After my last little band project, I agree that it easier to play originals over covers. We played a mix of covers, and their originals. But they did not need or even want me to necessarily cop their original guitarist's lines. They wanted me to feel the song and come up with my own, so I did not have to "cover" their guitarist. I found that easier, because I just listened to the songs a lot, and came up with my own ideas. In one song, I used a lot of his ideas, because I really liked them, but I changed them to fit me. The covers of known commercial music needed to have certain things in them to let the audience know what song it was. The exception was "Wooden Ships" by CSN. Stills just basically noodles in Em on that one, with no real recognizable riffs or licks, so that one I could make my own too.
Steve Thompson
Sun Valley, Idaho
Guitars: Fender 60th Anniversary Std. Strat, Squier CVC Tele Hagstrom Viking Semi-hollow, Joshua beach guitar, Martin SPD-16TR Dreadnought
Amphs: Peavey Classic 30, '61 Fender Concert
Effects and such: Boss: DS-1, CE-5, NS-2 and RC20XL looper, Digitech Bad Monkey, Korg AX1G Multi-effects, Berhinger: TU100 tuner, PB100 Clean Boost, Line 6 Toneport UX2, Electro Harmonix Little Big Muff Pi, DuhVoodooMan's Rabid Rodent Rat Clone, Zonkin Yellow Screamer Mk. II, MXR Carbon Copy Delay
love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart. . .
- j. johnson