Something I just had to post on...

[Sennheiser]

I don't post much in this forum, but I thought for the older guys here, that you might be interested.

Colin Hay from Men at Work was on the NBC show "Scrubs" tonight. Once at the beginning and again at the end playing the same song.

He was doing a really cool acoustic version of "Overkill" (1982) from the Cargo album.

I caught some of the cords during the verse, but not the whole tune. Looks like it starts at the tenth fret and walks down four frets with four chord changes.

I had always wanted to play a bunch of their songs but don't have the same ear for guitar as I do for piano. Anyway, what I saw him playing and what I was trying to follow sounds damn close.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll enter the chords that I saw (or think I saw) into a chord computer and let you know what I find out. It sounds good how I'm playing it now, but I'll listen to the CD and compare that with what I saw on the tube.

I'm not that great of a guitar player so I can't even guess at the chords he was using.

He's put on a few pounds since the 80's, but still looks like Colin Hay. A little older I guess like all of us, but what the hell.

 

[BluesMeister]

Colin Hay

Hey Sennheiser!

www.colinhay.com

Drop him an e-mail and ask him what chords he was playing. He's based in the eastern states of Australia. Probably Victoria, but I wouldn't hold that against him!

What a shame Men At Work were lipsynching at the Olympics. They can do better than that...

--
BluesMeister

 

[Sennheiser]

Hey thanks mate!

Does he really have time to answer the volume of e-mail he must get? I mean I wouldn't expect you to really know that, but it just seems that most major artists just have too much to do and never even have a moment to do anything they want to do.

I'll write right now. If my calculations are correct it's either 1300 there or 1600. I'm not sure if that's right, but at least it's still daylight there.

Thanks again.

 

[rushfan33]

Sennheiser,
I just saw what you were talking about on Scrubs..... He sounded pretty damn good! That's a very good song. My wife and I enjoyed watching it.
Thanks,
RF

 

[Sennheiser]

I woke up a little while ago and found this e-mail from Colin in my box:

Michael,

I haven't got any tabs for my songs, but people keep asking me so I think I better at some point make some scribbles.

By the way, I haven't stopped working or making albums, you just haven't noticed.

Best,

Colin


That has to be a first for me, getting a personal reply from a major recording artist. I think it's time for a trip to the record store to see what I've been missing.

I'm still going to see what chord he was using. Post later.

 

[Sennheiser]

Near as I can figure using the chord computer and listening to the CD on the tune, "Overkill" is this:

It starts at the ninth fret with an Em7#5. It goes down a fret to another chord that did not come up on the computer and I have no idea what it is but it sounds correct.

The A and D strings are held at the eighth fret and the lower three strings are held in a "D" open chord configuration on the 6th and 7th frets.

It walks down to the seventh fret and the fingering is the same for the first chord. It walks down to the sixth fret and again, the fingering is the same as for the second chord.

It starts over and repeats this progression until the chorus and them I'm pretty well lost except that it sounds like at the beginning of the chorus the first chord is played again and then goes to an open E chord.

I'm not very good at figuring out complex chords on the guitar. If anyone has anything they could add about this tune I'd appreciate it. Sure wish they'd have published their music.