You know that part of Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" where they come out of the silly Latin section back into the main piano riff and there's like a steadily rising drum roll and

Isn't at least the first drum fill you're talking about overdubbed? I haven't heard the song in awhile.

I don't think so, though I haven't heard it in a while either. No snare during that fill, as I recall.

POV: John Bonham's drum fills in "Fool in the Rain"

5. The first one after the piano bit
4. The second one after the piano bit
3. The big press roll (I think it is) coming out of the piano bit
2. The one going into the last "chorus" (if that's what you want to call it - you know, where the acoustic guitar comes back in)
1. The really simple one during the guitar solo where he (non-technical explanation) just goes "bap bap bap" on the snare/(technical explanation) hits the snare on the "and" of 3, the 4 and the "and" of 4.

Anyway, when I got my first car, a 1977 Toyota Corolla, I used to enjoy revving it up to about 50 when we'd hit that bump so we could "catch air." And then I discovered that this whole thing was enhanced greatly by playing a recording of "Fool in the Rain." We'd try to synch the Latin buildup part to the acceleration phase and then we'd hit the hump and fly and land just as the riff kicked back in.

Try it some time!

i have to mention my favorite Zep intra-song departure, which is in "Down by the Seaside" when suddenly the tempo shifts, and right after Plant sings "do you still do the twist? do you find you remember things...." bonzo drops some rolls in and then the whole machine hits like a freightliner. and then, the storm is over, back to the seaside lull...

i always come back, every few years.

cheers cheers and cheers

beautiful link. love that Vistalite tone...

Oh yeah, I think that shit is single strokes!

(thanks for that link lex, I can't wait to hear those tonight)

Single strokes? Maybe. Jesus.

Oh god: my favorite Zep moment is the point at which, a couple of minutes before its conclusion, the song stops for a few seconds so that Page could wrench from his guitar a noise which sounds like GONGANARANG.

The only cool thing about this $1000 Pearl Jam/Robert Plant Katrina benefit I saw was them backing Plant on "Fool in the Rain," the first/only time he's ever performed it.

(IOW, exactly what kind of drumset do I need to buy to get that patented John Bonham fatass drum sound?)

I also think the heads and tuning and mic techniques of the 70s played as large a part as the shells.

(That is, if you took a vintage Ludwig Vistalite kit, put Evans G1s on them, tuned them inna Stewart Copeland stylee, close-mic them in a live-ish room, and gated and compressed the heck out of them, they would not sound Bonhamish.

OTOH, I could imagine taking your average mass-produced Japanese budget kit, tuning the drums lower, with Pinstripes, and triangle-micing them in a fairly dead space, and approcimating a Bonhamish sound.)

I adore '70s drum sounds and try to replicate them, generally by using Pinstripes and muffle rings and eschewing close mics. This may be a bad way to go about it, but I'm a creature of habit.

That's probably OTM about the cymbals though.

If you took those boomy, ringy, drums into a modern studio, I think that lots more of the sustain and overtone would make it onto the tracks--partly because of close-mic techniques, partly because of the room, partly because contemporary mixing is all about track separation.

Hence, to get the 70s sound that I hear in my mind's ear, I usually end up muffling drums, using heavier heads, and tuning lower to get a boxier sound.

Also, how do you think Levon Helm tunes his drums?

I seem to recall that shots from behind him in "The Last Waltz" reveal strategically placed tape on some cymbals, and possibly also on his heads as well. It would be characteristic of the Band to be focused on getting a tight sound and controlling overtones. The old Rogers / Slingerland / Gretsch kits often had those internal damper thingies. He might well have used those. The boxiness could have been due to the lost-midrange and 70s technology issues described above, but the fwap. fwap. in "The Weight" sounds pretty dead to me compared to a (say) Phil Collins record.

http://z.about.com/d/cancer/1/0/6/watts.jpg

"I think I read somewhere" is the gateway to madness. Given the Rolling Stones' usual recording M.O. (granted, I'm going by what I've read somewhere), anything could be possible. It's also possible that Charlie Watts's tech tunes his drums. It's also possible that they play songs in eight different keys until they find one that goes well with his drum sound.

