Supper's Ready: Genesis Tribute

by

Various Artists

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I played drums on Over The Garden Wall's version of Firth Of Fifth. I agree that there is no point in releasing a CD of cover songs that are pretty much identical to the original, but let me explain. We were a bonafide Genesis Tribute Band! We prided ourselves on our ability to entertain people and make them feel that they were actually seeing and hearing the Genesis from the past. When we were asked to contribute to this CD, we literally had to record and mix the song in ONE day with 2 or 3 takes, and NO click track. We did not have any time to work out a clever arrangement or approach. Looking back on it now, we probably should have just said, "Why bother?" but we figured that this CD would help us get more gigs.

Our version sort of combined the studio release with the live Genesis version.

Most tribute albums are disappointing, and this one marches proudly right into that rank. I can understand why it would be a good musical learning experience to recreate the 9-minute-long "Firth of Fifth" note for note. What I can't understand is who thought ANYONE would want to pay for a slavish remake when they had the original Genesis version to listen to. The song selection here is good, but most of the musicians don't vary a hair from the original arrangements (except that the singers all appear to be auditioning for Journey). This shouldn't be so hard--why not a reggae version of "Counting Out Time"? A grunge guitar "Stagnation"? A medley of "Say It's Alright, Joe" and "Twilight Alehouse"? Anyone ever notice that the organ riff in "The Knife" would make a great polka beat? A few tracks are at least listenable: Annie Haslam (Renaissance) does a pleasant take on "Ripples" and Richard Sinclair (Caravan) does the same for "For Absent Friends", but really these are safe renditions of safe song choices. Kevin Gilbert throws a little variation into "Back in NYC" (a punk song that pre-dated punk by a couple of years), and Crack the Sky does the same for "I Know What I Like".