…for the English Heritage foundation. Moonie fans have been campaigning for the EH to install one of those blue here-lived-a-great-person plaques at his London residence, but they got shot down. The official response:
Moon died aged only 32, and many of his contemporaries, including other members of The Who such as Pete Townshend, are still living. Further time should be allowed to pass so he can be considered alongside his contemporaries.
Fuckin’ what? Jimi Hendrix already has one, and he died at 27. And he wasn’t even British.
Veteran session drummer Mickey Waller died of liver cancer yesterday. Just a few of the notable folks he kept time for: Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Rod Stewart, and Jeff Beck.
In lieu of reading a cobbled together eulogy from us here at BDT, have a gander at Waller’s excellent obituary in the Guardian. We’re betting he would have been pleased.
Oh sweet bloody Thor, has Tama ever given us gear junkies something to drool over now: a whole bunch of the company’s catalogs—from the 1960s to the 2000s—have been posted online. Love seeing all those monster concert-tom kits!
Ever wish you could just turn down the other instruments in “A Love Supreme” to figure out what the hell Elvin is doing? You’ll get your chance if the MT9 format, also called “Music 2.0,” is embraced as the new digital-audio standard.
An MT9 music file includes a six-channel audio equalizer, with each channel dedicated to one of the following: voice, chorus, piano, guitar, bass, or drums. Isolating a drum part will thus be as easy as sliding a fader up or down in the digital music player (see photo below). Right now, only a few albums have been recorded in the format (and getting hold of them looks to be friggin’ impossible unless you got buddies with some Korean currency), but Samsung and LG are apparently interested in equipping their mobile phones with an MT9 player next year. Keep your sticks crossed for international development and adoption to follow.
The coolly eloquent John Densmore, former drummer for The Doors, has penned an essay about his journey in jazz—from enthusiastic fan to accomplished pro.
On an off night from the Orbit, a Santa Monica bar gig I got with my very lame fake ID from Tijuana, I stumbled into the Renaissance Club on the Sunset Strip, where Lenny Bruce had performed. It was my first time in a jazz club, and I was ushered to a table in the back behind a pole. I was one of very few white people in the place, and the Renaissance Club was intimidatingly cool. It had an attitude. I hadn’t cultivated one yet.
Pretty soon I was hitting all the great haunts: The Lighthouse, the Bit, the Parisian Room and Melody Lane down on Adams Boulevard. Some teenagers were dragged to church by their parents to get a dose of religion….I found it with jazz.
This music has brought me back to these clubs, only this time I’m on stage! It is with great humility that I step onto the same stages that my early mentors commanded. Coltrane, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson. There probably isn’t a jazz musician you could name that I haven’t seen play live.
Game haters, prepare to get that stick out of your bum. Three genuine drum heroes—Chad Smith, Stewart Copeland, and Travis Barker—think GH’s new kit is pretty slick shit, and there’s even a video to prove it. [Update 2022: Alas, the video has been removed.]
We experienced some server hang trying to watch it (every 14-year-old drummer on at least four continents is clicking that link right now), but be patient: it’s worth the wait.
Drumming quote of the day: Commenting on the kit’s durability, Chad says in the video, “If it holds up to me beatin’ on it, it should do pretty good.”
Happy news indeed. The Neshoba County DA has dropped the recent rape charge against drummer Rikki Rockett because, well, Rikki wasn’t the guy they were looking for. Turns out that a tool named John Minskoff, a convicted felon, used Rockett’s name to convince the alleged rape victim to sleep with him. It also turns out that the woman was planning to extort cash from Rockett by filing the rape charge.
Sound like a bad Jim Thompson novel? Rockett’s very real indignation makes up for the incredible plot twists:
I think it was a case where the woman and her husband unfortunately believed they could extort money from me and my band….This is a gross example of people attempting to abuse the law for personal profit. They tried to subvert and make a mockery of the criminal justice system. It is abhorrent and disgraceful….I remain surprised that no member of the educated and savvy press ever googled the name ‘John Minskoff’! Had they done so, they would have found out that in 1996, John Minskoff claimed to have been involved with the rock band, White Snake, when he lured and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl in Reno, Nevada. Minskoff is a violent career criminal and felon and convicted perjurer with multiple convictions who has admitted to impersonating “rock stars” to sexually pursue women.
A lucky bastard over at Artist Direct sat down for a lengthy chat with ex-SOAD’ers Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan about their new band, Scars on Broadway. Described by the interviewer as the “perfect middle ground between Slayer and The Beatles,” Scars sounds like it’s going to be some serious super-awesomeness for us mere mortals, but it’s just drum business as usual for Dolmayan:
I’m pretty much always in the zone. If you put me behind a drum set right now, I’m in the zone. When I’m playing, the more melodic the music is, the more I feel it. It just becomes like I’m not even in power anymore. It just happens. It’s just a natural thing that happens, like breathing or walking.
