Big Drum Thump

Drum and Drummer News and Photos

  • Roots Drummer Survives Bus Crash

    Questlove and the rest of the Roots survived a major bus crash last Wednesday in France. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. In fact, ‘Love was blogging about the accident only 30 minutes after it happened. Here is the entry from his MySpace blog:

    “I used to live life, like there was no manana
    Now I’m treatin every breath, like it was “your honor”
    malik b, 1999 “the spark” from things fall apart

    well…since we are sitting on the side of the road. what better way to pass the time while the ambulance comes then to….blog.

    –actually i spoke too soon….the above was written an hour ago. now im in a roadside motel trying to make sense of this all. the last things i remember are eating 2 pieces of cold pizza and a bowl of rice krispies and watching will ferrel’s nuts dance on top of john c. riley’s drumset in step brothers. because it was the ghetto bootleg barbershop version i was more or less wondering when the guy in the theater was going to say “watch….this is the good part” to me as the movie went on.

    as usual i fell asleep. now normally i woulda been working overtime in preparing my dj set for my paris afterparty on friday but something actually said “meh leave it alone”–

    i don’t wanna get all deep like it was an omen but those that know me (look at my twit/facebook/myspace/okayplayer/blip history) know that when not onstage i am glued to my computer, doing some sort of activity like converting music or tv shows. but this was a rare occurrence in which i actually went to sleep.

    next thing i knew was the most surreal feeling ever….
    was i upside down?
    why am i covered in cereal?
    oh shit….that coffee pot is coming for my face!!!
    in reality the crash was all of about 7 seconds….but to do a 360 on the highway and end up ramped up (the van that crashed into ours was UNDER our double decker bus) in the air….is….well…
    a frigging miracle.

    my first thought was not move a fucking inch. i always had fear that we would fall off a cliff while in high mountain traveling like denver or switzerland. i couldn’t tell where gravity began and ended. i felt like i did 3000 crunches so obviously my side of the bus was now on the ground (the only way i can describe the position was imagine yourself on a bus sitting down…..now postion yourself sitting on the left side of the bus….now overturn the bus so that it tips over and falls to the right side. now on top of all that position the front of the bus to stand smack dab in the middle of the air as if a ramp was holding it up 90 degrees.

    now add in my drill sgt of a tour manager keith mcphee being keith (which is basically to say no one does intensity or UBER intensity like he does. i ….was……try….ing……to…..rea….ch….my ….ipod so i can channel him out. its like every word he yelled was making this situation much worse than it was….
    “……effrom you alive?!?!?!? (yes)……….”frank are you alive!?!?!?”…….frank?!!?!?!!?!? FRANK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!…….—“

    it was then i realized the severe nature of the accident and i was NOT in the mood to prep myself on whether or not the remaining 12 people upstairs (i know its a dumb reference but look up the Spiceworld movie on youtube and you can see the type of double decker bus that we were traveling on. i hold court downstairs cause noone can stomach the stench of the urine induced potty in the downstairs lounge. —after 15 mins you dont notice it all that much)—so i was holding court downstairs and the 12 of them were asleep in the bunks.
    i dont do bunks and this day proves why.

    i just wanted someone to calmly tell me the weight of my body was NOT going to push us down a mountainside. then i wanted assurance that the bus was NOT going to explode.

    my drum tech d was the first to make sure i was okay and since the Mcpheepanic mode was setting in…the way he was asking me was rather…..panicky (thanks palin) and based on the fact that he was walking on the ceiling indeed let me know that this wasn’t no fender bender i was in…..this shit might be the real deal based on how he managed to spiderman walk on the ceiling.

    or….am i now on the ceiling?
    and why do i have to use every stomach muscle just to sit upright?….wait…..
    am i upside down?
    damnit…..im upside down……lemme just shift my body to…..oh shit….just…..wait if i can just….lift this….leg to….
    damn. i need something to hold on to to hoist myself up in the air. i grabbed on to the table and somehow forgetting that i am NOT smedium (riiiiiiiiiiiip!) the entire table ripped from its foundation and was now on the ceiling….which is now the floor.

    this is also when i noticed that i am covered in coffee and tea and bread and about 3 bags of cereal multiple water bottles and dvds and broken glass. and….oh god….did the bathroom fluid overturn too? (yes….and YUCK)
    hearing cars outside i now know that i am not going to fall down the mountain side…..were are on the highway. but i can see out the right side of window and i see trees and hills….but i hear car horns and yelling.
    and where the hell is the ambulance?!?!?

