Clone Bands
When disco finally departed, the club owners quickly rebuilt the stages. Some wanted only bands that covered the current hits. Thus, a clone band era thrived. One such band, Streetfighter, specialized in The Rolling Stones catalog. When Rolling Stone Magazine interviewed this group for an article describing the "clone" phenomena, one member was quoted as saying, "We do The Rolling Stone Show. Many of our fans tell us that we're the next best thing after the real thing." A week after the magazine's publication, local ads for the group screamed "The Rolling Stones Show! The Next Best Thing After The Real Thing! - Rolling Stone." Talk about chutzpah! Nevertheless, there were others playing sets that included original tunes. In fact, there were hundreds of them. "We would put asses in the seats so the owners didn't care what we played," said Gary Grant of The Sheiks.
Of
course, "cover bands" are still popular. They just don't attempt to replicate
the "look and feel" of the original (and famous) band. Some of the cover bands
develop a personality all their own, too. Usually, their popularity increases.
One perfect example of this phenomenon is The Zen Tricksters. Ostensibly a
Grateful Dead "cover" band, The Zen Tricksters developed a considerable following
around the Northeast when they began to include original tunes, often very
dissimilar to their patron saints, The Grateful Dead.
