Songs that make you do a double-take when you sit to down to play them

Reggae_Mangle

Reggae_Mangle

Silver Member
I'm sure everybody's had an experience like this: you approach a song for your band thinking, "This should be easy" and when you actually listen to it closer, you're like, "Woah, I think I'm going to have to a situation here".

Just started playing with a new band. This week, we're doing Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden. I'm a fan of the band and I've heard the song before, but when I sat down and listened to the album version, it struck me that he's playing double strokes on every hit of the bass drum, so much so that it almost sounds like running double bass, but isn't. I know how it sounds live and this is so different and so technical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nba3Tr_GLZU

Nico McBrain must have been high or on a power trip when he did this song for the album. What was he thinking? And what was I thinking when I said I could cover it?
 
Well ask yourself the question, if you don't do it exactly the same who will notice (other than you and other drummers)

Maybe its different in the UK, but slavishly copying a record has never been top requirement for me or the bands I've been in - the question is does it sound good
 
Provisions - August Burns Red

My first experience running into 7/8 time, so I'm currently working on learning that time sig. It's also a very hard song to begin with, so odd time signatures just complicate things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDXcb9Tv7CQ

Everlong - Foo Fighters

The sheer speed and length of the 16th's in the song are a bit over the top, fun song but more difficult than expected.
 
I know this sounds crazy but the very beginning of Honky Tonk Women is rather difficult to get "exactly" right. Sounds simple but.......
My band leader tried to get me to play it precisely like the original recording.
It is not that easy because, as the story goes, Mick Jagger played the cowbell. The cow bell part is simple, however the drums come in at a kind of a strange place during the cowbell part.
And the drums are a little bit sloppy as they come in. Maybe sloppy is not the right term, just rather loose playing.
Consequently I had to practice playing the cowbell and playing the base drum, tom and snare part for a while before I could do it "exactly" right.

.
 
Surf beats, like the very uptempo ones. They seem so easy "boom boom Bap Bap - boom boom bap" but once those damn 8th note beats get up there in tempo my right arm just can't hang.

I can play the hell out of a swing beat in the faster tempos, we just did the math in my main band and one song is 240 bpm, faster than the metronome app on my phone would go. If I were to try and play that as a rock/surf beat my arm would fall off.
 
How Long, the 70s tune by the band Ace. The hi-hat part is deceptively hard to make feel good.
 
I ran into this last night. Cue up Tom Petty's Don't Come Around Here No More.

Immediately it became apparent, it's not easy to play as it sounds. It's the same beat through a majority of the song.

After some time, all I got down was Hi-hat, Snare and Kick. I could not get the Tom timing down. All I can figure was various drum tracks laid down in the studio.

Even the live versions of Petty's band playing it don't come to close to the studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0JvF9vpqx8&list=RDh0JvF9vpqx8
 
Macarina said:
I ran into this last night. Cue up Tom Petty's Don't Come Around Here No More.

Immediately it became apparent, it's not easy to play as it sounds. It's the same beat through a majority of the song.

After some time, all I got down was Hi-hat, Snare and Kick. I could not get the Tom timing down. All I can figure was various drum tracks laid down in the studio.

Even the live versions of Petty's band playing it don't come to close to the studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0JvF9vpqx8&list=RDh0JvF9vpqx8
Click to expand...

There is a programmed drum machine running through much of the song. And a machine doesn't have to worry about only having two arms.
 
keirik said:
Well ask yourself the question, if you don't do it exactly the same who will notice (other than you and other drummers)

Maybe its different in the UK, but slavishly copying a record has never been top requirement for me or the bands I've been in - the question is does it sound good
Click to expand...

+1 Even other drummers may not notice. I must say that I never really understood the whole 'coping note for note' theory either. If you are playing charts then you need to be spot on. However, to me at least, when playing covers in most bands it's the about enjoying what I am playing and putting my own passion into it, and my own signature on originals. Maybe some of us are the exception. ;-) Of course you need to maintain the key elements of what the artist did and of course anything you play needs to sound good. :)
 
Maybe a rookie mistake here, but anything by Lynyrd Skynyrd'd drummer. It's so simple it's brilliant. I've had to study everything live on YouTube I can find just to see how the grove is going and study the guy's hands on the hats and ride. And Frank Beard of ZZ Top when he does his famous grooves on Tush, La Grange, and others. It's that Texas shuffle of his that's had to imitate becausehe doesn't do it in the "traditional" sense. Again, so simple it's brilliant. Watching the footage of these guys playing it's like a brick hitting you in the face because you realize "that's it"??!!? It seems a lot more complex.

