(in order of their live debuts, or when learned if not played live)
We Are Each Other – Beautiful South
Wow, here we go. This one and Not Too Soon were enormous staples of the EJ Live Experience, much to the detriment of the bassist, guitarist and drummer. I think we played either (or often both) of these songs at every single EJ gig we ever did. There might be 1 or 2 where they didn’t pop up, but that was so rare I can’t recall it (and I don’t feel like scouring the setlists right now). I have to admit it, but EJ’s Zoë is a total and absolute rip off of this. Oh well! This was an OK song to do for a while, but I especially got so damn sick of it that I felt I was just going through the motions every time we played it. Not a bad song, but having to do it so often really made me despise it.
Eat For Two – 10,000 Maniacs
Christine had a huge thing for 10,000 Maniacs so naturally we did a few of their songs. I liked doing this one and though it was a staple at the beginning, eventually we stopped playing it all together. It’s in F so that was a bit different and I liked parts of the bassline. I thought we did a good version of it.
American Music – Violent Femmes
Ugh, gag me. They forced me to do this one, otherwise I never would have done it. As a song it’s only decent and I still don’t see the attraction to it, even though the audience always loved it when we did it. I guess it was the sing-a-long section or something. We did a fine version of it, and I’m sure if you were in the audience for this you clapped along with everybody else.
Not Too Soon – Throwing Muses
See above comments for We Are Each Other. Only notable thing in this is that I loved to insert Rush licks into it whenever I could. We did a good job of it and this (like We Are Each Other) was usually placed either at the beginning or end of the set.
Hey Jealousy – Gin Blossoms
Another stupid pop cover that I could care less about. We did a fine job it (like it wouldn’t be hard to). I think Gin Blossoms were a pretty boring band, so it didn’t exactly please me to have to do this one.
Walking on Sunshine – Katrina & the Waves
At least with this one we rocked it out a bit more and we all knew it was a stupid 3 chord, I-IV-V song. This is really a ridiculous song and every time I hear it I just think “I used to play this on stage!”.
Just Like Heaven – The Cure
I don’t think we played it anywhere near as good as The Cure do it, but it was passable. I got the spotlight for a few seconds so that’s always nice. We liked to do our best Robert Smith impressions on this; that always gave us a good laugh.
So Lonely – The Police
I think we only played this live once or twice, and even then it was never at an ‘official’ gig. Christine’s no Sting, and neither am I on my respective instrument. I couldn’t play this anywhere near correctly and back in the early days none of us had any concept of how reggae was supposed to sound. I admit it, we really sucked on this one and thankfully very few people got to hear it.
Happy Birthday – Concrete Blond
I’m not incredibly fond of the song itself so my memories of playing this don’t go either way. We sounded fine on it, but it wasn’t one of our better covers. Always the obligatory song whenever someone (either band or audience) had a birthday that day.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something
I hate this song. I hated this song when it first came out and I still have a burning hatred for it. And I hated playing this in front of people. Most of the time in this group I kept my mouth shut when it came to covers, but they had a pretty good idea that I didn’t quite like doing dumb pop songs as covers. Thankfully we didn’t do this too often but it popped up occasionally. True to the original as always.
Desire – U2
Now this is one I really like. I loved playing this one since we just pushed it to the farthest point it can go. You can’t get much simpler of a song, and for my part I could play it with my left hand behind my back. Still, it was a fun song to do and we always got a good reaction when we did it.
Why Can’t This Be Love – Van Halen
HAHA! This is truly funny. I think we did this once, possibly twice, and it wasn’t done in seriousness. We did it acoustically, and kinda chilled out, at a coffeehouse and we decided to do the middle section A Capella! Wiley and I both dig on VH, so this was kinda done for us. I loved doing it and thought it was a blast even though we weren’t too serious in it.
Our Lips are Sealed – The Go-Go’s
I thought we did a great version of this and I enjoyed playing it. Yeah, it’s a pop song like most of the rest of our covers, but it’s more fun and bouncy and an unexpected one for us to pull out. My favorite memory of us doing this was when we played at the stock show for a bunch of rednecks and during this a few of the 10 or so rednecks watching us danced and sang their heads off to this. In cowboy hats.
D’yer Mak’r – Led Zeppelin
This is absolutely one of my least favorite songs by ANYBODY. And I’m not alone in hating this, as Led Zep’s bassist John Paul Jones doesn’t like it either. This is another of those songs that people love for some reason. I don’t get it. It is truly an obnoxious song. As for our performance, it was fine. I mean, it’s such a stupid song that it’s hard to actually make it sound any worse. The audiences seemed to enjoy hearing it, so what do I know?
I Wanna Be Sedated – The Ramones
This was a damn fun song to play. I believe it was Bry’s idea to do this one. It really kinda sticks out amongst all the pop covers we did, but that’s part of the charm of it. The original intent (my idea) was for Wiley and I to switch instruments and do something interesting at the shows. We rehearsed it this way 2 or 3 times, but it never happened because I am an awful drummer. Yes, even though this is a massively simple song, I STILL couldn’t play the drums to it. Naturally Wiley had no trouble with the bass part. Thankfully for the audience we decided to keep to our normal instruments and it sounded SO much better. This featured Bryan’s greatest guitar solo ever (!).
