The Best Drummer Of All Time

[brandondrury]

I have always liked drummers that build the tight groove and drive the song. Alan Jackman the first drummer for The Outfield had this quality. Listen to any song off Playdeep and see how the drums and guitars both compliment each other and drive the song.....not strange time sigs just solid stuff with drive.

I 100% agree with Snoopy on this one. I'm not a drummer and probably never will be. Lately, I've been programming quite a bit of drums for an album that needs to sound like it wasn't programmed.

I personally think that by me 'not giving a shit about being a musician' makes this music so much better. I don't need to impress drummers. For the kind of music that I produce, I go out of my way to piss drummers off with the simplicity of the drums.

I think the most powerful beat is the 4/4 "straight beat". Take any song with a weird time signature and play the last chorus like this and it has a 99% change of blowing everyone's minds.
1 2 3 4
kick snare kick snare

I was hanging out with a producer buddy of mine who has platinum records on the wall. He was working with a drummer who was hitting a lot of toms in noodly ways. The producer dude had a word for this. I can't remember the exact word but it was along the lines of "tiddly winks drumming". For this band he wanted power drumming.

He said that toms should sound you are cussing someone out. Imagine you were yelling at someone as saying "you stupid moth#rfucker". The toms should follow that rythm.

For the right song, this "driving" quality is extremely powerful.

Another example of power in simplicity is in Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild". When they break the song with just vocals singing "They call us problem childs, we spend our lifes on trial, we walk an endless mile' and the huge floor tom sound is just hitting the downbeats, it sounds massive and power. It makes me want to dive through a brick wall and set fire to my family .

When I hear the "fancy" drummers with their off time bullshit or whatever I don't feel anything. Yes, I can respect a guy who is technically proficient enough to hit stuff at weird times, but I think most of the time this is self serving, at best. To me, it usually sounds like a waste of time.

I just don't get an emotional attachment to a guy hitting stuff a lot. That's all that kind of drumming sounds like to me.

Now granted, not every song should be driving and not every song should have power drumming, but even songs that don't require power usually don't require drum noodling either.

"The Best Drummer of All Time" is a pretty vague term without any specific qualifications

No, I don't think so. Just as my first post in this thread indicated. The best drummer in the world was the guy from "Take Me Home Tonight" by Eddie Money. I wasn't asking who your favorite drummer was. I was merely stating that is was my opinion that this guys performance in this song is better than any other drummer's performance ever in the history of music.

You can state who your favorites are, and I'd be glad if everyone does, but this thread wasn't asking. It was telling.

Brandon

[In10city]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

He said that toms should sound you are cussing someone out. Imagine you were yelling at someone as saying "you stupid moth#rfucker". The toms should follow that rythm.

I guess that's why I'll never be "that" drummer. I never want to cuss someone out with my part of the music; I want to encourage, inspire, enchant, and infect others with my enthusiam and positive energy. There's enough hate in the world I don't need to channel more of it.

It makes me want to dive through a brick wall and set fire to my family .

I sincerely hope I NEVER participate in music that elicits that response from anyone.

Now granted, not every song should be driving and not every song should have power drumming, but even songs that don't require power usually don't require drum noodling either.

I wonder what "Tom Sawyer" would have sounded like with just kick snare kick snare and none of that drum noodiling?

[brandondrury]

I guess that's why I'll never be "that" drummer. I never want to cuss someone out with my part of the music; I want to encourage, inspire, enchant, and infect others with my enthusiam and positive energy. There's enough hate in the world I don't need to channel more of it.

You can look at it as being negative, but I think you are missing the point. The point was that saying "Fuck you, Brandon Drury" makes a much more intense statement than timidly saying "Well, Brandon Drury, I..I...I'm not sure if what you are saying is exactly....bla bla bla". The idea is that for certain songs, 3 well placed tom hits will sound way more effective than than 27 smaller tom hits. This is certainly not a concrete rule. However, there is no doubting that if there is a direct relationship between "hugeness" and "simplicity".

In the end, I've never really heard a tom fill that was either positive or negative. I do hear tom fills that bore me and hear tom fills that inspire me. The tom fills that actually add to my emotional experience and not to my cerebral sense of what drumming will always be my choice, whatever that entails.

It's interesting that you bring up this "positivity" thing because most of the drummers I know of that suffer from excessive overplaying with no regard for the song do it, in my opinion, because they are are either insecure about what others may think, trying to hog the spotlight, or just being selfish. Again, this is not always the case, but it's not uncommon. Band members that feel the need to be the star at the arguable expense of the music and the band is the farthest thing ever from positivity.

There's enough hate in the world I don't need to channel more of it.

