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The song holds up well after 50 years. I posted this because after all these years, I just found something new and cool about it.

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Overheard at Lem's:

"We have gotten a stupid amount of rain this year and a break would be nice."

Be careful what you wish for, Sixty:

link

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Well, it is his song after all. I first went looking for the Stone Pony's version and his popped up after I broadened my search. I was looking for some link to the Indian drummer and the ongoing effect that agent is having on the Democrat Party. I didn't quite find that. Yet

Watching Nesmith sing this song is like hearing Jerry Jeff Walker sing "Mr. Bojangles." Or Bob Dylan play "All Along The Watchtower."

The song is bittersweet breakup song, and Nesmith shows that it doesn't "belong" to either sex. There's a pony in there somewhere. I just know it.

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Overheard at Lem's:

Sixty Grit said...
I am back in ASL class and one of the movies assigned as homework is "Through Deaf Eyes". Your comment reminds me of that title. I also recommend that movie to anyone who wants to learn more about the deaf community.
Wasn't there an old song that had some lyrics involving seeing what someone heard? I will remember it eventually.
January 11, 2019 at 3:19 PM

Was it this?

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Classic Moon. I idolized Keith Moon in my teens.Well not the person but his attitude and style on the drums. But when I got a chance to see him play in 1976, he wasn't much like that. It was kind of like idolizing Marlon Brando and then getting a chance to meet him and he shows up looking like Marlon Brando did in "Apocalypse Now."

And I wrote about something fishy at that Who concert: Who played Madison?

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Overheard:

Sixty Grit wrote

Not a fan of the Allmans, they always seemed to be dying.
I had never paid attention to the 11/4 intro until I read about it yesterday - they called it "the elevens". Very nice - 1,2,3, 1,2,3, 1,2,3, ONE TWO - once you hear it in those terms it is unforgettable.

[other comment omitted] 

May 28, 2017 at 1:26 PM

Sixty was referring to the song "Whipping Post" by the Allman Brothers. He's right -- in those terms, it's unforgettable.

I want to take this KLEM FM series in a slightly different direction: unusual time signatures in rock.

First up is "Manic Depression" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Unfortunately, the Hendrix family has purged YouTube of any studio versions of the song, but there's a VIMEO version here if you need a refresher. I looked at the Wiki page for the song and learned that it was in 3/4 time, which is the same time signature as most waltzes. Heh. That doesn't help. The main drum groove is said to be represented as follows:

link to original

Well, I still didn't get the feel for it -- not how Sixty described the 11/4 beat in "Whipping Post." So I turned to the online drum scholars. This guy gave me my "ah ha moment." See particularly beginning at 2 min 25 sec.

link

I get it now!  I can see how the musical notes represent the groove.
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[added: Can you tell what this guy gets wrong?]

link

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link

From the top-rated comments:

 I agree with you about today's American women being nothing but gold diggers. This song, like it or not though, came from a bygone era before feminism destroyed any decency women had. Today? Forget it!

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Overheard at Lem's:

Rabel said...
Yesterday:
"Butte Sheriff's Department officials said Friday afternoon that the massive crater in the main spillway of Oroville Dam likely won't force the use of an emergency spillway to divert water from the swelling reservoir."
Today:
"Water began pouring over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam early Saturday for the first time in its 48-year history."
Tomorrow?
"If it keeps on raining...you know the rest."
February 11, 2017 at 3:17 PM

linkage

Jimmy Page explains how they got that cavernous drum sound. It wasn't special effects.

linkage

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Overheard at Lem's:

AprilApple said...

Is that Rod Stewart? wow - he looks like crap.

January 26, 2017 at 1:02 PM

link

Men who look and dress like women tend to be harshly judged by women on their looks. Just sayin'.

That looks to be Carmine Appice playing the metronomic beat in that 1978 video. You've probably never heard of him but he coached and schooled many drummers more famous than he. He must have been paid really well for that one, in which he essentially played a robot. 

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Overheard at Lem's:

She was good for about two seconds, then did the same - walk down that hall, turned her back on me to point at the hall and then she kept rambling on. And rambling on was precisely what I did - information my foot! linkage

linkage

The old classic is surprisingly complex for a Zeppelin song, from the Tolkien-inspired lyrics to John Bonham's percussive efforts. Wiki delivers:

There has been much doubt around Bonham's percussions in the background throughout the song, having regard to the particular resonance that it captures. There are no versions consistent in this respect: often mistaken for bongos, some said of a small plastic bin for waste played with the hands from the side of the bottom, others about the sticks on his drum kit vinyl seat pad, or even the soles of the shoes he wore during the recording session and so rhythmically beaten with his drum sticks; the book John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums reports instead of a hard case for guitar on which Bonham improvised percussion background with bare hands. linkage

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linky

I love the guitarist!  She's got the low-slung guitar, leaning-back-while-playing style of Jimmy Page nailed.