JMHO
 
ncc said:
+1 Even other drummers may not notice. I must say that I never really understood the whole 'coping note for note' theory either. If you are playing charts then you need to be spot on. However, to me at least, when playing covers in most bands it's the about enjoying what I am playing and putting my own passion into it, and my own signature on originals. Maybe some of us are the exception. ;-) Of course you need to maintain the key elements of what the artist did and of course anything you play needs to sound good. :)
Click to expand...

phew, I'm not alone then :)
 
Hollywood Jim said:
I know this sounds crazy but the very beginning of Honky Tonk Women is rather difficult to get "exactly" right. Sounds simple but.......
My band leader tried to get me to play it precisely like the original recording.
It is not that easy because, as the story goes, Mick Jagger played the cowbell. The cow bell part is simple, however the drums come in at a kind of a strange place during the cowbell part.
And the drums are a little bit sloppy as they come in. Maybe sloppy is not the right term, just rather loose playing.
Consequently I had to practice playing the cowbell and playing the base drum, tom and snare part for a while before I could do it "exactly" right.

.
Click to expand...

hey Jim The real story is Jimmy Miller (producer) played the cowbell in the studio, he came in early on the start, so the drums (Charlie) came in out of sync. A beautiful mistake but they liked the result on playback and left it in ...for us all to try and copy. In no live version do they ever play it like that!
 
keirik said:
Well ask yourself the question, if you don't do it exactly the same who will notice (other than you and other drummers)

Maybe its different in the UK, but slavishly copying a record has never been top requirement for me or the bands I've been in - the question is does it sound good
Click to expand...

That has always been my experience. As long as I had the groove down and the song sounded good, this was all that mattered. I do not play double kick, but have covered songs which were and I do my best. I am fast (Not Bonham or Nicko fast), but we always pulled it out.

The Spirit of the music is what is important to me, did the audience enjoy themselves, did we enjoy ourselves.
 
opentune said:
hey Jim The real story is Jimmy Miller (producer) played the cowbell in the studio, he came in early on the start, so the drums (Charlie) came in out of sync. A beautiful mistake but they liked the result on playback and left it in ...for us all to try and copy. In no live version do they ever play it like that!
Click to expand...

Oh ! Thank you so much for this information. Makes me feel much better.
No wonder my brain and hands had so much trouble playing it.

I always liked Rolling Stone music because it was a little bit sloppy, or maybe I should say more carefree.


.
 
I guess it's not so much a double-take as a single-take, because I knew this tune would be tough to play before I sat down to play it; but I didn't realize just how hard until I tried it.

The tune I'm talking about is Petits Machins by the Miles Davis Quintet. Holy metric deletion! Just some crazy changes in the bar structure of the tune that varies seemingly randomly, yet the entire band effortlessly follows the changes, improvises over it and somehow makes it all flow. I've said for years that this is my favorite music group of all-time, and trying to keep up with this tune just reinforces my belief that these musicians were operating at a higher plane, both individually and collectively.

Whew!
 
Go for the vibe and groove on your own line...

SRV did it all the time. Keeps things fresh and if someone audience comes up after a gig and gives you any lip about it call the bouncers over so they can get their workout over with.
 
The intro to Car Wash. Simple right? Basic disco four on the floor with this clapping thing to start. Except that the first clap is on the 2, not the 1. Used to play this song with a drummer who could do the clap part on a side stick while bringing in the hi-hat and break into the intro fill right on time. I was playing guitar and had to start a lick on the real 1, so I had to tune out the clap part and follow his hat and the bass player.

Same guy played Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody with this odd hitch going into the and-4. John Robinson was a genius. There is this hitch in the beat that makes it lope along with an odd pulse. I've heard some great and soulful drummers play this song, but this guy was the only one who put the hitch in it like JR did. I've worked at trying to get it right. Sometimes a bass player gets it and goes along. Most are used to the beat being straight through and it throws them off.
 
I had a go at Love Bites by Halestorm just for fun a while back, but I didn't realise just how fast that song is until I tried to play it. After struggling to keep the energy up, I checked it with my metronome and it's actually speeding along at 250 bpm!

So, not technically challenging, but the tempo made it surprisingly hard to keep the energy of the drum part up for the entire song.

Have a listen. Definitely fast, but it doesn't sound like a 250 bpm tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmkHqUwa4zg
 
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I did a half Tool half Deftones project a couple years ago. Talk about a double take. When you start getting into Danny Carey's work each song gets more intricate than the last. I'm not as good as he is, so it took me quite a while to make everything sound right without looking like I was struggling constantly.
 
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