Really? So how do your tom fills inspire positivity? Don't take an analogy and twist it out of proportion. This topic is about drums not everyone's policital / social / philosophical stance on the world.

Besides, cussing someone out doesn't necessarily guarantee negativity. I cuss my friends constantly. I only flip off my buddies. It's the way we operate.

It makes me want to dive through a brick wall and set fire to my family .



I sincerely hope I NEVER participate in music that elicits that response from anyone.

Again, you are taking my analogy out of context and missing the humor/sarcasm/whatever in it. The song is extremely powerful for me and due to the drums incredibly simplicity but enormous intensity I actually feel excited about a song. That song makes me forget about my problems for 3 minutes.

I've never really jumped through a brick wall or set fire to my family. If you don't see the humor in that, than your humor is just not nearly as twisted as mine. Fair enough.

I wonder what "Tom Sawyer" would have sounded like with just kick snare kick snare and none of that drum noodiling?

While I do respect Rush, I feel nothing when I listen to that song. They have a couple of songs that I do enjoy but I've always taken "Tom Sawyer" as a lesson in what not to do.

This, of course, comes down to subjectivity. No one is right or wrong for liking or hating Tom Sawyer or Youth Gone Wild.

[brandondrury]

One other thing.

I created this forum because I wanted an environment where people could make better music. I do not have much interest in pissing contests and such.

I'm all for heated discussions. These stem from people feeling passionate about this or that. Good.

However, when arguments start rising up like "I'm for being positive and making the world a better place, so your theories on drum fills are wrong".

This type of logic is just hogwash. It's using the old politician trick of attaching something irrelevant to one side and then judging that side based on peoples opinions of that irrelevant thing.

I could always say "Drummers in the Nazi armies played complicated drum patterns. Are you officially agreeing with Hitler's genocide of the Jews and Russians?". However, that would be a total load of crap.

So let's keep these debates reasonable or we all are just wasting our time.

Brandon

[In10city]

Wow, I feel like I've just been slapped.

I'm not trying to enter into a "pissing contest" (but as much water as I drink I'm sure I could win), I?m trying to say that there are legitimate places where more than just boom tap boom tap are effective and while there may be a huge amount of people who only appreciate metronome style drums, there are also a lot of people who enjoy listening to more.

I never said I disagreed with your position that Eddie Money's drummer was the "The Best Drummer of All Time", I tried to point out that in art there's no way for anyone to be the "best" because art is subjective and is received differently by everyone. I know you were stating your opinion once I opened and read the thread along with everyone else but being a drummer, I wanted to present the other side of the coin that some of us DO enjoy hearing more than 1 2 3 4.

I also used "Tom Sawyer" as my example because it's a song that always seemed to get its power and energy BECAUSE of the drum parts and that without those parts may not have achieved its moderate success.

Another example would be "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins. If he had just played 1 2 3 4 that song would seem flat and empty but the drums gave that song its dramatic shift in emotion.

I never claimed to be on a crusade to make the world a better place, I simply stated my approach to making music (arranging drum parts) and the attitude I take while doing so. I know my attempts will never amount to a hill of beans to the rest of the world but its the approach that suits my creative efforts.

In my original post I was trying to state that there are two ends of this spectrum and that both have their place. I never said I disagreed with your statement, I just wanted to offer some perspective to the thread as it unfolded from there. If my opinions that go against the grain are unwelcome than I apologize and will humbly drop out of this discussion thread but as a drummer I felt compelled to offer my opinion.

So let's keep these debates reasonable or we all are just wasting our time.

We are in total agreement on this point.

[brandondrury]

In my original post I was trying to state that there are two ends of this spectrum and that both have their place.

Well good. We agree then.

If my opinions that go against the grain are unwelcome than I apologize and will humbly drop out of this discussion thread but as a drummer I felt compelled to offer my opinion.

No, as mentioned before, I love heated debates, but the debates have to be logical. Your last post was totally logical.


Now bring up In The Air Tonight makes this thread interesting again. I don't recall that song having noodly drums. It's got the monstrous tom fill where the bass and drums come in. (I'd consider that tom fill to 100% support the toms should should like you are cussing theory, actually). After that, if my memory serves me, the drums just groove. I don't remember any self serving junk in that song at all. I'll have to listen, but the cd is in my car and the girlfriend has the car.

Maybe I can download it. Alright. I've got it.

Alright, the little conga things in the background are kind of dumb on their own, but in the whole grand scheme of things, they fit the song fine. They really sound more like a loop to me than "drums".

The big drums just came in. I don't think they could support my side better. This are big, powerful drums. There is no stupid junk in there. There is no self serving crap. Every drum hit adds to the song is an awesome way.

