Bring It On Home

Collectively, there’s not a single guy in the band that doesn’t love Zeppelin. And aside from Andy Buchanan, who staunchly defends his designation of Neil Peart as the greatest drummer of all time, we recognize each Zeppelin member at their respective positions as being among the best at what they do. With that heavy praise in mind, it might come as a surprise to know that we currently only feature one Zeppelin tune in our set list.

We’ve been moderately limited with the selection of Zeppelin songs we could cover as a great number of them are so well known and revered and we’ve been reluctant to try and cover them unless we were confident in our ability to do them justice. Plant’s voice alone, for instance, keeps me from comfortably singing about 50%-60% of the songs they play!

It’s with great excitement then, Remedy has decided to cover a heavy hitting Zeppelin tune entitled ‘Bring It On Home,’ originally released in 1969 on the Zeppelin II album. At 4:20 seconds long, the song features a bluesy intro and outro, with a bone crushing guitar lick that carries listeners through a very short musical roller coaster ride in between. The intro and outro were deliberate homages to the original Sonny Boy Williamson song, while the rest of the track was an original Jimmy Page/Robert Plant composition.

With fair amounts of reasonably intricate harmonica parts and guitar parts that feature both lead and rhythm sections, the song should prove to be a substantial challenge for the band but an extremely rewarding song to cover at the same time.

In case you’ve not heard the song before, have a quick listen and be sure to brace yourself for the guitar intro!

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Statesboro Blues

Huge fans of the Allman brothers, Remedy has decided to take on a classic by the beloved southern rockers entitled, ‘Statesboro Blues.’ Originally recorded by Blind Willie McTell, a popular blues musician who played in Georgia until his death in 1959, the Allman Brothers recorded the song for the first time at the Fillmore East in 1971. Well known for the incredible slide guitar work done by Duane Allman, ‘Statesboro Blues’ was ranked #9 by Rolling Stone Magazine in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.  Not so ironically, Statesboro is a city in Georgia not far from Macon, where the band lived.

A tremendous admirer of Duane Allman’s skills with the slide, Tim is looking forward to taking on the challenge of duplicating the smooth, fluid style of Allman, while trying to infuse a bit of Remedy flavor into the classic hit. Always requested and heavily applauded during gigs, songs by the Allman Brothers always go over incredibly well with local folks wherever we play, and we look forward to seeing (and hearing) the response we get following the addition of ‘Statesboro Blues’ to our setlist.

If you’ve not heard the song before, have a quick listen to the song below and we’ll be sure to replace it with our version in a few weeks as a basis for comparison.

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Bringing Back the Beard

Remedy has decided to assemble a medley from one of the most famous bearded rock and roll groups of all time; ZZ Top. Featuring three songs from the band, the medley kicks off with some killer guitar riffs in ‘Just Got Paid,’ transitions into ‘Waitin’ On The Bus,’ and finishes strong with ‘Jesus Just Left Chicago.’ The latter two songs naturally transition from one to the other but Remedy decided to add ‘Just Got Paid’ to the mix as the prominent guitar lick at the beginning of the song was just too good to pass up. It’s a heck of a lot of fun to play and Tim, as usual, nails the guitar parts as Andy and Jon chime in perfectly with their respective instruments.

Have a listen to Just Got Paid’ by selecting the play button below.

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Big fans of the group and their music, Remedy can regularly be heard playing a few other ZZ Top songs on any given night including ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ and ‘La Grange.’ I don’t know if we’ll be growing the beards anytime soon but you’ll surely hear us pay tribute to bearded boys from ZZ Top during one of our next gigs out. We certainly hope you enjoy it!

Drift Away

Utilizing the talents of our newly added keyboard player, Remedy has decided to add a bit more keyboard-driven material to the play list by learning the Dobie Gray classic, ‘Drift Away’. Chris takes the lead on the vocals, with Andy and Tim picking up the harmonies. In addition, the song provides Chris with an opportunity to showcase his keyboard skills as well, with subtle but distinct melodies throughout the tune.

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The song provides just a taste of what you’ll be hearing at future gigs as we continue to expand our play list, now nearly 80 songs deep, featuring a wide variety of songs that either spotlight piano and keys or serve as great accompaniment to the driving guitar-driven songs the band is known for playing.

Be sure to let us know what you think with a comment below!

Heartbreaker, Your Time Has Come

In an effort to routinely improve, diversify and expand on our musical offerings, the Remedy Band has decided to add a fantastic tune to our play list from the album Led Zeppelin II entitled, “Heartbreaker.”

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Having heard countless Zeppelin tunes on the radio, you’ve likely heard Heartbreaker a number of times over the years and rather than tackle one of the Zeppelin standards you often hear other bands cover, such as “Rock and Roll” or “The Ocean,” we’ve decided to challenge ourselves with something a little more difficult, rewarding and fun to play.

Collectively, we’re all huge Zeppelin fans and choosing the right song for us to play was not an easy exercise. In the end, we decided on a song that we thought we could do well, would be enjoyable to play and listen to, and something that provided a bit of a challenge. Heartbreaker turned out to be the perfect choice.

