BONUS ROUND: Someday

Someday (Strokes Cover)
Arranged and Recorded 2013

Covers are usually an extremely important part of an original band's repertoire. They showcase a band's influences and give an audience something familiar. Let me be clear by saying I do not believe this is vital to a band's live show. It can be cool if a band takes a song and makes it their own, but it also runs the risk of being "schtick." I also feel that depending on the popularity of the cover, it can overshadow the original work that an artist is trying to put out into the world.

Covering songs in the Folk/Americana genres is especially dangerous ground. For instance, if you want to cover a classic song like "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver, you pretty much have to do an exact replica of that song in terms of tempo, feel, and harmonies or go completely the opposite...almost making it unrecognizable. But why make it unrecognizable if it's a cover? And who can really do justice to that kind of legendary song? Not many bands. Then if you do a song that isn't necessarily popular, but is important to your songwriting or band's approach to music, it's just another song that people won't recognize. It's a tough game to play.

During the reign of Of the North, I tried a different approach. Instead of focusing on the live show, I took songs that I loved (or were requested in some cases) that weren't really in our style, and made them our style. BUT I only recorded them and released them for free on Bandcamp. There is only one song that made it to the regular live show, but thats another story. I found it to be a very useful exercise in arranging and creativity, and it gave fans a different sense of connection. It was a lot of fun!

"Someday" is one of my favorite songs by The Strokes. Their first three albums have been extremely influential to me. I had always felt that songs off their first record, Is This It, would lend themselves nicely to the folk genre. They are built around simple chord progressions and can be catchy as hell. There's an inherent energy in that album that transfers nicely to other arrangements. Here's my attempt at "Someday," complete with terrible trumpet playing by yours truly. All in all, I enjoy this one a lot.