The drummer has energy too -- she just isn't as groovy as Bonzo was.

More photos here

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Overheard at Lem's:

Michael Haz said...

Chickelit - I'm surprised that you didn't mention Ron Wilson, drummer for the Surfaris.

June 3, 2016 at 6:59 PM

Truth be told, I never really cared for surf-era drumming. I thought it was repetitive and regressive for the art. But I love the sound of the guitars from that era. That being said, Keith Moon was originally a surf drummer (or about as much as one could be in 1960's Britain).

Here is a video I made years ago of a song that combines a great guitar sound and great drumming:

linky

It took me the longest time to ID that song. I recorded it off the radio in the late '80's in Madison and thought it was Link Wray. But I was never able to find it in Wray's catalog. A helpful Twitter pal named Jason finally clued me into Shazam.  It's Sandy Nelson "And Then There Were Drums."

Can anyone identify all the makes, models, and years of vehicles in the video?

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Here's a drum cover of a favorite old Bob Welch song with Fleetwood Mac:

linky

I found that searching for the time signature of the song "Hypnotized"  by Fleetwood Mac.

It takes him a second to get his groove, but it clicks when the music starts.

Things I like about the video: He used a great camera angle, letting us see what each limb is doing: left hand (traditional grip!) on the snare drum; right hand on the high-hat cymbal; right foot playing sixteenth note triplets; left foot unclamps the high-hat cymbal, leading to that "sucking sound."

I stared at his right hand stick, watching it alternately blur and pause, blur and pause. I felt a bit hypnotized.

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link in case the video doesn't load

     "Our culture has developed harmonic and melodic music to an imposing degree but many other cultures in the world are considerably in advance of ours in purely rhythmic conception. The music of certain African tribes which we would call primitive is based on counterrhythms executed by two or more percussionists that make those of modern classical composers and practically all swing drummers sound amusingly simple. 

     Some the most difficult counterrhythmic execution found in Western music is, surprisingly enough, not for drums but for piano. Another instrument in which independent action plays a major role is the pipe organ, which makes use of the feet as well as the hands. This preoccupation with counterrhythmic effects on other instruments emphasizes how slowly, in some respects, the drumming of 'civilized peoples' has progressed."  

Jim Chapin, Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer (1948)

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Lem tweeted me about the drumming in the band Asia's song "The Heat Of The Moment" to which I replied:

I hear syncopated snare fills & bass drum. It's Carl Palmer, (ex-of ELP) so no wonder it's genius.

That got me wondering about Carl Palmer and so I went looking on Wiki and also in my iTunes library. I own exactly one Emerson Lake & Palmer tune--"Lucky Man:"

Link in case the video doesn't load

I like Carl Palmer's drumming in that song. It's hard to describe it. He's obviously from the same school of drumming as other Brits in his generation like Charlie Watts, Mick Avory, Mitch Mitchell, et al. They could all play "jazzy" if they wanted too. All had mastery of the snare drum; they all probably learned to drum listening to and copying the jazz and swing greats; they all played with a traditional grip. In contrast, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, John Bonham all did not; they played with clubs.

The video makes one obvious gaffe: the crystal clear lyrics are presented and Greg Lake sings:

White lace and feathers
They made up his bed
A gold covered mattress
On which he was led laid

Allegedly, the song was written by 12-year-old Greg Lake. I'm pretty sure Lake says "led" and not "laid." I remember being 12. While my thoughts were rapidly clouding by sex by then, I wouldn't have said "laid" either--even though it sort of fits the context of the song.