Maybe I should listen to Tom Sawyer then.

Brandon

[lumpy]

I revisited some Bob Dylan this past week and was surprised how loud the drums are on his first "rock" record. Bringin' It All Back Home, especially when compared with recordings of the same era. It was almost like Dylan said "alright, now I'm gonna have drums, make em loud!". The whole record sounds like it was a hoot to make.

By the way, the drummer's name was Bobby Gregg.

Lump

[samccart]

Got to add my two cents in this thread.

Im not going to go outside of the rock spectrum with my selections. Not that these "other drummers" are not worthy of mention or inclusion among the best, its just that rock is my preffered genre at the moment. I give you my top 5 and will not debate the specific order.

Most technical- has to be the professor! Neil Peart has a time-keeping perfection that few others can hope to emulate. He seems to just get better and better with time (no pun intended).

Most artistic- Carl Palmer. Uncanny knack of blending the drums into the symphonic arrangement in whatever time signature offered. Rare talent of jazz-type rock drummer.

Most unconventional- Keith Moon. How that man ever played so cleanly and hard with all the motion that he went through amazes me to this day.

Most obscure- Phil Collins. Play any early Genesis CD (with Peter Gabriel singing) and get blown away by Mr. Collins talented drum patterns.

Most studiotype- Ian Mosley (Marillion). Ian was a studio drummer before joining Marillion and he plays live like hes in a studio. Doesnt stand out above the band but adds that dimension of "just enough sound" that a drummer would appreciate. Buying me a drink after a show in PA also puts him on my list! Seriously, if you have a chance to hear him live, you wont be disappointed!

I have seen each of these drummers several times live (except Keith). Until someone else blows my mind enough to make this list, I will stand by it!

[Charlie_M]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

What happens is that most forums are dominated by rock music guys, for whatever reason. So you'll have 20 rock drummers on a forum, for example. These rock drummers do just what most guitar players do. They get more and more serious about their instrument. They evolve from someone who just wants to make music into a "musician". This can be a good thing, but it's often a fork in the road. Some people make music that inspires emotion. Some people go a different route. They try to impress their brain. Music become mathematical. Music becomes a contest.

Just to digress with a personal note here a minute... that sounds like me at 18-20. Off on the wrong path (entirely technical). That was a combination of youth plus the times... It takes a certain maturity to look around and see the bigger picture which was out of reach for me at that age. Then I got over that and promptly got diverted into improv which I loved but took me even farther afield from doing what I now see as a bigger picture kind of thing. Then I got carried away with graduate school and put the guitar and the whole thing down for 20+ years until about 6 months ago. Trying now to get directly to the bigger picture and and actually do some writing. 20+ years later I think I now have some things to say/express and I'd like to express those with music. Anyway...sorry for that digression but that paragraph really resonated with my own journey and probably with that of many others I would guess.

Back to the subject... I would argue that the Tool guy actually does add a lot to the song when the song calls for that from the drummer. What pops to mind for me are tracks like Eulogy, Third Eye, Lateralus... all fantastic tracks in their entirety which seem to me to call for each member of the group to make a very conscious choice about when to be out fron and when to be in the background, and to kick ass in both roles. Disposition and Triad both have grooves which are more or less defined by the drums - which of course is an example of the problem you're talking about but even recognizing that, my own opinion is that this is OK as long as it's not every single track and is mainly there in service to the music and not in service to the musician's ego or reputation or whatever else. For example I think the Lateralus CD is one of the best rock CD's to have come out that year. I think the writing was at a very high level on that disk, and reflected a band with maturity and balance in giving each instrument it's own opportunity to be front and center in various places, and also to excel in support roles, including drums.

BTW I'm just saying the guy is a fantastic and balanced drummer in my opinion. I actually have no strong opinion about who the best drummer of all time might be.

[brandondrury]

Well, I'm glad you get something from Tool. I bought a couple of there cds like 5 or 6 years ago. There were like 3 songs total on the 2 albums that did anything for me.

Most people like to explain why they Tool (for whatever reason). They ALWAYS seam to want to use cognitive explanations. If someone asked me why I like 80s Heart, it wouldn't even occur to me to think up a cognitive answer. I'd simply say "The songs effect me".

So I'm sticking to my guns. Heart has songs that effect me. Tool has polyrhythms.

If Tool has songs that effect you, than there is nothing I can say about that. I guess my biggest issue with Tool is not their music but how hardcore Tool fans have to explain why they like this band. After recording over 100 bands, it was clear that the way bands reacted to Tool music was different than any other band. This cognitive experience with music is scary in my opinion.

Brandon