Experienced guitarist seeking to start new cover band

Atkinson NH

Description

Seeking to start a cover project that can play great songs (by some of the best artists from each decade to the present) to connect strongly with a crowd and be fun for us to play! Can't this be done while avoiding the hackiest of covers? It has to be possible to offer a fun night of great music with plenty of opportunities for listeners to dance without playing Summer of 69 or Mony Mony! I'm no Berkley wunderkind but I played out professionally in Vegas on the hard rock cover circuit in the late 80's and kept my chops decent by practicing regularly; I seek to play with other experienced musicians who have the chops to find the groove and play a song "right." While I grew up with the typical hard rock roots (Zep, Aerosmith, etc.), I grew to appreciate a wider variety of styles and genres in my 20's (though I typically want to avoid playing pure pop or metal). My personal favorites are alt./hard rock and the best songs of amazing singer/songwriters (e.g. Petty) but I can enjoy power pop (e.g. Cheap Trick) and would love to have versions of some R&B/Motown/blues tunes ready to be able to connect to a wide range of people. At one point I was totally burnt on classic rock but avoiding the radio for a decade has made many of those songs seem interesting again. I'd love to have at least 2 decent backup voices in the band for harmonies (I can sing lead myself on some songs but really love to add high harmonies). I've been working on a list of popular songs from the 60's to present that I think might be interesting and fun to play with many songs aiming to get people out dancing. I'll send it out to you if you're curious. If we choose to work together we can fine tune it as we go and allow people a few vetoes for songs they can't stand. I'm interested in playing out as often as possible but I'm realistic in knowing that many people won't want to devote that much time to playing out. I have decent recording equipment so I'd like to work on originals down the line but first things first. Thanks for taking the time to check this out, sorry for the length! INFLUENCES (FYI: I'm not looking to play songs by ALL of these bands, these are just influences. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is a great song, but time and place... ;-) ) ROCK: Originally it was Zep, Aerosmith, Sabbath, The Stones, The Who, The Beatles, Cheap Trick, then The Band, B.B. King, Hendrix, etc. After high school I gravitated towards the post-punk alt/indie scene (The Replacements, Concrete Blonde); grunge was a welcome relief from hair metal in the late 80's! ALTERNATIVE: Pearl Jam, RHCP, R.E.M., Alice in Chains, some Cult songs, The Jayhawks, Wilco, etc. I loved and the less commercial singer/songwriter stuff that came later (PJ Harvey, Neko Case, Feist, Jeff Buckley, Replacements, all of whom I wouldn't try to play at a gig). More recently I went through an Americana phase (loved the Graham Parsons Grievous Angel tribute album). I own and can make useful sound on mandolin, banjo, and keyboards when that's called for.