Big Drum Thump

Drum and Drummer News and Photos

Category: Drum Media

  • TRAPS Magazine Is Dead

    Well, shit. TRAPS magazine, the very sexy and sophisticated sister mag of DRUM!, has ceased publication, an unfortunate casualty of the current economic crisis. The final issue, which features Tony Williams as the cover story, is still in stores and will be on sale until March. Grab it while you can.

    [Press Release]

    Enter Music Publishing, Inc. today announced that TRAPS magazine is merging with its sister publication, DRUM! Published quarterly since 2007, TRAPS has been widely hailed for its innovative editorial content, including book-length interviews, top writers and photographers, annotated transcriptions and a focus on jazz and rock drumming history. It will suspend publishing immediately. Current subscribers will receive DRUM! magazine subscriptions and be invited to join an upcoming TRAPS web community.

    According to publisher Phil Hood, “In this recession it is imperative for us to focus our efforts our flagship product, DRUM! magazine. TRAPS is incredibly popular with its readership, but the downturn, particularly in advertising, makes it impossible for TRAPS to reach its goals in the near term. We are not immune to the forces impacting our advertisers and other publishers.”

    TRAPS launched a test issue, featuring drumming great Max Roach on the cover in 2006. It published three issues in 2007, four in 2008 and one in 2009. Other cover stories featured John Bonham, Jack DeJohnette, Roy Haynes, Terry Bozzio, Lenny White, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and Steve Gadd.

    “We learned a tremendous amount from the TRAPS experience,” says editor Andy Doerschuk, “and we want to incorporate some of that TRAPS approach in DRUM! as we go forward.”

    The final issue of TRAPS, featuring Tony Williams, remains on sale until March.

  • Want to Interview Neil Peart?

    Now you can kinda’, sorta’ do so courtesy of DRUM! magazine. Peart will be the cover story for DRUM!‘s June 2009 issue, and instead of having the Professor interviewed by a regular old drumming journo, the magazine is turning over the question-asking to you, Neil Peart’s rabid fans. Just send your favorite to the following email address: neilpeart@drumlink.com. Fans whose questions are chosen will receive their names and pictures in the article. You got until March 15 to think of a good one. Check out the full details below:

    [Press Release]

    Enter Music Publishing, publishers of hip percussion mags worldwide, will feature Neil Peart on the cover of DRUM! magazine in June. However, instead of having one of its staff writers interview Neil, the company is inviting Neil Peart fans to conduct the interviews via email. In fact, the company has set up a special email address, neilpeart@drumlink.com, so the Neil Peart population can have their say. (Readers can also go online or access a question page on DRUM!’s YouTube site.)

    Those fans who want to participate simply email their questions, and if chosen by editor Andy Doerschuk, they will have their names and pictures included in the story. “We’ve done this once before and it was a great success,” said Phil Hood, publisher of Enter Music Publishing. “With Neil’s fans it will be even better. We’re very curious to see what the results will be of our email story campaign.”

    After receiving all of the interview questions, which are due by March 15, Doerschuk will then weave them into an integrated interview. “Neil Peart seemed like a great pick for this kind of story,” Doerschuk said. “After all, he has won DRUM! magazine’s “drummie” of the year for two straight years. Our fan base, regardless of age, obviously respects him and that did play into our decision to try this with him.”

    DRUM! magazine expects a great response from Peart fans to this opportunity. The company just hopes that its drumlink.com server will not explode due to the amount of incoming email.

  • Reunion Blues Launches a Digital Tour Guide for Bands

    Reunion Blues, a longtime maker of instrument bags, has launched a promising site that can help all you gigging thumpers and your bands book an independent tour. Called appropriately enough the Touring Band’s Guide, the site showcases club names and booking personnel’s contact info for 27 (and growing!) of the largest US cities. The site is also a way for musicians to find venues to perform at. If your band submits a venue or hangout to the guide, an entry is created that includes your band’s name, sound clips, photo, and URL—definitely a great way to get exposure. Best of all, of course, all the information is submitted by touring musicians for touring musicians like you. Click on over to the site, and be sure to let us know how the Touring Band’s Guide works out for you.

  • Taye Unveils New Website Design

    Click on over and check out Taye’s new site. Product info is easier to find now, and at the bottom of the homepage are some sweet audio files that demonstrate Taye’s drum lines. We have the GoKit groove on permanent repeat.

