Suggestions for material (Long!!!)

[Maestro]

Hey all (warning kinda long and I may drift from my point a bit)

My dad is in a 50-'s60's-70's-90's cover band with a bunch of friends ect. Thy original intend was to just practice for fun. 4 of the 6 members used to be professional musicians (my dad included) and those four all returned to playing after a buch of years. But the rythem guitarist has a camping site (among other buisnesses) and they played there once and they all liked it again so they started doing 1 show a month, and in the summer they all went to spain together (I tagged along) and stayed in the house of the rythem guitarist, the former bassist and the drummer (the former bassist lives there full time now) And they do a couple of shows wich pay for the vacation. Always lots of fun.

But recently it has come up that 'certain people' requested for more 'heavy' songs. The son of the ryhtem guitarist is their sound engineer and he made a good case for it that since they want to preform more they will have to put in a couple of ''no brain 3 chord rock songs'' since most of their material is ''to nice''.

My dad's knowledge of 50-60-70's pop/rock/blues ect is very limited since he really only listend to country so when he needs to make suggestions we go on the web together and try to find songs he likes. But I must admit that my knowledge of heavy music is very limited.

So I have been racking my brains on this one and then I decided I needed help.

Their setup is a following:
Lead guiatar/steel guitar: strong on both. basses the songs that need to be played ''as on the record'' since he hates doing that

Rythem guitarist. Not a strong musician but works very very hard and plays the leads on the easier on the record songs

Bassist solid bassist but is actually a very good rythem guitarist and very capable lead player and does the more difficult ''as on the record'' stuf.

Singer/rythem guitarist does not want to play when need to sing emotionally or needs to go all out on a song. Very good singer in the joe cocker style but can do a lot more

hammond/piano player excellent does all his stuff well.

Drummer, rock solid professional, but hates rockabilly rythems and 50's pop (he hates drumming elvis songs and stuff like that)

They currently play about 90 songs the most importent ones are:

Delta lady
They call me the breeze
Lay down sally
Noublie Jamai
driving my life away
when it rains
Need your love so bad
sweet carolina
River of tears
whiter shade of pale
mona lisa
all you ever do is bring me down.
unchain my heart-love potion number nine

okay I realize that was long and perhaps a bit to much info but I would really apriciate any suggestions you guys have. What are good rock or otherwise heavy/loud songs that would fit in well with these songs.

[JohnnyCrash]

Well, I guess with coverbands it's a little easier.

Play the type of heavier stuff the crowd would like.

ACDC always does well over here in the US, regardless of if the crowd is 18 or 45 years old. Rolling Stones kicked up a notch in the guitar department (maybe more overdriven) might do the trick too.

Older Black Sabbath may work well. Deep Purple, Cream, 60s/70s era classic rock.

STP, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins.

Newer Metallica.

[getbent]

Chest Fever (the hammond guy will love it!)
Woman from Tokyo (again the organ guy will be able to wail)
China Grove
Whippin' Post
Dreams (Molly Hatchet Version)
We're an American Band (irony anybody?)
Locomotive Breath
The Rover
Never Been any reason (Head East!)
Mississippi Queen
All Along the Watchtower
The Weight
Nadine, Little Queenie (Everybody parties to chuck)
Fire
Cocaine
Tush!
Black Dog
Rock'n'roll (zep)
Suzie Q


I'm guessing they mean heavier than Eddie Rabbit...

[tbp0701]

OK, this is a weird suggestion, since I've never played this game, but have you seen the lists of songs on the "Guitar Hero" things? It's pretty much a catalog of that type of heavier rock with some extra stuff thrown in. And it does look like a lot of fun.

I found the list for the first game:

The 30 licensed songs, and the band they were made famous by, are:
Motorhead - "Ace of Spades"
Ozzie Osbourne - "Bark at the Moon"
Audioslave - "Cochise"
Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell"
Cream - "Crossroads"
Sum 41 - "Fat Lip"
Edgar Winter Group - "Frankenstein"
Blue Oyster Cult - "Godzilla"
Burning Brides - "Heart Full of Black"
The Exies - "Hey You"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Higher Ground"
Joann Jett - "I Love Rock and Roll"
The Ramones - "I Wanna Be Sedated"
Bad Religion - "Infected"
Black Sabbath - "Iron Man"
Queen - "Killer Queen"
Boston - "More Than A Feeling"
Queens of the Stone Age - "No One Knows"
ZZ Top - "Sharp Dressed Man"
Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water"
Jimi Hendrix - "Spanish Castle Magic"
Incubus - "Stellar"
Megadeth - "Symphony of Destruction"
The Donnas - "Take It Off"
Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
Stevie Ray Vaughn - "Texas Flood"
White Zombie - "Thunderkiss 65"
Helmet - "Unsung"
Judas Priest - "You Got Another Thing Comin"
David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust"
In addition, there will be 17 unlockable tracks from Indie Rock bands, which include the likes of:
Acro-Brats - "Call Out"
Anarchy Club - "Behind the Mask"
Artillery - "The Breaking Wheel"
Black Label Society - "Fire It Up"
Count Zero - "Sail Your Ship By"
Din - "Fly on the Wall"
Drist - "Decontrol"
Freezepop - "Get Ready 2 Rock"
Graveyard BBQ - "Cheat on the Church"
Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives - "Hey"
Made in Mexico - "Farewell Myth"
Monkey Steal the Peach - "Theme from Guitar Hero"
The Bags - "Caveman Rejoice"
The Model Sons - "The Story of my Love"
The Slip - "Even Rats"
The Upper Crust - "Eureka! I Found Love"
Shaimus - "All of This"

[tbp0701]

By the way, if they do cover any of those songs and happen to see people air guitaring, but acting like they're mashing buttons on the neck, that'll be why.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by getbent

I'm guessing they mean heavier than Eddie Rabbit...

LOL yeah, well they do a roughed up version of that so it's actually quite a fun song. On most songs they will make their own interpetation. But you have some very good suggestions, getbent. I'll look into them I'm pretty certain I have some deep purple somewhere.

JohnnyCrash your suggestions are apreciated.

The thing is though in the scene here they do a couple of songs that most cover bands don't do wich is their main appeal, so it's a thin line.

If anybody knows more please I'm open to all ideas.

[getbent]

Maestro,
I'm laughing at myself... I don't play any of that stuff (other than the chuck berry stuff) maybe Dan Fogelberg's "As the Raven Flies" and Joe walsh's "Meadows" so, I was teasing myself... I've never been much of a rocker, pretty much a country and country rock, electric folk guy... I love blues, but i have a friend who is a blues **** and I can't bear the eyes rolling that I violated some Hubert Sumlin rule...

Anyway, I think it is really cool you are helping your dad with this...

[Maestro]

tbp0701 I'm sorry I didn't thank you right away It's looks so weird since my post is right under yours, but we must have been typing at the same time. Thanks for your sugesstions. Though I am afraid that blue oyster cult will be difficult since well, my dad had a recording studio and when I showed him ''It's need more cowbell'' from saturday night live I thought he was going to have an other heart attack laughing.

I got it getbent my dad is much more of that music as well. I looked up some of the songs on Itunes I really like some of them for the band.

And I enjoy helping my dad with this. Until they asked him for this band I barely knew he could play guitar.