Now You Can Open Your Eyes – David Garza
Great cover of a great Dah-veed song. Since all 4 of us were seriously hard core fans, we couldn’t help but play a good version of this. It did always feel weird playing it in Austin since I always considered Dah-veed a local band and the idea of one local band covering another local band’s songs is kinda strange. Actually, I think that *I’m* just strange. As good as we did this one (jammed out like Dah-veed did), we only played it a few times.
Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin
I think we did as good of a version of this as we could at the time, but realistically we didn’t do it any justice…musically or vocally. We got better at playing it in 3PO, but its time EJ was only decent.
Joey – Concrete Blonde
Simple song, pretty mellow, it’s not bad. We did just fine on this and it really wasn’t too eventful. I didn’t hate or love doing it, so it’s pretty forgettable for me.
What’ll I Do – Janet Jackson
Man, this was a strange one in the set. I think Wiley presented this one and it took me a while to get right, but once we did it sounded really good. I enjoyed playing this one and I wish we woulda played it more often then we did.
Brown-eyed Girl – Van Morrison
I think it’s impossible not to do a good version of this song. Even a band with no musicianship could play this at a party and get a good reaction.
Son of a Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield
For some reason I always lump this together with Bobby McGee. Pretty good version of this, but we played it WAY too much and I got really sick of it. Besides us playing it all the time, Pulp Fiction was still fresh in everybody’s minds so as a whole it was overplayed. Good song though.
Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
I really liked our version of this and I loved playing it. This song got us one of our few pieces of press when the Statesman showed a pic of us and the caption talked about the reception we got when playing this. Funny thing is that this one didn’t get any more of a reaction than the rest of the set. I guess they just needed something to talk about.
Eight Days a Week – The Beatles
Loved playing this one and I’m still surprised this was the only Beatles song we ever did. We did a good version and it always woke the audience up.
The One I Love – REM
One of two REM songs we did; sometimes I thought we did a good job of it and others I thought we shouldn’t have bothered. It’s a good song and I absolutely don’t want to play a bad version of a good song. Most of the time I liked it though.
Wipe Out – Surfaris
I think we only played it once. It’s a pretty brainless song so any band could whip it out.
Raise Your Hands – Deep Blue Something
Not as hated as Breakfast at Tiff’s, but since I don’t care for DBS (I do admit that their bass player is pretty good though) I preferred to not play it. Honestly, it’s hard to play these simple pop songs poorly.
These Are Days – 10,000 Maniacs
I believe the times we played this it was done acoustic (Bry and Christine) probably because I never bothered learning it. I think it’s an OK song, but I thought 3 Maniacs songs were a bit too much.
19c Expatriots – David Garza
This is an amazing song. We only did it a few times, but I liked it when we did and I thought we did it justice. I still love playing this bass line. Only 3 chords but it’s brilliant.
Because the Night – Bruce Springsteen/Patty Smith; 10,000 Maniacs version
Bleh. I could care less for this song so I preferred to not do it. We only did it when Ed Park guested with us (he was a huge 10,000 Maniacs fan like Christine) so he could do the fancy violin parts that they did on the Unplugged version. It’s really kind of a stupid song, but we did a fine version of it.
Cannon in D – Pachebel
Another one we only did when Ed was playing with us. Either Bryan or Ed’s idea, most likely both. Strange that a pop band would but out with some classical stuff, but we pulled it off beautifully. I did like doing this and I really loved it when Bryan would come in with the contrapuntal melody.
Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2
I find it surprising we never played this one live. It’s not on any of the setlists, but I remember playing it a lot once we learned it. Did we only rehearse it, but never play it live? I guess so. We learned this once Ed started guesting with us since he could play the violin part. We did a good version and it was a fun song to play so I have absolutely no idea why it was never played live. Ah well.
Anything Anything – Dramarama
We debuted this at a heavy metal bar of all places, so I guess that made sense. Not a bad song, we did a pretty good version of it. It was nice to be recklessly heavy on occasion.
It’s the End of the World as We Know It – REM
Yes, Christine actually knows all the words to this; I sure don’t. Again, this was another fun one to play and it always (the few times we did it) got the crowd going.
Brass in Pocket – The Pretenders
I know we practiced this one a good bit, but I’m not sure if we ever played it live. Something in my brain says that we did play it live, but I have no setlist proof (and I have all of the setlists). Maybe we did it at a party? No clue. Still, we rehearsed it and I always had a fun time playing it, even though I’m not a fan of The Pretenders.
If This is It – Huey Lewis and the News
This is the one of the few songs we rehearsed that wasn’t ever played live. We worked up a good version one weekend at Christine’s place in Plano, but it never got any farther than that for some reason. I still like this song and I wish we could have played it in front of an audience.
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