(bolding mine)
Nice to see that recommendation. All I have of them is their greatest hits album, but the drumming on it has always stood out to me (in particular the song 24 Hours At A Time).
Neil Smith of Alice Cooper’s original band. May I suggest Billion Dollar Babies and Return of the Spiders from the “Easy Action” album.
It may be a tad to heavy for ya but Sepulturas Igor Cavalera does a killer job on the song Desperate Cry
Check out “Dance on a Volcano / Los Endos” from Genesis’ live Seconds Out album, with Phil Collins and Chester Thompson trading licks.
Hey, Harborcoat is one of my all-time favorite R.E.M. tracks. I actually love Reckoning, but I think the mix is crap. Has it been remastered?
If we’re talking Bill Berry, I’m going to also add “Moral Kiosk” from Murmur.
[slight hijack]
Could someone please explain this drum duet between Phil Collins and Chester Thompson.
It’s recorded on their ‘Way We Walk’ live album, and while it’s a nice beat, I just don’t get it.
My guess is that they’re trading accents throughout, but I can’t really tell by listening, nor by watching a video. Is that what’s happening? Are they just playing the exact same thing at the exact same time?
I love Phil Collins, but I have not been able to grok why this took up 6 mins on a live CD.
[/slight hijack]
I’ll see your “Moral Kiosk” and raise you a “Wolves, Lower”.
To my knowledge, Reckoning hasn’t been remastered. The recent I.R.S. years compilation And I Feel Fine got the remaster treatment, and the songs sound great, but sadly none of the songs we mentioned appears on it.
It looks to me like a typical “drum jam” such as you’d see at any concert with two drummers. I’m guessing, but I imagine that they had some kind of basic structure, an “outline” so to speak, with each taking turns embellishing the basic rhythm in turn. If you watch, you can see them make eye contact before either changes the rhythm (probably moving on to the next phrase in the outline). It’s kinda hard to tell what is going on with the way the video is edited, but that’s what it looks like to me.
I searched on youtube for some other examples, trying to find something with the Allman Brothers or the Grateful Dead, but gave up when I found this Berklee Drum Jam video. It looks completely spontaneous (although who knows) and so is less well defined, but that’s essentially what Phil and Chester are doing. IMHO, of course.
And yeah, I agree about the pointlessness. I love drums and have played for (god, a looong time) but find most recorded “drum solos” boring and pointless. With notable exceptions, they seem less like compositions than just whatever random licks the drummer happened to string together the night they recorded. Now watching one live? That’s completely different. Even if it’s not good, I can usually take something with me, even if it’s just, “Okay, that doesn’t work live.”
Also, I can’t tell what you bolded (because of the way I have my screen settings) but I’m guessing you mean the Marshall Tucker Band? Paul Riddle was always a very solid drummer, playing whatever the song needed. Other good drum songs are “Bound and Determined”, “I’ll Be Loving You”, “Change Is Gonna Come” and “Fly Like An Eagle” (not the Steve Miller song).
Not too heavy at all, this is one of the songs in the thread I’ve been able to drag-and-drop onto the list. I had to laugh when looking to see what other songs I already had to find I had several XTC songs already from some compilations. They’ve come up quite a few times and were on the top of my list of things to get, here I didn’t realize I had anything by them.
Tony Thompson?
Chic - Power station - Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted to Love’ - Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’. The drummer Zeppelin chose for Live Aid.
Great drummer.
MiM
Something else well worth checking out… the concluding seven and a half minutes minutes or so of Side 1 of ‘Ommadawn’ by Mike Oldfield. Impressive and remarkable African drumming/percussion that builds and builds in a very intense and satisfying manner. Sounds great through headphones and a decent system. Debatable whether this constitutes a ‘song’ though. There is a vocal line, but only with nonsense words.
Most of the suggestions I came up with off the top of my head – Tusk, Ants Marching, etc – have been mentioned. There are a couple of other possibilities, though:
Modern Love by David Bowie – I don’t know who the drummer is, but he gets going and just drives the whole song before him;
One Tree Hill by U2 – This is my favorite song off of The Joshua Tree album and has a neat, simple little beat underlying it.
RR
I vote for “The Black Page” #'s 1 and 2 by Frank Zappa. You can read about the complexity of the piece andTerry Bozzio’s experience learning it here; The Black Page - Wikipedia
Me, I just love listening to any of the various recordings of it. Most recently on the “Zappa Plays Zappa” CD/DVD. On that, Bozzio (along with another drummer and a percusionist) plays the piece on a gigantic drum kit consisting of three kick drums, 18-19 toms and uncounted cymbals and gongs. It’s a drummer’s wet dream.
The Real Me by The Who. It’s a great song to play really, really, loudly, and I like the fact that the rhythm section carries the song; nice syncopated drumming during the verses, and some awesome lead bass.
I also really like the drumming in Steely Dan’s My Old School, particularly the little fill halfway through the long break, after the guitar solo. It’s not particularly long, and not particularly dramatic, but it seems exactly right. Wikipedia says it’s Jim Hodder on drums. I am not familiar with him, but on that song he seems to have a nice light touch.
Look on iTunes for Ecstasy in Numbers. Phenomenal drummer, phenomenal band.
Another Steely Dan song - Dirty Work - again featuring Jim Hodder. The snap of the closed hihat at the end of the fourth bar of the intro gets me every time. You know you’re in good company. It certainly isn’t flashy - but for feel it’s tops.
MiM
Did I just miss it, or has no one said anything about John Bonham yet? I am not a huge Zep fan but come on, the man was a drum god.
Check this out. Moby Dick drum solo.