From around the corner or around this planet, people create the beats and thus the rhythm to which this old world resonates.
This week the theme is drums and rhythm — anything with a kick ass rhythm lead or accompaniment that provides a rhythm that is in your opinion, of exceptional note.
From Buddy Rich to tub drumming — in your POV, any extraordinary rhythm experience from any place or time. Share whatever grabs you against your will and makes your heart beat. (Knowing the name of the drummer(s) is optional.)
Who are you? Keith Moon/The Who
Tito Peunte and his orchestra live with Sheila E.
When the levy breaks~John Bonham/LedZep:
Baraka – Kecak (Ramayana Monkey Chant)
This one song made playing your cymbal stands fashionable overnight.
The Breeders – Cannonball
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AsId-qVIb4
And back to the lyrics discussion, I love the line “spitting in a wishing well”.
…crap, totally forgot about Tim Alexander from Primus! For his use of cannon and gong drums alone he gets an honorable mention (toys!).
Really clean, classy execution. Just astounding.
This is a little cymbal technique made famous by Carl Palmer. Did it once in band on a suspended ride cymbal (those are the big ones typically 18-22’’ diameter). What makes this unique is it is done right on a timpani while using the tuning pedal to change the pitch of the cymbal reverberations.
Honorable mention to Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls for this inspired piece of thrashing in “Half Jack”. I love the heart he puts into this. 110%. It’s liberating. It’s what I love about drumming. Raw catharsis. Having a bad day? That’s when being a drummer comes in handy. You can get it all out with your sticks. It’s damn therapeutic; and emotionally cleansing.
One of my favorite drum intros ever – just because it’s catchy and I love that high (piccolo?) snare tight in the pocket like that.
Candlebox – Arrow
Another honorable mention to Trés Cool of Greenday
Another “conceptual” drummer who’s name isn’t mentioned enough.
Harvey Burns who played drums for Cat Steven’s, Tea for the Tillerman.
What’s a “conceptual” drummer, you may ask? One who knows how to play the silence (for the sake of setting the mood) as well as playing the rhythm.
Heh, what you call conceptual, I call a good pair of yarn mallets. 😉
http://www.vicfirth.com/product/buynow/product.php?button=BCS1
The same for Jazz. With Jazz, the notes you DON’T play are just as important as the ones you play.
And the ones you can barely hear, too. The light touches and ghost notes.
Proper dynamics can add whole new layers of depth to any style, not just limited to ‘softer’ jazz and folk rock.
Ballad of Billy the Kid ~ Liberty DiVitto, Crystal Taliefero and Chuck Burgi (imo, DiVitto…perhaps the best “conceptual” drummer around. Billy lost the band when Liberty walked.)
Here’s a compilation of set drummers that are legends, influenced me, or whom I respect at the very least.
First, you have no business calling yourself a set drummer if you’ve never heard of Buddy Rich. PERIOD.
Even before him was Gene Krupa – the first drumming superstar
And Louie Bellson was using a double bass set up all the way back in the 40s! Here he is later in his life.
Mitch Mitchell (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) – a huge influence in funkifying my style.
Ginger Baker (Cream)
John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) – created many techniques like the Bonham “bomb” and Bonham triplets which every drum student learns early on.
Keith Moon (and his goldfish – The Who)
Neil Peart (Rush) – always makes #1 on best drummers lists. He has like a devoted cult in the drumming world. No exaggeration.
A drummer who is even better than Neil Peart IMO—he’s a rocket scientist of rhythm, a mathematical genius of beats.
Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes)
Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa)
Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater)
Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band — should be the Carter Beauford Band!)
Matt Cameron (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) – a quiet serious guy who is as professional as grunge drummers come
The underrated (and very close to my style) Dave Abruzzese (Pearl Jam)
David Silveria (KoЯn) – specialty: crunchy beats!
Danny Carey (T00L) – I have a really special love for him. In my top five easy, if not my #1.
