There are tributes and there is homage.
And though Sunday’s event at the RecordBar is billed as “A Tribute to David Bowie,” for some of the participants — Ben Grimes, for example — the evening will be a show of reverence to a rock hero.
“We’re supposed to do only four or five, but we go on last so we may try to squeeze in six. He has so many great songs,” he said.
“The one kind of ‘obscure’ song we’re doing is ‘Criminal World’ from the ‘Let’s Dance’ album. We’re also doing ‘Queen Bitch’ and ‘Fame’ and ‘Moonage Daydream,’ which has a shockingly difficult bass line. We all spent almost an entire day learning that one. And we’re doing ‘Sound and Vision,’ which is going to be amazing. I love our version of that.”
His band’s approach has been to learn the songs as recorded, then add a twist or a bit of its own flair to make each song something other than identical to the original.
“We have a good balance,” Grimes said. “Dan Talmadge is like my right-hand guy, and he is really good at learning songs because he has been in a bunch of cover bands. So he can make it all perfect. I want them to be more personal, to have more of us in them, so we strike a great balance.
“One of the biggest challenges is not to sound like I’m doing a Bowie impression when I sing. It can be easy to sound like you’re impersonating him, especially on a song like ‘Fame.’ ”
He wouldn’t mind impersonating Bowie as a songwriter, however. The process of spending several weeks under the hood of a half-dozen of Bowie’s songs, learning their finer points and details, has confirmed what Grimes already knew: Bowie is a master craftsman.
“His chord progressions and song structures, he knows how to do it,” Grimes said. “The other guys involved with him — Brian Eno, Tony Visconti, Robert Fripp — they all added things into the equation that gave it some weirdness. But when you get down to it, Bowie is just a sick songwriter. I mean, ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’: There’s nothing better.”
He also recommends that process to anyone who wants to hone his or her skills as a songwriter and a musician.
“Whenever I talk to anyone about songwriting, especially young songwriters, I say, ‘Learn as many songs as you can by your idols,’ ” he said. “None of the legends would have become the songwriters they are if they hadn’t spent years playing the songs of their idols, whether it’s the Beatles with Chuck Berry or Dylan with Woody Guthrie.”
In fact, his band has been doing just that lately, he said: learning in fine detail songs by bands and songwriters they admire.
“We find a song we like and tear it to pieces, just to figure out how it was put together,” Grimes said. “We spent a few days playing Turtles songs over and over. We’ll never cover the Turtles live, but we love them. They are an amazing, underrated band. I almost put them on the level with the Zombies. They write in a way that is very special.”
Six days after the Bowie tribute, on Jan. 29, Soft Reeds will perform at Crosstown Station on a bill with Be/Non and Pioneer. It has been about six months since Soft Reeds released its debut album “Soft Reeds Are Bastards,” a collection of manic pop- and glam-infused rock songs.
Since the album’s release last summer, the band has generated plenty of positive feedback locally for the album and its live shows. Over the past two months or so, it stirred up some out-of-town recognition as well. In November, Soft Reeds played two gigs at the CMJ music festival in New York. A month later, the band was back in the city.
“We had one weird gig at CMJ, but the second one was great,” Grimes said. “Fortunately for us, the band that played before us had the best new song on Pitchfork so … a lot of (people) were there to see them and stuck around to hear us play. It was a real good show. The next day we got a series of e-mails from different clubs asking us to come back and play. So we did in December. We played two shows. Both were packed, and the response was great.”
Grimes said that, as with the Bowie tunes, he and his band alter the songs when they perform live.
“I think live shows are the purest form of music. I’ve always had to be in a band that put on fantastic live shows, with lots of energy. I’ve always wanted to make that kind of record, a ‘London Calling,’ which conveyed the frantic feeling of our shows.
“I’m kind of from the Dylan school: Your songs live don’t have to sound like they do on your records. I think if you don’t try to make each live show different, then you are willfully not evolving.”
| Timothy Finn, The Star
“A David Bowie Tribute” starts at 8 p.m. at the RecordBar, 1020 Westport Road. The show is the first installment of the monthly Sonic Spectrum tribute series, sponsored by the weekly radio show (96.5 FM) and podcast hosted by Robert Moore, who will select the tribute artist and the performers.
Coming installments include tributes to the Pretenders, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, the Cars, Lee Hazlewood and AC/DC. Admission is $7. A portion of the proceeds goes to the Midwest Music Foundation.
jan. 29
Soft Reeds performs at Crosstown Station, 1522 McGee St. Be/Non headlines; Pioneer opens at 10 p.m. Doors open at 9. Cover is $7.
Little late, but nice job on the interview. Starting from a Bowie tribute show and moving into the deconstruction of songs.
Band played a great set.
Posted by: Pat | January 31, 2011 at 11:51 PM