Vote for the Nov/Dec 2012 "Artists/Covers" festival

[64Guitars]

It's time to vote for our next two festivals which will run from November 1 to December 31. Voting starts now and runs for 5 days. You can change your vote any time until the closing of the poll on October 30th. To do so, click "Remove vote" to cancel your previous vote, then vote again.

This poll is for the "Artists/Covers" festival. There is a separate poll for the "Theme/Genre" festival here:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=16709.0

Please vote in both polls.


Descriptions of some of the less-obvious choices:

UnpluggedFest 2 - A sequel to our 2010 Unplugged Fest. As before, this fest is not just playing an acoustic guitar and singing any song. The idea is to cover a song that was obviously very electric in its original version, but to do so without any electric instruments or effects. A good example is Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" which is known for its electric guitars played through Marshall stacks, and the electric organ. Geir recorded a fabulous unplugged cover of that song for our first UnpluggedFest. He used only acoustic guitars and other acoustic instruments. Another good example is Lexman's unplugged cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". What we don't want is for people to cover songs that were primarily acoustic originally. You can't perform a song "unplugged" if it was never "plugged-in" in the first place. An acoustic cover of an acoustic song is not unplugged since the original didn't contain any electric instruments that you can un-plug. Examples of acoustic songs that would not be suitable for UnpluggedFest 2 are Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle", James Taylor's "Fire and Rain", or Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done". These are great songs but they're not plugged-in so you can't unplug them. Also, an electric bass on its own is not enough to qualify a song as electric. There are lots of acoustic songs that include an electric bass but they're still primarily acoustic. Electric songs typically have distorted guitars, synthesizers, organs, etc. That's what you should look for when trying to find a song to cover for UnpluggedFest 2.

Glam Rock - T. Rex, David Bowie, Sweet, etc. See the Wikipedia page on Glam Rock.

ProgSnippets - Prog covers edited down to make them manageable. We have a lot of members who are prog fans, yet ProgFest never gets many votes. I think the reason is that most prog songs are too long and complicated to figure out in their entirety. Who's got time to figure out how to play a 20-minute Yes song with a lot of really complicated rhythms and parts? So instead, I thought we could just do edited versions of our favourite prog songs, skipping the parts that are too difficult and just doing the sections that we can manage. Maybe a bit of the intro, a few verses and choruses, and part of the ending. Or whatever you can manage. Doesn't even have to be a complete "song". You could just do the intro, for example.

VarietyFest 2 - A sequel to our first VarietyFest from January/February of this year. This time round, we'll cover songs by Dire Straits, XTC, Aerosmith, Mott the Hoople, The Smiths, or Talking Heads. We'll also accept covers of songs by core members of those groups as solo acts. So you can cover Mark Knopfler, Andy Partridge, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Ian Hunter, Morrissey, David Byrne, etc.

Likewise, WhoFest can include solo material by Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, etc., QueenFest can include solo material by Freddie Mercury, Brian May, etc, and Velvet Underground Fest can include solo material by Lou Reed, John Cale, etc.

[Burtog]

Variety 2 fest has a great selection in there, fingers crossed!

[Pete C]

If Unplugged 2 wins, my only accoustic guitar is an electro-accoustic.  Can I plug it into my BR600 or would I have to mike it up?

[64Guitars]

If Unplugged 2 wins, my only accoustic guitar is an electro-accoustic.  Can I plug it into my BR600 or would I have to mike it up?

Yes, you can plug it in. The BR-600 has a built-in acoustic processor effect, so you should be able to get a reasonably good acoustic sound from your electro-acoustic guitar. As long as it sounds like an acoustic guitar, it doesn't matter if you use an electric.

My only acoustic guitar has a broken neck. But my Godin xtSA solidbody has piezo bridge transducers which give a pretty good acoustic sound, especially when combined with my BR-864's acoustic processor effect (the same effect that's in your BR-600). In the last UnpluggedFest, I used the Godin for my cover of "I'll Find My Way Home" (with oldrottenhead on vocals).

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=6410.0

You can also use electronic instruments such as keyboard or guitar synthesizers to mimic acoustic instruments.

[danieldesete]

what happens if it's a draw ?

[Oldrottenhead]

we have an unplugged variety fest.

[danieldesete]

an unplugged variety fest.

sounds pretty cool for me !

[Pete C]

Sod's Law.  I've got a week off work and the wife hasn't so I've got the rare chance to record something - been watching the voting and Unplugged was taking the lead so I've been looking at songs to do. Now its neck and neck with Variety which is what I voted for in the first place! Acoustic version of a Smiths song?

[fenderbender]

we have an unplugged variety fest.

[Burtog]

Sod's Law.  I've got a week off work and the wife hasn't so I've got the rare chance to record something - been watching the voting and Unplugged was taking the lead so I've been looking at songs to do. Now its neck and neck with Variety which is what I voted for in the first place! Acoustic version of a Smiths song?

I like your way of thinking!!