Hell, he’s good enough for me at age 38! 
Seriously, whenever a Police song comes on, my ears go straight to the drums.
You’ll get no argument from me here, either.
That’s good stuff; thanks for sharing. No surprise to hear that Phil Collins was the metronome - he comes at the drums in a more-technical, Peart-ish way than the other names mentioned. Copeland was proggy with Curved Air, but that was a much spacier prog vs. what Collins was doing with Genesis and Brand X’s jazz/fusion.
Just as an aside: it’s fascinating how a thread about The Beatles can often be the start of a good thread conversation. I typed up on the OP as a way to relax and pontificate 
on a lazy Sunday - I knew a few Beatles geeks would sign on, but it’s lead to a variety of interesting side discussions. I just think that the Beatles are so…so…central to conversations about music’s recent history that the threads attract a broader cut of Dopers…
Cool.
Topper fucking rules.
Can I just ask: why isn’t Working for the Clampdown part of the crossover fabric of music, kinda like London Calling, Train in Vain, or the Ramone’s Sedated? That song is more of a deep track, but it just dominates to me. Maybe London Calling just had too many hits…
I’m not quite sure what you mean by “the crossover fabric of music”.
It’s not a song a non-Clash fan would know if they are coming to music after the band was huge. London Calling would be a song the same person would be more likely to know…all IMHO.
Indeed they do! Thanks.
Ah, okay.
My guess would be that the lyrics of Clampdown are much more overtly revolutionary than the lyrics of London Calling, calling attention to local bigotry and then calling for refutation of the established order, where London Calling is mostly bemoaning the situation at hand. Train In Vain is a love song with a traditional kind of pop/doo-wop sound and structure, so that’s not very controversial at all and has wide-spread appeal.
Also, musically, I think the hard stops that punctuate every bar when they sing “clampdown” make the song less appealing to the masses. It’s as though the song is lyrically and musically hitting people on the head with it’s message, and that, combined with the fact that the song has a message keep it from being a crossover hit.
ETA: You’re welcome, Mllz.
Nice breakdown, Bo - I still think the song fuckin’ rocks. (I am sure you do, too ;)).
I guess another way to come at the Ringo discussion would be: who are other rock drummers who are known for a light touch? We’ve discussed Charlie Watts - a jazz approach with a huge groove pocket co-created with Keef. How about Don Henley? Did he ever play anything remotely more aggro than Life in the Fast Lane or Victim of Love?
I wonder how many people really do pay attention to the lyrics. Clash are one of my favorite bands, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what any of their songs were about (especially as I can’t understand Joe Strummer half the time, especially those first two albums. I mean, most of it sounds like this to me.) I never really thought “Clampdown” (probably my favorite song on [i[London Calling*) was much less known than “London Calling.” The Clash songs that everyone knows are “Rock the Casbah,” “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and perhaps “Train in Vain.” I don’t think I knew “London Calling” until I bought my first Clash album in 1995 as a sophomore in college.
IMO the '70s were replete with excellent pocket drummers. Bun E. Carlos from Cheap Trick, Stan Lynch from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Albert Bouchard from Blue Öyster Cult… it wasn’t until the '80s that drummers became obnoxiously bombastic (;)), due in part to hair metal’s rise and to the fact that by then we had a fairly large body of work to look at and thus were able to “rank” drummers.
ooo, Stan Lynch - great choice. Bun E. is also excellent, but if he had a say in the matter, he was a reasonably forceful drummer, almost in Joey Kramer territory, but with a bit less funk and more bounce in his beat. The early CT recordings that were too poppy reflect a softer drumming side to his work…
Yeah, I think your timing is about right - the kids who grew up on Bonham really became drummers in the late 70’s and early 80’s…
puly - London Calling was a huge hit on the West Coast, and I swear I have heard in a bunch of times when there is someone producing a show looking at London getting ready for the Olympics, or documentaries looking at Thatcher’s England or Punk Rock, etc. It feels like a regularly-referenced touchpoint to me. Having said that, your picks of Cashbah and SHould I Stay are much better choices for crossover hits for the Clash…
Yeah, out of curiosity, I checked the charts, and the only three Clash songs to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 are Train in Vain (peaking at #23), Should I Stay or Should I go (#45), and Rock the Casbah (#8). Apparently, London Calling/Train in Vain his #30 on the Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart, and Police On My Back, Hitsville UK, and This is Radio Clash also hit the Mainstream Rock charts. (With Police on My Back the highest, at #21).
“London Calling” is certainly their most iconic song, but when they were just a periphery band for me, I wouldn’t have known it.
Well, you have to know what it was like back then, in 1979 (the year London Calling was released): the previous year, The Clash had released Give 'Em Enough Rope, an overtly political, overtly revolutionary collection of songs. The entire album is a criticism of British society and politics and to a large extent a criticism of all of Europe.
So by the time London Calling was released, the UK was faced with a terrible dichotomy: a hugely popular and undeniably talented band that was penning messages anathema to TPTB and was increasingly criticizing society in general. Clampdown, just as a word, is violent. It’s harsh. It’s also pretty unambiguous as such. And the lyrics talk about the bigotry of such societal organizations as the police and the judiciary. Couple that with the aforementioned percussive attack within the chorus, and you have a song that isn’t going to get much airplay.
Imagine, say, a US band writes a song called Curbstomp with lyrics about racist border guards in SW states and how official policy supports them and their actions, where the song’s title was punctuated by blast beats… do you think that would be popular?
Oh sure, Bun had some bombast to him (that’s what made him awesome!), but he was always right in the pocket when he displayed it. I love his drumming, mostly because he was tasteful: he knew how to follow the song while still keeping time. Listen to Dream Police, for instance, and you can hear how his drum fills match the melody, accenting the vocal punctuation or the guitar work, rather than just being extraneous. Also, he provided a nice counterpoint throughout, just to keep any particular bar from being too straightforward and boring.
Yeah, my experience was that people I knew who grew up on Bonham and Peart, especially, were themselves becoming drummers in the early '80s, and so they had this fairly large body of work to dissect and emulate. By the time the NWOBHM hit the States, drummers were in heaven as large kits and prog sensibilities were encapsulated into metal, and of course metal is very dependent on drumming.
All good, Bo.
You know, I just thought of a drummer story related to touch, but more a heavier touch than a light one. I was at a friend’s fundraiser where the band was a mix of seasoned pro’s and weekend warriors. The drummer for most of the night was a weekend warrior - a fine player with a decent pocket. But then he stepped off the throne for a song and out comes Anton Fig, drummer for Shaffer/Letterman, and tons of studio work in NY, with Ace Frehley, etc. He sits down, picks up sticks and ka-BOOM with a kick and BOOMITY-BOOMITY-BOOMITY-BOOMITY-BOOM with a quick tom run. JEE-sus it was, like, 3 times louder than the weekend warrior - and so fucking crisp and tight - it blew everybody back. And Anton was NOT showing tons more force - he was just a fucking kungfu-master drummer, snapping his wrists to get maximum whip with efficiency. It was an education to witness.
That’s how I hear Copeland: just unbelievably crisp and tight. His strikes are very exact and I swear his wrist snaps could get a bullwhip to crack before the wave rolled out to the end of the leather.
Oh yeah - you really hear that with his work on mini-toms; e.g., Invisible Sun…
Aye, the toms is what drew me into his playing back when the Police were first making records. He’s a fucking tom-tom master. I know he was a huge influence on another drummer I love (and went to high school with), John Stanier (Helmet, Battles, etc.).