We are all Hector Berlioz. Following up on my bad drummers post from some weeks ago. I hate to even say bad drummers, because playing badly is not an immutable thing. I like to think […]
Category: rants
A minor rant: Elvin’s 18
In Elvin Jones’s 1982 Modern Drummer interview, Rick Mattingly asked him about his use of an 18″ bass drum: RM: I’ve heard various explanations of why jazz drummers started using 18″ bass drums. Some people […]
Idiots, you’re doing it wrong. Fools!
This is you trying to play a normal drum set. Ergonomics! The science of putting things where scientists tell you to and shutting up. Our sad devotion to this clearly absurd contraption, the drum set, […]
A rant: limits of playalong tracks
You playing along with a backing track. So, I watch the YouTube videos of drummers playing along with their playalong tracks, and sounding pretty OK, and I think you know, I probably wouldn’t sound any better […]
NAKED CLICKBAIT: ten pieces of drumming equipment you should throw away TODAY!
I don’t know, I just felt like writing an inane Buzzfeed-style listicle a few weeks ago, and I’m tired of looking at this in my drafts folder. Please don’t be offended if one of your […]
Real world not like the Internet
A little flurry of exceptionally good music this week, Brian Blade on Wednesday, the Dutch avant-garde master Hans Bennink and Randy Rollofson (an excellent Portland drummer) on Friday, and my man Stephen Pancerev and a […]