Tab and Assembling a Fake Book

So this Pixies thing has meant that, for the first time in my life, I've been seriously invested in learning a cover song exactly the way it was played by the original artist. Well...to be precise...in learning 88 songs that way.

The process has been a combination of looking up bass or guitar tab online, listening to recordings (studio and live), watching videos, and discussion with my bandmates. Typically the tab is a nice place to start, but it is usually wrong in some way.

So, in the process I've been assembling a personal fake book for the bass parts for all the Pixies songs. I think it is more accurate than what is currently available online. I'm thinking of cleaning it up, once I've got all 88 songs mastered, and putting it together in a format that I can share. Given that it's all copy righted music, I'm not looking to make money on it. But it was is a labor of love that feels worth preserving.

There's no rush, because we're probably six months away from completing the catalog (my personal goal anyway, don't know when or if the band thinks we'll get through everything). At this point I'm dedicated to learning all of the songs whether or not the band ever plays them all. I'm on a mission. I think that I'm going to start being a bit more careful in the formatting of the fakebook, though, making sure to preserve key bits and keeping things orderly. Then, when it's done, clean the whole thing up one last time and then either print it up at a copy shop, or maybe via Lulu or other outlet (again, only making it available for my personal use...not published with an ISBN and not for sale at a profit to others...I might make a link somewhere that people can buy copies from me at the cost of production and distribute them that way). Might even be worth prettying up with pics and such. Could be a fun project.