Definitely the best customer review ever of Zildjian’s black 5B sticks:
I know my kind isn’t very common, but I am a world-class air drummer. I have played air drums to the very best from Rush, Motley Crue, Led Zeppelin, you name it. None of the chicks I demonstrated my skills to were impressed however…that is until I picked up a set of Zildjian Black Hickory Drumsticks Nylon 5B.
Anyway, so I persuaded this gal Beth to come to my place after a pizza (I splurged on some extra cheese, you KNOW that). I sat her down and implored her to check out my stick-whipping skills, and she watched as I nailed “Dr. Feelgood” to a TEE! All thanks to my Zildjian Black Hickories! (Nylon 5B)
She told me she’d never seen anything like that, and I think she may go out with me again sometime soon. I could tell she was impressed by how speechless she was. So of course I bought a few more boxes in anticipation of the big second date (this may be why they’re out of stock), and I have been practicing the fills in “Black Dog” for the next time she comes over. Hey hey mama, said the way you move!
Thank you Zildjian for helping me take air-drumming to the next level indeed! Highly recommended!
Let me tell you, these are amazing for air drums. There’s something about black sticks, for one thing. When these logs are flying through the air as you mimic “YYZ”, for example, it’s absolutely hypnotic! They’re nice and light too…one of the biggest problems an air drummer can have is heavy sticks. Choking up on drumsticks really makes you look wimpy, and there can’t be anything wimpy about air drums.
Whether with stick or pen, Peart never fails to entertain the shit out of us. So with very empty bowels, we’re happy to report that the Prof’s latest travel rumination has posted to his site here. It’s the product of more than 7,000 motorcycling miles, and as usual, the prose is pleasant and engaging. Our favorite parts? The parenthetical asides, of course. Peart busts out with references to Ponce de Léon, horned larks, Joseph Smith, and Blaise Pascal.
[Blade’s] rich tapestry of cymbal variations, swelling snare-rolls and asymmetrical accents, coupled with an unfaltering heartbeat of a pulse, marks out an unusually emotional drummer.
Don’t speak music-critic? Check this out to see (and hear) what the reviewer means.
Well, Zak Starkey is definitely not manning the Oasis throne any longer (though we still don’t know if he was booted or jumped off), and the brothers Gallagher have wasted no time in announcing a replacement—Chris Sharrock.
…Who the hell is he? Sharrock is none other than the drummer who until a few days ago had spent over a decade backing up Robbie Williams. And just who the hell is Robbie Williams? He’s that Brit dude who did “Angels” way back in 1997 and still makes a good number of 30-something Continental hotties swoon.
Because Oasis still makes only a small number of 30-something music geeks swoon, we’re not terribly sure Sharrock made the right decision. (A side note more interesting than the actual news item: swiping Sharrock is apparently quite a catty coup for Noel Gallagher, who once called Williams “the fat dancer from Take That.”)
Built to the ear-shattering specifications of Inferno, Spaun’s new signature snare is a 14″ x 8″ beast with an 18-ply shell—10 outer plies of maple and 8 inner plies of birch. It comes outfitted with custom graphics, black die-cast hoops, Spaun’s exclusive solid-brass lugs, and a Gunmetal Metallic finish. The MSRP weighs in at a hefty $1,350, so take a good look at the drum below: it’ll probably be as close as you get to actually owning one.
Guitar Hero might become the drum game of choice if this rumor pans out: cymbal pads! Two freakin’ cymbal pads! The kit is reported to grow to a 6-piece and thus will be a tiny bit closer to the real thing. Now, about that kick pedal….
[Update 5/14/08: This rumor has been confirmed, although the Guitar Hero drum kit will look decidedly more game-y than we had envisioned (i.e., fervently hoped). It’s also only a 5-piece (not counting the hated kick controller), and the cymbal pads have adopted the styling found on low-budget e-kits. Pisser.]
John Rutsey, the drummer who played on Rush’s self-titled debut album, died this weekend at the age of 55. The band’s management company made the announcement yesterday, but cause of death has not yet been specified. Rutsey did suffer from diabetes (the main reason he left Rush in 1974), so it’s possible the disease played a part in his demise. We’ll keep you updated as more details follow. Until then, by way of remembrance, here’s a pic of the trio with Rutsey in the middle.
Update 5/13/08: the source site above is having trouble loading. Similar information on Rutsey’s death can be found at Blabbermouth and BW&BK. [The source links have been changed as of 2022]
Update 5/14/08: still no official word on Rutsey’s cause of death, but Wikipedia is reporting today that he died of a heart attack in his sleep.
Update 5/21/08: Rutsey’s family has confirmed that the drummer died due to complications from diabetes. Donations may be made in Rutsey’s memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson remembered Rutsey by saying, “Those years spent in our teens dreaming of one day doing what we continue to do decades later are special….Although our paths diverged many years ago, we smile today, thinking back on those exciting times and remembering John’s wonderful sense of humour and impeccable timing.”
