A Passionate Plea To Anyone In A Band

Psst, hey you. Yeah, you over there, without a record deal with the guitars and the amps and the drums working your ass off to get your music heard. Do you and your band do any covers in your set? Unless you're Bob Dylan, Fred Eaglesmith or Billy Joe Shaver, I betcha do a cover or two. I've got a little advice for you.

Doing covers is a fickle thing. It's hard to do them justice when you do them straight up and other times it seems like you're a genius when you re-tool an old standard. You know...speed it up, slow it down, turn a rap song into a country song (Thank You, Gourds!), make an old country standard a punk song (Thank You, Social Distortion!).

If you're doing the speed-it-up/slow-it-down/musical-reincarnation of a song, I will give you leeway to do whatever you want. But if you're doing the tunes straight up without much differentiation from the original, I have a list of songs I would like you to avoid at all costs. Because everyone and his brother and his band is doing these. If we all gave these songs a rest, I think that'd be swell. They've earned it.

Truck Drivin' Man
Six Days On The Road
White Freightliner
Hey Good Lookin'
Folsom Prison Blues
Rock Island Line
Good Old Boys (Dukes Of Hazzard theme song)
Whiskey River
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain


and above all else...stop doing Wagon Wheel (aside: whoever that guy is who put Wagon Wheel out as his first single should ashamed of himself)



You wanna do a Johnny Cash song? Do "I Never Picked Cotton".
Dylan? "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall", "Shelter From The Storm" or "I Shall Be Released".
Waylon? "There Ain't No Good Chain Gang" or "Waymore's Blues".
Willie? "Shotgun Willie" or "I Gotta Get Drunk".
Townes? Don't cover Townes unless you knew him personally.

My point is simply that there are hundreds of thousands of songs out there to cover. You don't have pick a song off the top of the pile. Especially if you've heard someone else cover it already. I am available to give council to anyone needing help selecting a cover.

Recommended Listening...The Stillwater Pioneers...Archive.org

One of the finest bands in Austin is the Stillwater Pioneers. Part jam-band, part outlaw country, part singer/songwriter-fare. Already a rag-tag lot with varied musical interests, they can now add to that list an absentee singer/songwriter in Johnny Dango who is moving to the coast...Corpus Christi to be exact to be a sports reporter. Hopefully, Dango can show off his reporting chops, advance and get back to the 512 in short order. They're still going to be playing around Austin but they'll most likely be expanding to include a few shows down in Corpus, Port A., and other points south.

Their new cd "Let's Go Pioneering" is easily the best cd to find its way into my collection so far this year.

This is a great little show from the Mean Eyed Cat from August 2007 where you can hear them do a bunch of great covers including Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Todd Snider, Hank Williams, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt and the Georgia Satellites in addition to a slew of the tracks from their record. There's also a great cover of the NWA classic "Automobile".

Recommended tracks: 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 22, 24, 25, 27.

The Real First Post....Danny Schmidt

(for fans on Dylan & Townes Van Zandt)

Chances are you have never heard of Danny Schmidt. Danny is an Austin-based singer songwriter. Singer/songwriter doesn't begin to describe Danny's immense talent as a songwriter. "Poet" is a much better description of what Danny does. I am convinced that had music not called him, poetry in its purest form would have and he could almost certainly make a living at it.

Danny's songs aren't simple. And they aren't obvious. You might have to dust off your musical-interpretation/appreciation hat to fully realize Danny's talent. I realize comparing anyone's songwriting to Bob Dylan's is musical sacrilege, but I think here it's fair. There's a lot of gravity to Danny's writing that manifests itself in songs that reflect human emotions and the human conditions without in any way being preachy.

"Stained Glass" is a song that people love to deconstruct and I am no exception. Here's the climax to the song where the omniscient narrator runs through a glut of situations that everyone comes across on a regular basis....

There was every fearful smile, there was every joyful tear
There was each and every choice that leads from every there to here
There was every cosy stranger and every awkward friend
And there was every perfect night that’s left initials in the sand
There was every day that filled so full the weeks would float away
And there was all those days spent wondering what to do with all those days
There was every lie that ever saved the truth from being shamed
And every secret you could ever trust a friend to hide away
There was the fortune of discovering a new face you might adore
And the thrill of coming home to find her clothes upon the floor
And the prideful immortality of children in the home
That the storm can’t grind the mountain down, it can only shift the stones
And there was everything your mouth says that your lips don’t understand
And every shape inside your head you can’t carve with your hands
And every slice of glass revealed another slice of life
Emblazened imperfections in a perfect stream of light
It all flooded through the window like rapids made of fire
And then God rode through on sunshine and sat down cause he was tired
He was tired.

Easily, one of my favorite songs. Outside of Dylan and TVZ, easily one of the deepest, most profound works in any writer's cannon. Have a listen here.

"Stained Glass" is not alone in Danny's catalog. Many others like "Esmee by The River", "Cleopatra", "Serpentine Cycle Of Money", "Make Right The Time" and "Two Guitars On The Sofa" are there to keep "Stained Glass" company.

On top of his tremendous musical acumen, Danny is one helluva guy. But, you can find out for yourself when you go out to see him somewhere, sometime soon.

Danny's Schedule: http://www.dannyschmidt.com/schedule.html

Cactus Cafe show from June 2007: http://www.archive.org/details/dannyschmidt2007-06-05.sbd.flac
A House Concert from 2007: http://www.archive.org/details/dannyschmidt2007-06-30.sbd.flac
Another House Concert from 2006: http://www.archive.org/details/dannyschmidt2006-07-15.sbd.flac