Ah, The Fill!
I can’t keep time, but I sure as hell can fill!
OK, maybe someone can help me with this. Since this morning, I’ve been trying to think of a particular drum fill. My memory’s just been for shit lately, though. It’s a song in which there’s a lyrical reference to guns shots (or something similar), and then the drummer kicks in with snare accents (four, maybe five), to play off the lyric. For some reason, I want to say it’s a Clash song, or perhaps something in that punk/post-punk time period, but don’t quote me on that. It’s been driving me nuts, because I can’t think of anything else about the song, but I do have a distinct memory of enjoying that little fill playing off the lyrics.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s multiple songs that fill this description, but it’s been driving me nuts, and I’m sure if anyone can read my mind, it’s the Straight Dope. Unfortunately, I have nothing else to go on. No melody. No tempo (well, actually, it was almost certainly uptempo). No lyrical fragments.
I have told this story many times here, but my old drummer was the set-up guy/assistant engineer on Asia’s first album. When he was in the room, Carl Palmer sat down at the kit and ran through some fills and grooves. My friend’s ears started twitching and the producer smiled and said “yeah, I know: shatters your dreams, eh? Can’t keep time to save his life.” (Or something close).
puly - it’s the Clash, I Fought the Law.
ETA: “Robbin’ people with a six gun” is the line with that fill underneath it.
YES!!! You got it! I knew the Dope wouldn’t fail me! I can stop driving myself crazy now.
Hmm, does this qualify for a Doper Gold Star???
We got it, but it took 11 minutes. Man, we’re getting slow 
I’m always somewhat amazed and mystified by how memory and “misfilings” of memory work. I somehow remembered (though not confidently) it was a Clash song, I got the number of snare hits slightly off (I did hedge with four or five, but not six), I remembered the lyrical reference to the gun shots or similar, but nothing coherent enough to put it all together and conjure up a fragment of the song or anything beyond that. Why this is filed in my brain as “cool drum fill” without the “pointer”/actual reference to the drum fill in question is beyond me.
I’ve had a keyboard phrase stuck in my head that is from a song I am very familiar with - but I can’t hear the parts before or after that in my brain to nail it down.
Brains are funny things.
Wow - came back here expecting maybe 5 or 6 posts.
My idea of a fill is a drum accent/flourish that comes at the end of a (usually four-bar) measure, quite often starting at some point during the fourth bar, and then definitely finishing right at the end of that fourth bar.
Some really zippy ones by one of my top five gods Rey Washam (Big Boys, Scratch Acid, Rapeman, Helios Creed, Lard, others):
from “Monobrow” off Rapeman’s (AFAIK) legendary Two Nuns and A Pack Mule LP:
(you’ll have to crank these - a little on the quiet side)
Or how about a crazy beat full of fills! courtesy the not-of-this-world Derek Roddy sessioning with my go-to scoundrels Hate Eternal.
Apparently Ringo’s fave to play was “Rain”, and after giving it another listen - yeah - LOTS of swinging, almost Charlie Watt-like fills galore, here. (Even in the middle of verses!) (and an “extendo”!)
Speaking of Chuck - in You Can’t Always Get What You Wanted, every time Mick goes “you just might find - you get what you need”, Watts does this shuffling, lumbering fill that’s just…::French chef kissing out splayed fingers with a “MUAH!”::
The simple but classic signature snare-to-floor-tom Bill Bruford fill while he was with Yes.
And here’s a jazzy, too-spiffy-words one he did a couple years later, with King Crimson, in the one of the greatest compositions of all time, “Fracture” off the Starless And Bible Black album.
My favourite Bonham fill involves just a single kick pedal, awesomely played.
I could seriously go on all fucking day, so I’ll wrench myself away from this with one final one:
The opening to Elvis Costello’s Lipstick Vogue.
Without doing any singling out, I thought there were a number of posts here with examples that did not qualify as a fill (and in some cases - already acknowledged).
