Page 6 - RYAN'S GIG GUIDE MAY 2014

The strange and bizarre world of tribute acts,
where adults arewilling to part with their cash
in order to watch lesser known adults imper-
sonate famous adults. It's a surreal form of
voyeurism or prostitution which only really
manifests itself in the music side of the enter-
tainment industry. As soon as a band becomes
famous, ten minutes later, a bad cloning exper-
iment occurs which later results in a crack
team of star-jumping cross-dressing song ban-
dits touring the country armed with contracts,
false moustaches and secondhand narcissism.
The Government is trying to crack down on
Identity fraud but I think Operation YewTree
has had more success in sabotaging the careers
of some Tribute acts; I know a chap who spent
twenty years of his life as a Rolf Harris imper-
sonator; that career came to a tragic end when
the original source made newspaper headlines
worthy of Ian Watkins prison scrapbook. It's a
big gamble paying tribute to a star, if the per-
son or band they are imitating gets bad press
then that affects the future of the tribute act
and sometimes destroys it. It never works the
other way round though, you could be a con-
victed shit-eating dog fucker in your spare
time and still be allowed to adorn a Kate Bush
wig and make a living on the live gig circuit
screeching lyrics to songs you haven't even
written.
What are the rules? Where do you draw the
line with tribute acts? When exactly does it
Nick J Townsend is the frontman and
guitarist for British band WEAK13
An experienced Underground musician and
music promoter. Supporter of original music.
...and of course writes his column for you
every month here in Ryan's Gig Guide
@nickJtownsend @weak13
NICKJ TOWNSEND
become acceptable to be a tribute of someone
who's deceased? Peaches Geldoff has died
recently; does that mean I can disguise myself
as her and earn money pretending to be her?
Peaches Geldoff only wrote a few songs during
her life so I think I will get an Eric Clapton and
Ginger Baker impersonator to join me; we can
call it "Peaches and Cream". It could be argued
that imitating someone, dressing exactly the
same and mimicking their voice is an early stage
of schizophrenia but let's not forget that if
these people do have a mental illness then it's
positive that they are contributing to society
and explains why they feel the need to utter
statements like "Do you know who I'm sup-
posed to be?".
A tribute band sounds logical if the original
artist that they imitate is dead, like for example
Kurt Cobain or maybe even the Belgium-born
French composer and jazz musician Django
Reinhardt (one for the AngryBirds generation).
There are at least eighteen Bon Jovi tribute
bands based in the UK alone and no one has suc-
cessfully killed the original band yet. That's
almost a Bon Jovi tribute band every fifty miles
or one of five mullet-wearing musicians every
ten miles if we spread them out evenly from
Scotland to Cornwall. It's common to hear a
tribute band announce that they've had to
board a plane in order to travel to the venue; in
2013 there were twelve major accidents involv-
ing commercial airliners, unfortunately there
were no Bon Jovi tribute bands on board any of