  • Big Drum Thump Blips

    Though we haven’t quite recovered from Muxtape’s unfortunate demise, it was getting to be time to pull our shit together and stop rocking to sleep in the bathtub. We looked at quite a few services that would allow us to stream full songs without getting sued (or at least without getting aggressively sued) and went with the seriously awesome BLIP.fm, a kind of Twitter/Muxtape hybrid. Check out our station here, and if you create one of your own, be sure to friend us up.

  • Drummer Talk Blogs PASIC 2008

    Ain’t this a wretched bitch? Here I am about to catch a flight to testicle-freezing Seattle, and the Drummer Talk dudes are hanging at PASIC in Austin. Thankfully, Dave is live blogging as many clinics as he can squeeze into a day and uploading bunches of pics for everyone’s viewing pleasure. Click the PASIC tag on DT to follow along. And click again to read Dave’s post on the Erik Smith clinic.

  • Buddy Rich Concert Pre-Show

    We’ve been playing around with the various camera views available for the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert that will be streamed today at the Drum Channel. The drum cam view and video interface are pictured below. Image quality is very good so far, but we haven’t been able to get an audio sample yet. Sticks crossed for auditory fabulousness.

    [Update 2022: the vid screenshot has alas been lost to time.]

    The show stars at 4:30 p.m. (PST). The concert schedule is as follows:

    • Tommy Igoe performing “Preach & Teach” and “Little Train”
    • John Blackwell performing “No Jive,” “Nuttville,” and “Mind of J”
    • Guitar Center Contest Winner Donnie Marple performing a solo
    • Terry Bozzio performing “Machine,” “Tank!,” and “Some Skunk Funk”
    • Tommy Igoe performing “The Chicken,” “Willowcress,” and “La Fiesta”
    • Nick Rich performing “Buelah Witch” and “Mercy Mercy Mercy.” Also The Beat Goes On with Cathy Rich.
    • Chad Smith performing “Dani California,” “Hocus Pocus,” and “Birdland”
    • Neil Peart performing “Love For Sale,” “Time Will Tell,” “One O’Clock Jump,” and “YYZ”

    Update: Click Channel 5, called “Backstage,” for pre-show chatter with Bozzio et al. Audio seems quite good—a little out of sync every now and then with the video, but quite watchable. This will likely be affected by your connection speed, of course, and how many folks are logged on.

    Update: Terry Bozzio is performing songs from Cowboy Bebop!

  • Buddy Rich Concert on the Drum Channel

    Don’t forget to tune in for the Drum Channel‘s live stream of the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert tomorrow. It starts at 7:30 p.m. EST (4:30 p.m. PST), and with Neil Peart, Chad Smith, Terry Bozzio, and lots of other greats performing, it’s not a show you’ll want to miss. We don’t want to hear any excuses: the live stream is freakin’ free!

  • The Drum Channel Is Going to Be…

    …goddamn unbelievably great. At least we hope so. Click on over for a peek at the introduction video featuring Terry Bozzio. From what we can gather, the site will have a strong social media focus (yay!), but there doesn’t appear to be an official, all-of-our-shit-is-live-so-you-can-play-with-it launch date yet (boo!). Stay stuck to the interwebospheres for updates soon.

  • Ask Chad Smith a Question

    Music Radar is taking questions for Chad Smith. Just leave your query in the comments section here, though you do, alas, have to register first on Music Radar. [Update 2022: Looks like the original article has been lost to cyberspace.]

    One of our favorites so far:

    Do you sometimes cringe when you read Anthony’s lyrics and WTF is a rockapotamus ferchristsakes LOL

  • MD Fest 2008 Is a Wrap

    Well, dammit. Another MD Fest has come and gone, and we still haven’t managed to swindle and scheme our way into one (next year we are totally getting all Mission Impossible about it). Thankfully, Hudson Music set up a preview site of the event and posted some frighteningly good teaser vids of each drummer’s performance. The complete DVD is scheduled to hit shelves sometime in 2009 (which is only around 10 million seconds from now).

  • Muxtape Is Down…

    But hopefully not down for the count. The RIAA has finally flexed its enormous lawyer muscles by demanding that the music site remove copyrighted content or begin paying royalties for streaming songs—not a likely resolution because the RIAA charges an exorbitant amount of cash for the privilege. For its part, Muxtape has said, “No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned.”

    We’ll keep our sticks crossed that everything works out (hope springs eternal, eh?), but in the meantime we’ll be checking out some other services to bring you great drumming tracks. If you use anything, drop us a recommendation in the comments.