Heh. I knew exactly what that was going to link to. Love the stuttering triplets (or 2/3 of them) on the kick there. That’s one of my favorite Bonham drum parts.
Don’t know if it’s a fill or not, but one of my favorite licks is Ginger Baker’s perfect cymbal in “Can’t Find My Way Home.” (Just before “Somebody must change, holds the key” etc.)
And the fun thing is is how easy is it to learn in just a couple minutes in just your socks sitting at comp or whatever…ball of foot on ground, heel up, legs at 45 degrees, quad good n’flexed, and get a sort of vibrating thing going with ball of foot on carpet. If you did that exact attack on a kick pedal that has relatively loose tension (that is - loose enough to make it easy to attack but tight enough for a quick enough return stroke to prevent any delayed action) - you got’er nailed.
Correction on my previous post with the Costello tune - that’s more of an intro-y thing, despite it sounding like, well, one extended fill.
(kinda but just barely reminds me of the cool “Radar Love” break cited earler.)
While not really a fill…always mystified by Ringo’s shuffle-y break during the “You’re asking me - will my love grow?” part in “Something”. Probably sounding like a pretentious wiener when saying that that’s quite transcendant drumming, and it’s a kinda oddly nice feeling that I don’t feel the need to have to chart the shit out of it, and instead just enjoy it in an almost nebulous, floating-on-a-cloud-like way.
Thank-you for noone (no one?) mentioning “Wipeout”.
I prefer doing it heel-toe (it’s kind of see-sawing motion with your foot, where you strike the pedal with the heel–well, maybe not quite that far back, more flat-footed perhaps–l, and then as you lift your leg, down comes the toe). While I can get the speed, I just can’t get it to “flow” exactly in rhythm in the triplet fashion Bonham does, where it’s xKK,xKK,xKK,xKK, a flurry of triplets coming one the second and third notes of each triplet grouping. I can do it as KKx, with the first kick coming on the beat, but displacing it by one triplet screws my right leg timing up. That said, I’m not a drummer, so I don’t feel too bad. 
(I suppose if I really sat down for a few weeks and started slow with left foot, right foot, right foot triplet groupings, maybe there’s a chance I can get it down.)
Genesis - Afterglow.
I always enjoyed the double drums (Phil Collins and Chester Thompson) during the outro, with my favorite fill at the 4:00 mark.
I’m surprised “In the Air Tonight” hasn’t been mentioned yet, because it’s the fill to end all fills. But I suppose that’s because it’s too obvious.
Good point. I thought I was nailing THE fill with Moonie on Won’t Get Fooled Again, but In the Air Tonight is a great one, too.
Loving this thread!
OK, for me…this Bonham fill is just God Like. Right at the end of a huge instrumental jam, right before this massive song gets back into the verse…the timing of this…I mean…just WOW.
Starts around the 4:56 mark
At the four minute mark Bonham does a fine snare roll then into tom interplay in “Misty Montain Hop”
He does another really fine snare roll fill in isolation (using those psychotic-looking Staccato drums! Not very Bonham-y looking!:p). The recording (for “Fool in the Rain”) ends right at the end of the fill. (The song would then go back to the main riff.)
I like how Ringo’s intro fill for “Birthday” gets one right in the mood.
Unfortunately this youtube recording is weak on the drums - a killer Terry Bozzio fill in Frank Zappa’s “Trying to Grow a Chin”.
Zappa had great drummers. Mentioned upthread, Chester Thompson does a doozy of a fill here in “Inca Roads”. composed of not one but two snare rolls and then goes for a leisurely spin on the toms, with an authoritative floor tom roll to end it off.
Niel Peart’s filly drum intro (synched awesomely with Geddy’s bass playing) for “Spirit of the Radio” is a classic.
One more Peart one, because, well, he might have a few of them, this one lasting a looooong time 
(from “Zanadu”)
My favourite Bill Bruford fill.
ok I’m done for now…well for the next five minutes anyway.