As many hard core Zeppelin fans know, Heartbreaker showcases the brilliance of Jimmy Page and one of the most well known guitar solos in Zeppelin’s vast library of songs, if not all of rock. It was with some reservation then, that we decided to tackle the song, as we knew it would be a strain on Tim to learn the complexities of the solo. We knew it wasn’t beyond his ability mind you, but contemplated whether or not it was worth spending substantial amounts of time learning.

As it turns out, it was well worth the effort. We played the song for the first time last night and Tim navigated Page’s muddy solo masterfully, with Andy and Jon adding the additional pieces to the puzzle throughout the song. The timing, sound and fullness of the song was incredible and the tune has very quickly become one of our favorites to play.

Look for us to continue to perfect the song and play it at future gigs and be sure to listen for the solo when we do. We’re fairly confident you won’t hear another local band attempting the song and you most assuredly won’t hear a guitar player (outside of Jimmy Page of course) nail the solo the way Tim does!

Let us know what you think!

The Tim Briscoe Experience

Grab the head band, the feather boa and the lighter fluid; the Remedy Band has decided to add “Voodoo Child” by Jimi Hendrix to the repertoire. Made famous by Hendrix but perfected by Stevie Ray Vaughn (as Tim will attest), Voodoo Child features that unmistakable ‘wah wah’ sound at the beginning of the tune that sends chills up your spine when you hear it because you know it’s quickly going to build to a thunderous crescendo when the drums and bass enter the picture. The high hat on the drums provides the perfect little stop in between the wah’s, with its crisp snap, bringing the guitar to a halt until the next set of wah’s.

Those of you who know the tune know exactly what I’m describing and those who have yet to experience it will understand as soon as they hear it. Go ahead and click on the link below to see what I mean but make sure you turn your volume up to a point where your neighbors exterior walls shake a bit.

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See! It’s one of the best intros to a song I’ve ever heard, which is why automakers, wrestlers and film-makers have been ripping it off for years.

Nevertheless, I’m really excited about playing it at gigs because I think it’s one of those songs people immediately identify when they hear the opening guitar licks, which will most assuredly be followed by some type of comment like, “they aren’t seriously going to try that are they?”

I’d like to clearly state now for the record now, yes we are. And wait until you hear how Tim tears it up!

A Modern Day Warrior

The band has collectively decided to tackle “Tom Sawyer” by the band Rush. Those of you that grew up in the 80’s (1981 to be exact) are likely familiar with the song as many of us, myself included, played along with Neil Peart as he hit each drum during his mini solo rolls following the guitar lead. I was sure, even at the age of 10, that I could hit every one of those drum rolls if someone had just put a kit in front of me. Turns out, not so much.

Well Andy Buchanan, drummer for the Remedy Band, now gets his chance to try and he did an incredible job right out of the gate. Not surprisingly, Peart is his favorite drummer and it showed as he traversed the tune, keeping great time and navigating the difficult parts adeptly and joyfully. Peart is arguably one of the best drummers of all time and to hear Andy hitting the rolls, just as I did on my imaginary drums back in 1981, left me amazed and tremendously excited about playing the tune.

It should also be noted that both Tim and Jon, with equally difficult tasks, nailed their parts as well. In the absence of the weird space-like synthesizer that you routinely hear during the song, Tim managed to make the guitar parts hum and they actually sounded a lot more powerful than I expected.  Jon walked up and down the bass, completely in check with Tim during the several parts where they play the same chords and we managed to get through the entire song almost unscathed.

We’ll obviously keep working on the tune over the next few weeks, ultimately tightening up the overall sound, but you can expect it to be on our play-list when we head out for our next gig. I think it’s safe to assume we’ll be one of the few bands around you will hear playing it and I can’t wait.

For a walk down memory lane, click the link the below to hear the tune.

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I’ve Got Double Vision

Let’s get one thing abundantly clear; Lou Graham is one scary lookin’ dude. That and he has a monster voice. The band has decided to take on another Foreigner tune, called Double Vision. You’ve likely heard the song a thousand times before as it’s been given plenty of air time by radio stations across the country but here’s a refresher if you can’t quite remember how the tune goes.

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The song is certainly more manageable than the other song we play by Foreigner, entitled “Hot Blooded,” which always leaves me gasping for air by the end but it’s a challenge nonetheless. The trouble that you get into with singing Lou Graham material is that if you try to sing it like he sings it, you’ll eventually end up feeling like you’ve had your throat massaged by sandpaper. So the moral of the story, as it is with a lot of these songs, is that you need to focus on making the song your own, and sing it in your own voice, not Lou Graham’s. Easy enough one would think as I have a decent enough voice but the dilemma is that when people hear us playing the song, they expect it to sound like what they know, love and remember it to be. So while you try to sing the tune in your own voice, there’s still a nagging desire to try and sound like Lou Graham so people feel like they are hearing the song they know, love and remember it to be.

There obviously has to be a happy medium. Hopefully I’ll be able to find where that is on this tune!