort, American Lesion

7.) “The Call of Ktulu”-Metallica

*It’s one of the instrumentals, not actually from the 90’s. It’s a cheap way to give me a break because not only is it a long instrumental, but the guitarists have to switch back to electric gear!

8.) “It’s No Good”-Depeche Mode

*Not one of their better-known songs, but an absolutely fantastic piece, fun to sing.

9.) “Santeria”-Sublime

*Fun song because you can intentionally be all over the place (with respect to singing) just sort of fucking around and it still sounds good.

10.) “Somebody to Shove”-Soul Asylum

*This one is a little harder than the more well-known, “Runaway Train.”

11.) “Daylight Fading”-Counting Crows

*This is one of their least well-known actual releases. I hope Matt’s not under the impression I can sing this at all respectably.

12.) “Sex & Candy”-Marcy Playground

*I loved this song. It was so amazingly simple, but tells an interesting story. Easy to sing, almost a break in and of itself.

13.) “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”-Deep Blue Something

*In my opinion, one of the greatest songs ever. Anyone that disagrees can fuck themselves. j/k

14.) “Breathe”-Prodigy

*Fucking awesome super-charged kick-ass, bad-ass tear it the fuck up and down Metal song."

15.) “Song 2”-The Blur

*Easy song, still gets a great response. Whoo-Hoo!

16.) “Got the Life”-Korn

*Matt will actually handle the lead singing for this song, I called bullshit on him, but he says he can do it. He said he just needs my help on the refrain.

17.) “Time”-Hootie & The Blowfish

*I fucking love this song, fuck anyone who doesn’t.

18.) “Gel”-Collective Soul

*This song is OK, I wouldn’t have picked it, though.

19.) “Death of a Fry Jockey”-Barometric Pressure (DethStryke)

*Not doing the instrumental thing. We’re just going to slide a total of three of our songs into the set for the Hell of it.

20.) “No Leaf Clover”-Metallica

*Barely a 90’s song. Matt and I both love it, it is our favorite Metallica song and I kick this song’s fucking ass like Hetfield wishes he could!

INTERMISSION

21.) “Glycerine”-Bush

*Beautiful song. This one will just be me with Matt on the guitar, like Gavin Rossdale did it at Woodstock '99.

22.) “One Headlight”-The Wallflowers

*I love it, he hates it, love beats hate.

23.) “If I Were to Die”-Barometric Pressure (DethStryke)

*It’s a ballad.

24.) “Popular”-Nada Surf

*I hate this song, but we want to give a shout-out to Nada Surf and this is the only song by them anyone will know.

25.) “Smells Like Teen Spirit”-Nirvana

*I fucking hate Nirvana. He loves them, again, love beats hate.

26.) “What’s There Not to Dislike?”-Barometric Pressure (DethStryke)

*I might post the lyrics to this if anyone wants me to, it’s kind of a fun, poppy song. Unusual for our originals, somewhat satirical and somewhat honest.

27.) “Boyz N’ The Hood”-Dynamite Hack (Eazy E)

*Okay, so we’re covering the Dynamite Hack version of an Eazy E cover of a rap song that they turned into a power-pop song. Got it? I didn’t think so, but it works. Oh yeah, it was also released in early 2000, but we’re hoping nobody’s counting at this time of the night.

28.) “Dragula”-Rob Zombie

*Everyone loves this song, including me. With the exception of song #30, I’m going for a Metal/Hard Rock finish with the last five songs.

29.) “Living Dead Girl”-Rob Zombie

*A whisper, “What are you thinking about?” I’m thinking about two Rob Zombie songs in a row because I fucking can!

30.) “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”-Aerosmith

*I fucking hate Aerosmith. However, there has to be a slow-dancing ballad toward the end of a set like this, those are the rules, I didn’t write them.

31.) “A Secret Place”-MegaDeth

*I fucking destroy this song. There is not a song on Earth (including our originals) where I am better than I am on this song. I reach into the fucking bodies of every single audience member and rip out their fucking souls when I sing this song!

32.) “Bawitdaba”-Kid Rock

*I’m sorry. I hate doing this, I hate closing with this. I just needed a recognizable song that the crowd will get behind…I’m so sorry.

JUST KIDDING!

We added another song to avoid closing with Bawitdaba:

33.) “Semi-Charmed Life”-Third Eye Blind

*Best drug song ever, and fun as Hell! We decided not to close with a Metal song, because I always like to do a, “Crowd-Walk,” on the last song and this is a good crowd-walking song.

I’ll have my wife ready for, “How do I get myself back to the place where I fell asleep inside you, how do I get myself back to…,” so I can toss a wink at her for the naughty line.

Anything I should add or subtract?

That’s pretty awesome! If you did well singing, “Sometimes,” then I think you’re probably a pretty good singer and should consider exploring other songs. Also, singing, the power-pop version of, “Boyz N’ the Hood,” solo indicates that you have strong breathing control because there are almost no breaks during the verses if you’re not singing it as a duo.

The main thing is breathing control and being able to carry a tune. An individual’s actual voice doesn’t particularly matter as much as many people think. Consider Rod Stewart, even if he can be said to have a good voice (I don’t think he does) everything sounds the same and he gets away with it because it’s pleasant. Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) does have a fantastic voice, but he does the same thing on nearly every song and gets away with it. Whoever the lead singer from Oasis is, his voice is truly dreadful, but if I heard one of their songs on the radio, I wouldn’t change it, I appreciate his singing ability. I almost hold it separate from the voice in a way.

I don’t have that great of a voice if you want to know the truth. Especially towards the end of a set, I get slightly raspy so I like to close with Metal songs because it works. Usually if I want to pull out one song at the end where I need to sing very clearly, such as, “Semi-Charmed Life,” I can pull it together at the end, but it’s tough. I switch from drinking bottled water to sipping warm-hot tea around the middle of the set if I can compel someone to make me some tea. Earl Grey works well because it’s slightly acrid but clears the sinuses in a hurry. It’s acrid in a good way if that makes any sense.

Back to “Boyz N’ The Hood,” it’s a truly terrific cover kind of similar to what we do with Gangsta’s Paradise, only our version of Gangsta’s Paradise is more folky. I especially like putting a dramatic pause in, “As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke…fool,” and singing the word ‘fool’ very slowly for a comedic effect.

It’s a shame you live on the opposite side of the country from me. If there’s anyone who takes an interest in singing I’m always willing to take a little time here and there to work with them. The fundamentals are not all that difficult and it does not take all that long to learn the fundamentals.

If you’ve got breathing control, then you’re already halfway there. I think that’s the one thing when it comes to singing where you either have it or you don’t. I mean, a person can learn to control his/her breathing better if they already have some idea how to control it, but some people just can’t physically grasp the idea. “I breathe how I fucking breathe, man,” something like that.

As far as pitch changes and limitation of range is concerned, look at the examples like Rod Stewart or Mark Knopfler I threw out there, I don’t even think Rod Stewart can even really be said to have any range. A nasally voice could be tough, but I could name at least twenty major performers that fit that description. You can actually work that to your advantage with some kind of emo, or maybe an early punk whiny sound. It’s not a death sentence, in any case.

You should get some free lessons. I believe you mentioned that you go to college, so just find someone there who is in a band and ask them if they will take a little time to teach you the basics. Maybe you know someone in a band that can teach you the basics.

To a certain extent, the difference between being a good singer and a poor one is to know your limitations, if you go outside of your limitations it will sound dreadful, I don’t care who you are. If you stay within your limitations, and have good breathing control, at an absolute worst you’ll still turn a few heads doing Karaoke. That’s at worst, I strongly emphasize.