There can be only one.

My review of the Sydney and Brisbane shows this week -
http://pinealeye.tumblr.com/tagged/boondall

Hail to the King!

Someone should write a definition of ‘pocket’ with Darren King as the main content. Hang on, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Perhaps I should get to work.

Finally got to see Tony Royster Jr live - what a phenomenon. Sure he has the moves, but the thing most blowing me away is his resourcefulness.
He’s got an incredible imagination … no matter how much or how little the song calls for, he can think up something exciting to fit. And it’s never the same thing twice. As he said in response to an astounded query about what the hell he’d just played - ‘Singles, doubles and paradiddles … but it’s about how you put them together.’

Today was a clinic, and this was some of his advice:

Playing with other musicians means listening to what they’re doing and bouncing off it, not competing with them. He showed off his partnering skills in a way that gave me a whole new understanding of music creation. Made it seem like having a conversation, almost. For someone who’s famous for solos it seems most of what he does is fuelled by other musicians. He even recommended playing along to random songs on the radio rather than to a metronome, as an advanced exercise in keeping time.
He also recommended practicing for powerful, strong-sounding drumming by emphasizing consistency (following the lead of Thomas Pridgen). I knew there was more to sounding strong than just hitting hard.
After today I think I get what makes Tony Royster Jr so special. It’s that he’s a drummer second, and a fan of music first of all.

There’s probably a drummer’s church somewhere that I should go to for confession - “I have sinned. I have left John Stanier off this website.”
I heard the man live for the first time yesterday, and now I know why drummers constantly rave about him. He plays like he’s ringing a bell, clear and hard and brilliant. A true master.

Instagram - http://t.co/tDPXjO6KqT

Gotye’s experimental metallophone … being played by the incredibly talented drummer Michael Iveson and sounding just like the chimes of that grey glass bowl in ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’.

Animals As Leaders, putting in a mindbending performance supporting Between The Buried And Me last week.

The only reason I started listening to BTBAM is because of some of the people who follow me here, so this is to say thanks!

Original on Instagram

‘Make me one with everything’

I recently flew to America to see a Stolen Babies gig … (and I love the fact that anyone reading this blog, unlike all my non-drumming-conscious friends, will instantly understand why. For those who don’t know, Gil Sharone is their drummer and I’ve never heard him live.) I also thought I should confirm that I am still writing and will post more stuff here eventually.

I’d been on a mission to see Stolen Babies for a while and I’d also been wanting an overseas trip. The cool and funky Bottom of the Hill bar in San Francisco seemed like an absolute dream venue to see a band that had been selling out large shows across the country.

So you can imagine how high my expectations were, but I was still utterly, completely, totally blown away. None of the recordings or videos do Gil justice. I could hear in them subtle evidence of his drumming superiority, but when he plays live it just hits you in the face. From the second he started he took command. His drums sound brilliant; the snare reminded me of Jeff Martin’s earlier this year (also DW), strong and rich but perfectly balanced with the other instruments. These songs were made to be played live. Dominique is amazing and Rani’s a beast on bass - can’t get much tighter when the bass player and the drummer are twin brothers.

Gil really plays drums. It isn’t work, it isn’t sport, it’s play. The way seals play … rolling and swooping and pulling the kind of stunts that make other animals give up in despair, just because it’s fun. Because they are full of this riotous animal energy, and it would be boring not to. Stolen Babies’ music suits his chameleonic style … sophisticatedly theatrical and often quite elaborate, it constantly shifts between different types of playing and different characters. Which means the performance was like hearing all my favourite aspects of all my fave drummers, all in the same place. One minute Pridgen’s fluid energy, the next Danny Carey’s intertwined constructions, then a crisp Freese-esque millitary beat … punctuated with the odd shit-crazy fill at breakneck speed that seemd to have one hand passing right through the other. And he makes it look so effortless. It looks so natural, I almost feel it’s more an effort for him to stop than it is for him to play.

But the thing that really sets him apart is his sense of rhythm. I wrote in an earlier post about the idea of a ‘true’ rhythm, like a hidden current through a sea of not-quite-right variations. Some drummers just seem to tap into a sense of rhythm that is aligned with something universally understood. And the closer a drummer is to feeling the universal beat, the more it will resonate with anyone who listens. The way a note played on one guitar string will cause a nearby string of the same pitch to vibrate in sympathy, even though they never touch. (If you’ve never done this try it, it will give you goosebumps.)
Gil seems to be perfectly aligned with this raw, built-in, natural rhythm. He’s like that atomic clock they used to house in Greenwich, against which all timekeeping on earth is based. There’s no way to keep still when he starts up a groove. Resistance is futile.

The room just lights up when he’s playing. Gil Sharone makes drums sing.