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link in case the video doesn't load

Ray Davies writes in his book, "Americana":

It originated from a few evenings spent at Studio 54, where Bob Feiden and Michael Kleffner sometimes took me to see what, in their opinion, was "happening." I joked with them that I might write a disco song that could be played there. I understood some of the cultural origins of disco, but I really was not a fan of pure pop disco music. Yet it was in vogue at the time [1979] and I thought it would be fun to take a stab at it, more for my own amusement than anything else. Feiden and Kleffner had thrown down the challenge, so when I got back to England for our next recording session and rehearsals for the upcoming UK tour I wrote "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" with a disco beat straight out of Saturday Night Fever. The lyrical content, however, was different. The lyrics reflected the political situation in England. The "winter of discontent," the three-day week, the power strikes, the lorry strikes--everybody seemed to be on strike. I wrote this song about a world-weary person who was experiencing this unrest. The only light at the end of his tunnel was the fact that he imagined he could fly like Superman in an attempt to liberate himself.

So far so good. I kinda knew that already. What I didn't appreciate were the efforts of the other Kinks--drummer Mick Avory in particular. Davies continues:

Listening back to the recording I thought what a trouper Mick Avory had been to do take after take on the drums until he got it right. During the recording he obeyed my instructions slavishly while I bobbed around next to him in the studio indicating when to play louder and when to play softer, and to mark the beginnings of verses and choruses. Then halfway through the track I made a gesture that indicated that I wanted to break up the monotony. Mick slipped in a skipped a beat, almost like a jazz player, but fell right back into the rhythm so that the listener felt change but was unaware of what happened. Only a drummer from Mick's generation could have done that. There were two rock drummers in the world capable of doing it at that time--one was Mick and the other was Charlie Watts.* No one listening to the finished record would be aware of this subtlety except me and Mick, but to me, it validated the whole rhythm track--it showed that the backing track was not robotic but had a human element.

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 *Mick Avory had auditioned for the Rolling Stones before Charlie Watts, and played at least one show with them.

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I remember thinking if I could only play drums like that, I'd be happy. I spent countless hours in my parent's basement, trying to pick up just a little of that style. What I lacked back then was a video like this in which the master gives away all his secrets:

There is a very cool series out there from the early 00's devoted to the making of several "classic" albums. I watched this one in its entirety:

Another favorite part of the title song "Aja" is the Wayne Shorter saxophone solo. You can skip right to 45 min 40 sec to hear about that.

"AC/DC's Phil Rudd and that drummer stereotype"

"The news that the charge relating to Phil Rudd allegedly trying to arrange a hitman has been dropped mean AC/DC fans can relax and laugh - a little. He's still up on other charges in New Zealand and, according to sources near the band, on the outer with AC/DC's star and powerbroker Angus Young."

Invariably the incident will fire up that perennial cycle of lame drummer gags. Most surround drummers' self-destructive tendencies and supposed lack of intelligence, i.e. What are roadies for? To translate what the drummer says. Groan. Others are a bit closer to the bone. Like this one: what do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit? The defendant. 

Oh dear. 

The truth is, as always, more complex: drummers are as diverse in their flaws and strengths as the rest of the band. But the rest of the band will usually admit drummers really are, well, a bit different. Perhaps distant from the band, they often live up to that corny saying 'marching to beat of a different drum'. And in terms of replaceability, that makes them second only to lead singers. So as much as drummers cop flak - often deserved - they should be celebrated, too.

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The very first song on the first Led Zeppelin LP: "Good Times, Bad Times"

I always thought the lyrics were disingenuous...a rock star bitching about a woman dumping him?

The real reason I put this up tonight was to draw attention to the amazing right foot of John Bonham...specifically to the so-called triplets he kicks with one foot. I'm talking about what sounds like a horse galloping by (if you ignore Plant and listen to the drums).

I found this -- one of many YouTube videos -- which neatly explains the technicality of what Bonham did:

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Whole lotta Bonzo love:

So this is the newest and coolest way for Jimmy Page to re-market old Led Zeppelin tracks -- literally one track/instrument at a time. Link  It's an analytical tour de force.  I wrote about analysis vs. synthesis in the context of chemistry here, but the same holds for any composition.

The launch of the LED ZEPPELIN reissue program, which is being led by Jimmy Page, includes the band opening 'its vaults to share dozens of unheard studio and live recordings, with each album featuring a second disc of companion audio comprised entirely of unreleased music related to that album.'

I approve! Plus it highlights the special funky groove that John Bonham had. More please!

BTW, here's the original photo used for that album:

Von Richthofen's Flying Circus

The Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen) is seated in the cockpit of his Albatross biplane. He shot down most of his kills in biplanes, but got famous for flying the Fokker DR1 triplane later in his career.

Von Richthofen's Fokker DR1 Triplane

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Pay special close attention to the brief drum opening by Charles Connor. He's said to have inspired John Bonham's opening salvo in Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll."