Song Suggestions

[twojump]

I want to play a 10 song set of about 5 DMB songs and 5 non. DMB is pretty much all i play or have been playing the past couple years. What are some good songs i should throw in with some DMB that sound great solo?

[AshkaanF]

Grateful Dead - Jack Straw
Damien Rice - Delicate
Widespread Panic - Can't Get High (Bloodkin cover)
Phish - Dirt
Umphrey's McGee - In the Kitchen

[unccrombie]

any jack johnson...been on an amos lee kick, colors, keep it loose keep it tight (if you're a decent guitarist)

[twojump]

Grateful Dead - Jack Straw
Damien Rice - Delicate
Widespread Panic - Can't Get High (Bloodkin cover)
Phish - Dirt
Umphrey's McGee - In the Kitchen
I was thinking about throwing Dirt, and In the Kitchen in there, i love that tune. Jack straw would also sound pretty good acoustic. You were reading my mind man

[HolyCow]

Always play an 80's ballad of some sort that everyone will recognize.

I always play Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds.

[jdub104]

You enjoy myself

[tompeas13]

Freebird!

[nakedguydmb]

Always play an 80's ballad of some sort that everyone will recognize.

oh god, don't do this. it's about as cliché as you can get these days. well, unless you do an OAR cover.

doing all these covers is cool if that's really what you want to do, but you should try to mix it up some. pick some less-obvious stuff. but if you've been playing that long, you should give writing a shot.

[TheRealGuyute]

Depends on where you're playing. Sometimes you need to pull out "Margaritaville" just to jumpstart the crowd. Then you can get more esoteric.

[nakedguydmb]

Depends on where you're playing. Sometimes you need to pull out "Margaritaville" just to jumpstart the crowd. Then you can get more esoteric.
oh man :lol

[TheRealGuyute]

Hey man, I agree. But whatever brings in the tips ;)

[windsurf83]

if people have requests at the bar tell them to write it on a $20 bill.

that is if you know alot of covers.

[TheRealGuyute]

Yeah, that works if you're a human jukebox.

I had a guy pay me $20 to play Satellite...funny thing was, I was about to play it anyway :lol

[AFurth]

well honestly. i agree with nakedguy - i think you start writing music right now... have something to say. however, since that is out of the question, play a mix of stuff people know and stuff that you love (abstract stuff). unless you're the next damien rice or bob dylan, no one is going to be enthralled by your solo acoustic act. however, if you play tunes they like and play them pretty decently, they can get really involved. so you have to play some poppy shit to get them involved in your set.

then play your favorite non-radio songs. in the same way that i like to mix my originals and a few select covers (i try to find covers that are well known and musically complex - e.g. friend of the devil (garcia), norweigan wood (beatles), etc.), you should mix your well known covers and your not-so-well known covers. unless you want to be a dmb cover artist (i think you can do better), don't play 5 dmb songs. play 2 out of 10 at most - you can do 3, but don't tell me about it haha.

good luck with your set though, and this is just my musical opinion - i'm not really an expert... i just play live a lot.

[TheRealGuyute]

I agree with that. If you can write, you should (although not all of us have anything important to say). My advice, and this is from a guy who plays exclusively solo or with another guitar player, you should pick songs you can sing.

At most places, 90% or more of the audience could care less how great your guitar work is if you only play instrumentals. But if you can sing, that's different. If you can't sing, find someone who can.

My experience has been that you should mix it up, don't focus too heavily on any specific artist if you're doing covers. For me, Dave stuff is one of the main parts of my songlist (I probably know more Dave songs than songs by any other artist), but I don't play any artist's songs more than once in a row (unless it's some kind of segue like Bartender->DDTW). If you play Dave every other song, then you risk alienating the people who don't like DMB (yes, there are some out there in the RW). If I'm playing only 10 songs, I might play 2 Dave songs, 2 Ray songs, a Who song, a Neil Young song, a Paul Simon song, a Paul Weller song, a classic song (like Easy or Just the Two of Us) and maybe if I'm feeling good, an original.

I also don't worry too much about what people around here like to stress as playing the song "right". I play it the way I like it to sound. Sometimes that's like the original, sometimes it isn't. Bill Withers would probably roll over in his grave at the tempo I use on Just the Two of Us, but happen to think that it's a cool song if you speed it up a bit.

It's also important to arrange your setlist properly. If you're playing more than one set, think of the first set as building a musical platform. Second set you can either refine that platform or just jump off it.