Drummers

I attended a house party last night with a friend in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Featured at this party were two bands, one of whom I arrived too late to have seen (I heard they were awful). But I did catch the second band. Not terribly compelling, this second band did have some sense of melody and an ever-so-slight trace of imagination. But one thing they didn't have was a good drummer. The guy they had playing was awful. Later in the night I spoke to a fellow who was involved with the aforementioned band at one point, but no longer was. He said that he was actually a drummer himself, but was playing keyboards with them (for some reason). When their original drummer left, he wanted to switch to his natural instrument, but the band said they wanted to bring in their friend instead. Their friend, it so happens, had no training on the drums at all. As of last night, he'd only been playing for six months. Supposedly, he'd made "great progress" over the last six months. Not enough for me. He was awful in every way: behind the beat, unimaginitve, no feel. He was excrutiating to listen to.

I make no bones about the fact that I'm a music snob. I come from the school of thought that you should have some semblance of self-awareness regarding your capabilities before you go out in public and perform. I'm not condemning in totality the punk rock movement of the late 70's, but it did do something thoroughly detrimental to the musical ethos that said that you should master your instrument before venturing out into performance. The punk rock philosophy was essentially that the better you are, the more disgusting you are. The original bass player of the Sex Pistols, Glen Matlock, got himself kicked out of the band (despite being the author of all of their songs) because he was "too good....he knew all these fancy chords and he liked the Beatles". The long-term damage this attitude has done to live music is palpable, and it was on display last night at this party. I didn't need to talk to the band members in question to know that they probably had the attitude that their "art" was more important than having proficiency on their instruments. If they didn't think that, they wouldn't have brought their "friend" into the band to play drums. They would've gotten themselves a competent player instead.

A few years back it dawned on me that almost every band that I love has a highly competent, imaginitive drummer as their rhythmic lynchpin: The Who, The Police, Rush, Yes (both drummers, though I like Bruford better), ELP, Genesis, Kansas, to name a few. Even Ringo Starr of The Beatles, no Buddy Rich he, had tremendous imagination. (Listen to "Ticket to Ride" or "Tomorrow Never Knows" for examples of this; those beats are COOL, imaginitive, and highly original.) Another example of this would be the Smashing Pumpkins, who's drummer (Jimmy Chamberlain) was a steamroller of a drummer: technically proficient, energetic, strong, if not terribly innovative.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but it seems as if the day of the kick-ass drummer is over, or at least dormant. Between drum machines and this punk attitude pervading up-and-coming bands, I'm not hearing alot out there, either in the clubs or on the radio.

Where have you gone, Keith Moon? The rock and roll nation turns its lonely eyes to you....