    keith is yelling and im begging him “please don’t yell”—but keith dont know calm…..but now he got me thinking something is gonna happen is i DONT get off this bus. problem is the door that i would get out of is now the ground. and i am disillusioned and have no sense of direction. he is telling me i must make my way upstairs and crash my way through the window and escape. im yelling “where is everyone else?!?!” and i am informed that me and the driver are the only two trapped downstairs. now the problem is….im not the smallest person in the world and now i have to use uber arm strength to climb my way out of this bus and figure how to hoist myself without the aid of anything to hold on to.

    hard shit indeed.

    i made leeway to the stairs when it hit me that all my ID and wallet and lifeline are in my personal bag….allllllllllllllll the way on the other side of the bus. i do the contemplate should i shouldn’t i (“i should” won) now it was “how?!”

    the only way i can describe it is that scene in back to the future when doc is in the clock tower and had mere seconds to connect a broken plug that will power marty mcfly’s car with 1.8 jiggawatts of lightening power. and winds up using every body part to ensure this goes down the correct way. so my left arm is hoisting my body up and my right arm and left leg are…..trying ……to …..grab……within……inches….my……bag…..(accidents wind up giving you strength you never knew you had….i carried my bag with my legs while i crawled my way upstairs like i was joe the paraplegic on family guy—all the while keith is being keith

    ahmir ARE YOU OK!?!?! AHMIR PLEASE SAY SOMETHING!!!!
    im like….wait…am i even alive? like what if i “think” im alive when in actually im not like the movies?—-the next 2 minutes proved how alive i was for i managed to crawl through spaces and holes and broken shattered glass like a contortionist blindfolded….

    when i got outside…..and looked at what i crawled out of?
    man.
    i just couldn’t believe it.
    i mean….how in the hell did we experience this?
    how did we manage to….man…..
    dog we are soooo alive right now.
    and yes we went through all that shit people go through when they go through accidents.
    dazed. amazed. grateful. laughing?

    of course as i type this its a whole nother story: i think the ambulance workers have caught wind of who we are (ze seed?) and there are about 20 ambulance workers and 10 cops. asking alot of questions in french (we so need tina faris right now)

    as i type this we are waiting in line to get examined. (some of us have cuts and neck braces on)—keith is still at the bus trying to salvage what he can (amazingly the uhaul extension is still intact) im a ok. i called my mom and some loved ones. and i managed to twit in the ambulance with artless iphone (wanted to be the first celeb to twit from an ambulance)—i guess im just passing the time and taking advantage of the free “internets” and the worlds best bread (yes….the french bread is all that)

    as for the future? if we make it to our slot on the glow in the dark tour in paris that too will be a miracle. til then just wanna let everyone know that we are happy to be alive. and not in that tv cliche way….but man……that was divine intervention. we are so grateful for this outcome.

    – ?uesto

  • Tommy Lee Working on Mayhem?

    Rumor has it that Tommy Lee is recording a new Methods of Mayhem disc, and we’re pretty friggin’ excited. Even if you don’t dig MOM’s rap-metalish vibe, you gotta as a drummer love Lee’s beats and rhythms. Check out a couple below from the group’s first album.

  • Meinl Foot Cabasa

    Put your lowly cabasa player out of job with Meinl’s new foot bling. The clever little pedal allows you to play cabasa rhythms with your foot while your hands are free for conga, timbale, or kit thumping. It features a steel-chain drive, a stainless steel cylinder within a wooden cabasa body, and a black powder-coated pedal. The instrument can also be set to sound on downstrokes only or both upstrokes and downstrokes. It’s all yours for a $259 MSRP.

  • Lars Ulrich Talks Mullets and Orgies

    You know, we’re really up on this whole new media, Web journalism thing, but somehow we missed this fabulous Lars Ulrich interview that was published a whole 18 days ago. It consists entirely of fan questions, good ones like “Your girlfriend, Connie Nielsen, is smokin’ hot. Is she with you more for your money or your fame?” and “You once joked that Metallica’s video collection should’ve been called 15 Years of Bad Haircuts. Who has rocked the all-time worst do?” Our favorite, though, has got to be this one:

    When you toured with Guns N’ Roses in 1992, what was the most batshit insane thing you saw Axl Rose do?

    Axl’s a friend, and I don’t want to compromise that. But as for “fun” crazy: He wrote his [half] brother, Stuart, a $25,000 check every day to throw these lavish theme parties. It was like, we’re in Indianapolis, so there were Formula One cars everywhere, with all the girls dressed up in pit-crew uniforms. It was decadence at the highest level I’d ever seen, a Caligula kind of outlandishness. There were orgies, sure. Was I involved? Yes. Well, I was in the same room—we’ll leave it at that.

  • Dido Wants to Drum

    You see? Hot chicks not only dig drummers: they sometimes even want to be drummers. The delightful, delectable Dido discovered just how much fun skin bashing could be as she was recording her recently released third album:

    Drumming made me listen to music differently—especially when I started playing along with things. I would do this thing of playing along with my iPod. I’d actually love to be in a band at some point. The thing that would excite me next, to learn more, would be to play for someone else while they’re singing. That would be really interesting.