And no, I did not “forget” Ringo Starr. Seriously, a mediocre drummer at best. Don Henley gets props for being decent and singing, but not a major innovative force when it comes to the skins. Phil Collins I left out here, but he actually is a great drummer which belongs on this list but whom has already been covered. Same with Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead.
Who’d I forget?
Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Good call KT, my oversight.
And what’s not to love about a guy that has not one, but two gongs?! (Maybe one’s a tam-tam)
Khirad, yeah, those gongs! I saw them three different times in concert. Palmer was just amazing. It is said he took up marshal arts to help him gain the strength he needed for drumming.
Butch Trucks/Jaimoe, Allman Brothers Band. Can’t have one without the other, overshadowed by great guitarists, but stack up with anybody. And before Keith Moon there was Dave Clark of the DC5…defined as a “jackhammer beat”
Here they are, because I never tire of pointing out how awful they are. The lyrics to “Don’t Know Why”, most famously sung by Nora Jones:
I waited ’til I saw the sun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I left you by the house of fun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand
My heart is drenched in wine
But you’ll be on my mind
Forever
Out across the endless sea
I would die in ecstasy
But I’ll be a bag of bones
Driving down the road along
My heart is drenched in wine
But you’ll be on my mind
Forever
Something has to make you run
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I feel as empty as a drum
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I liked empty as a drum.
But, I think Anoushka got more of the talent there.
No offense. She’s still a gifted pianist, but those are god-awful.
Worse than Jewel’s poems. And it’s not until I saw them written out like this that I realized that.
Me, I’m not so much into lyrics, I’m usually paying attention to the musicians. Lyrics are ancillary to me. Good lyrics make a song so much richer, but they’re completely auxiliary and optional. In fact, I often prefer lyrics in languages I don’t understand. So, even if they were this awful, I would never know! 😛
I know that feeling, your last line! I’ve been nearly brought to tears by songs in Japanese until I finally worked out what they were saying. I had them so much richer and meaningful and poignant when I only understood about a third of them!
Maybe it’s the spelling of the word “come,” that is pivotal in this song? 😉
somehow the images just don’t match THAT way,either…:)
I’m not so sure. Think of how happy she would have been otherwise.
true.
Corps edition.
More from the Basel troop Top Secret
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIj-JcoiRnA
Did I say timbales were fun? While I was on snare line throughout junior high and high school, I did take a year off last year of junior high on tenors. I was of course not this good, but damn they’re fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ93ThWI5Nk
Life isn’t fair. Take for instance, this 12 year old at a Blue Devils camp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_OkH30BXA
I’ve had a clinic with this guy in the orange cap, Reid Maxwell, drum sergeant of Simon Fraser University from Vancouver – who have won the Piping World Championships six times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkBFAVdBzOo
One of the most famous Scottish drum fanfares.
Boghall & Bathgate Drums – Fanfare
and My favorite: Submotion Orchestra,
Way off the beaten track- Dubstep:
Yeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sounds like me jammin’ minus the dub all star he’s got there!
I love this shit, this is what screwin’ around is all about! It can be magical when things groove like this!
Not only am I drummer, but I love raw underground electro – best of both worlds!
Why did it have to end? 😥
Khirad! It’s very alive and well in the UK!
Submotion Orchestra just released Finest Hour a few weeks ago. That’s one of the new cuts..
http://www.facebook.com/submotionorchestra
From Caveman (the movie)–The invention of music;
Earl Scruggs and The Chieftains–Sally Goodin;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByYSkRGrMqw
Talk about toe tappin!
John Cooper Clarke–Evidently Chickentown;
The opening of “Infrared Roses” by the Grateful Dead.
Thanks for posting this zenith. I miss the Dead. Whenever I would start to lose my faith in my fellow man/woman, a Dead show always cured me.
Hart, Wolff & Hennings;
Besides meditations that’s some perfect ritual music for magick right there.
I agree. It is still quite vibratory. Just in a much higher pitch.
Santana Soul Sacrifice (Woodstock);
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLDalZ4-53g&feature=related
Michel Shrieve is pretty amazing for a 20 year old drummer. (any age, really)