    [Update 2022: Muxtape was a great site that allowed bands and listeners to create “mixtapes” with a limited number of songs that could be streamed directly from Muxtape’s site. It was kind of like a custom Spotify way before Spotify existed.]

  • August Muxtape Update

    Two new tracks have been added to our August Muxtape. The first is Wally Schnalle’s “I Hear You,” a kind of post-bop duet between sax and drums. Many of you may know Schnalle as the music editor for DRUM! Magazine, but you might not have had the chance to hear him tear it up firsthand. He’s sticks down an amazing player. Also check out this vid of him soloing at Yoshi’s in Oakland.

    The second new song is “Bedroom Eyes” from the Josh Dion Band. Dion is the band’s leader, lead singer, and drummer. His groove is incredibly fat, and we love the fact his vocals channel a pretty good amount of soul for a white boy. Maybe there’s some hope.

    Here’s the complete Muxtape as of today:

    1. Wally Schnalle, “I Hear You”
    2. Josh Dion Band, “Bedroom Eyes”
    3. One Day As a Lion, “If You Fear Dying”
    4. Stanton Moore, “(Late Night at the) Maple Leaf”
    5. Sunlight Square, “From the Cosmos”
    6. M8, “Graveyard Girl”
    7. Pnuma Trio, “Improv Jam”
    8. Tower of Power, “Can’t You See (You Doin’ Me Wrong)”
    9. Buddy Miles Express, “Spot on the Wall”
    10. Keller Williams, “Restraint”

    [Update 2022: Muxtape was a great site that allowed bands and listeners to create “mixtapes” with a limited number of songs that could be streamed directly from Muxtape’s site. It was kind of like a custom Spotify way before Spotify existed.]

  • Muxtape of the Month: August 2008

    It’s not quite August yet, but we couldn’t wait to get up our new Muxtape for your listening pleasure. It includes some of the best drumtastic tunes we’ve been jamming lately, as well as some miscellaneous songs that simply make us want to run naked through laundromats (always the litmus test for aural pleasure, eh?). A Muxtape is FREE to make or listen to, but it’s limited to 12 tracks, so we’ll be changing them throughout the month to feature new music. Here’s what’s playing now:

    August Muxtape

    1. Our favorite new drum song is “If You Fear Dying” from Jon Theodore’s new band, One Day As a Lion.
    2. Stanton Moore’s “(Late Night at the) Maple Leaf”. The groove is ridiculously great, and the drum breaks starting around 3:55 are HOT.
    3. Steve Gadd doing downtempo with Sunlightsquare. Very chill.
    4. “Graveyard Girl” from M83. We love the rawness of the drumming.
    5. “Improv Jam” from Pnuma Trio features great live electronica drumming. Stupid good.
    6. Tower of Power…don’t got to say anything else.
    7. When Buddy Miles played his last paradiddle a few months ago, we were shamefully unfamiliar with his work. That’s no longer the case because Brandi has been playing “Spot on the Wall” nonstop.
    8. This Keller Williams tune doesn’t have a lick of drums, but his guitar playing is wonderfully percussive. Plus the lyrics are funny as fuck.

    Updated Muxtape as of 8/10/08:

    1. Wally Schnalle, “I Hear You”
    2. Josh Dion Band, “Bedroom Eyes”
    3. One Day As a Lion, “If You Fear Dying”
    4. Stanton Moore, “(Late Night at the) Maple Leaf”
    5. Sunlight Square, “From the Cosmos”
    6. M8, “Graveyard Girl”
    7. Pnuma Trio, “Improv Jam”
    8. Tower of Power, “Can’t You See (You Doin’ Me Wrong)”
    9. Buddy Miles Express, “Spot on the Wall”
    10. Keller Williams, “Restraint”

  • New Looks for Modern Drummer and Music Radar

    It’s been a busy few days around the drumming interwebospheres.

    Along with news of an upcoming digital edition (sound all too familiar?), Modern Drummer has updated the look of its site from dark and choppy to white and middlebrow Mondrian—a definite improvement but nothing that will get your sticks super hard. Luckily, MD‘s photo gallery is now up and running as well, and it includes some great drummer pics…even though they are embedded as Flash files, which means we can’t steal them easily.

    U.K.-based Music Radar also ditched its black background for bright white, and of the two spruced up sites, it definitely looks the more swank.

    What can you do? Brits have always had better style.