  • Travis Barker Sues Over Plane Crash

    According to E!, Barker’s attorneys have filed a negligence lawsuit against both the owner and the manufacturer of the Learjet that crashed on September 19. The court documents claim that “one or more of the tires failed, leaving tire debris and portions of airplane components along the 8,600 foot runway.” The pilot is accused of making a “negligent attempt to abort the takeoff,” and a number of the plane’s parts and components are alleged to have been “not airworthy.”

    We’ll keep you updated—Perry Mason like—as details unfold.

  • Win a Tama Iron Cobra

    Desperately need to own an Iron Cobra double pedal, but don’t have the cash? Just fill out the form here on Tama’s site, and you’re in the running for one of five pedal packs worth $579.

    And if you do manage to win one of them sumbitches, send us an unboxing photo or two.

  • Travis Barker Back in the Studio

    It’s been only a couple of months since Travis Barker survived a plane crash and was seriously burned, but he’s already back in the studio and playing drums. He made the announcement today on MTV’s Total Request Live (which finally and mercifully has gone the way of the dodo). Barker said, “I’m already playing my drums again….It was like riding a bike. It was really exciting to know I still have my chops. It still felt good. I still can make it around the kit. Everything felt right, so I’m thankful to be able to play.”

    Shit yeah! Check out the complete interview below.

    [Update 2022: the original vid from 2008 on MTV appears to be out of circulation, but we’ve embedded to newer material below where Travis talks about his experience surviving the crash. Harrowing, life-altering stuff.]

  • Evelyn Glennie Endorses Hammerax…

    And she was also inducted into the PAS hall of fame a few weeks ago, but we’re actually more jazzed about the endorsement. We first posted about Hammerax’s cymbals months ago, when the Whipcrash was unveiled, and were duly impressed with the company’s innovation and creativity. Dame Glennie apparently was too. She says:

    Life begins with sound and ends with sound. The sense of curiosity that percussionists have seems to be forever magnified and there’s no question that Hammerax has made it a commitment to stretch our imagination and curiosity beyond words. The range of products is fantastic with so many possibilities for their use in countless different musical contexts. I have no limits as to how I use these products—they are simply a great addition to my already expansive range of instruments.

  • 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.

  • Mitch Mitchell Is Dead

    Sad, sad day, fellow thumpers. Mitch Mitchell, the legendary skinsman behind Jimi Hendrix, is no more. He was found dead in a Portland hotel room earlier today. At this time, it appears the 61-year-old drummer died of natural causes, though an autopsy is planned. We’ll keep you updated as details become available.

    Update [11/13/08]: The accolades for Mitch Mitchell are deservedly hitting the Web today. DRUM! has kindly posted a feature the magazine did on Mitchell in 1998. Modern Drummer also posted an excerpt about him from the “Drum Gods” series. Ratt drummer Bobby Blotzer remembers Mitchell here.

    Update [11/14/08]: Matt Sorum also pays tribute to Mitchell.

    Mitch Mitchell obituaries:

  • New Vater Signature Sticks

    Be still my thumping heart, some more signature sticks to try out.

    First up is the Brian Frasier-Moore model. It’s just under a 5A in the grip but with some extra length for those way-the-hell-out-of-reach crashes. The width of the new Derek Roddy model is between a 5A and 5B, and it features a quick taper to a small acorn tip. The Mike Wengren model is the biggest of the bunch. It’s between a 5B and a 2B with a quick taper to an oval nylon tip, and it comes in a sexy black satin finish. All of them will set you back $14.99 MSRP.

  • Ginger Baker Will Take Off His Pants…

    But not in a full-on porn kind of way. Turns out that Lindiwe Noko, the chick accused of stealing $55,000 from him, is claiming that she and the Cream drummer were an item and that the cash was a gift. Baker says he’ll bare all in court to prove the two were never intimate:

    I’ve a scar that only a woman who had a thing with me would know. It’s there and she doesn’t know it’s there….I’m quite prepared to strip. It may well come down to it.

    Sounds like case closed, then. Unless Noko managed to chat up one of his previous paramours. We’ll keep eyes peeled for pantless pics. Or not.

  • 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.

  • Jimmy Carl Black Is Dead

    Jimmy Carl Black, the original drummer in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, died on Saturday at the age of 70. Cancer was the culprit. Along with stick wielding, Black also handled some vocals in Mothers. He continued to perform (and sometimes had to resort to “real” jobs) throughout his fairly long life. Here he is on stage in 2007. [Update 2022: Ugh, this vid is gone, and there isn’t much of anything of him playing drums left on YouTube.]