Joey Jeremiah, Canada's Answer to Bob Dylan?

January 22, 2015 8:53 PM

Am I hearing things, or are the bass parts in Bob Dylan's Up To Me (Scroll down to Track #37 for excerpt) and The Zit Remedy's Everybody Wants Something very similar? And if they are, is it simply that they share a simple do-doo/doo-doo/do-doo/doo-doo rhythym, or is there something more? And, outside of learning to read music or theory, are there resources out there that could help a not-particularly musical person such as myself articulate the similarities that they hear between songs?
posted by Alvy Ampersand to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

I don't hear it. But there's also something a little off about that Degrassi video. Is that actually the Zit Remedy singing or have some kids just overdubbed with their own slightly-off version? Also, why does it say "the Zits" when they were called "The Zit Remedy."
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:01 PM on January 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Huh...it is them. I swear when they performed it "live" it sounded different.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:05 PM on January 22, 2015

Gotta say: that's that first time (and very likely the last) that I've ever heard Zit Remedy mentioned in the same breath as Bob Dylan.
posted by holborne at 9:10 PM on January 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Is that actually the Zit Remedy singing or have some kids just overdubbed with their own slightly-off version? Also, why does it say "the Zits" when they were called "The Zit Remedy."

The band was originally named The Zit Remedy, then they changed to simply the Zits. It's a fan-edit video, but I'm pretty confident the audio is from the show.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:13 PM on January 22, 2015

I don't hear any bass on that Dylan clip. Sounds like a single acoustic guitar, strumming full open chords.
posted by humboldt32 at 2:01 AM on January 23, 2015

That being said, the chord progressions aren't even close. The degrassi clip is a simple 3 chord: root, up a full step, up another full step, back down a full step. Rinse and repeat.
posted by humboldt32 at 2:06 AM on January 23, 2015