Now that I think of it, he's done enough jazz gigs and the like where you do actually have to tune your drums that he probably does it.

Anyway, let's see if we can figure out which songs these drumtracks are from:

01: ???
02: very beginning of "Carouselambra"
03: more of the first part to "Carouselambra"
04: ???
05: slow part of "Carouselambra"
06-13: some "Misty Mountain Hop"-sounding outtake?
14-18: "All My Love"
19-21: ???
22: main beat to "Fool in the Rain"
23: middle part to "Fool in the Rain"

Very true. Charlie NEVER hit both the snare and the hi-hat at the same time.

-- Mr. Snrub

play in a well and put a mic outside of it.

omg

i figured it out--they drum fills are there to prepare you for the song to slow down.... you get so hyped up by the middle section they basically just calm you down

yeah but the latin section has to climax first, which is what the mad 16th-note triplets do, culminating in the big cymbal crash. then the cascading fills come down the mountain in time and land right in the middle of the beat.

all pretty astounding, how something that big (the sheer force of his beat) can move so freely and swing so widely.

he's a funky paul bunyan

Listening to the O2 "Kashmir" right now and Jason did right by Pa.

As per earlier discussion here is an interview with Levon Helm where he discusses setting up his drums.

actually I found out how Bonham got the sound on this, It was a complete accident that I even figured it out and I got that sound , I really don't feel like sharing it though because its such a secret, Its something that should be kept to myself and I can tell you it was that sound because I play music by ear and when I hit the drum I realized I have achieved a sound section from fool in the rain and it was the part after the latin percussions. So Im saying it is possible to do and if you mess around and try different things youll get get it, Although if you figure it out please don't share it

one of my favorite moments in all of music.
― john, a resident of chicago. (john s), Wednesday, August 2, 2006 9:51 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I came to this conclusion late Saturday night. There is a little pause in that first fill that is instant ASMR.

I really don't feel like sharing it though because its such a secret

lies

This seems like a good place to mention that great bir in 'In The Evening' where it sounds like the whole band (although it's rpesumably just some whizzy Page effects) is changing gear or something.

That moment is remarkable -- it's like the song suddenly "melts away" into the bridge.

(btw, re: the thread title - I like the samba breakdown in "Fool in the Rain"!)

Bonham doing his Pretty Purdie impression and page’s super fuzz on the solo make this one great, ham-fisted whistle interlude aside

ho, baby

just don't seem to stop when i'm thinking it over
o tired of the light, but i just don't seem to find
have you . . . wait? get away. i see it in my dreams
but i just don't seem to be . . .

I've always thought of this track as Led Zep trying to do Steely Dan.

this video came up in my sidebar a few months back and it shows you the actual stave notation for fool in the rain, which kinda opened up my third eye or something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvOm2oZRQIk&t=7m35s

The meta-ness of Plant singing "I watch the people go shuffling downtown" while Bonham is playing the half-time shuffle had never occurred to me until tonight.

^I was wondering recently if there’s a thread for that kind of thing (songs where an aspect of the music “expresses” something in the lyrics), but don’t really know how to search for it.

Oh, you kind of took another thread in that direction (here: The meta lyrics thread)

Would that include songs like "On Broadway" or "Late in the Evening" where the lyrics mention playing guitar and the guitar goes widdly widdly in a suddenly conspicuous manner?

Or ones where the drummer acts out lyrics involving knocking on a door or using a six-gun? ("1999," "I Fought the Law")

The meta-ness of Plant singing "I watch the people go shuffling downtown" while Bonham is playing the half-time shuffle had never occurred to me until tonight.

xpost There's definitely a thread for that, or at least, I'm pretty sure we've talked about it in some thread.

I got to see this special benefit show, which ended with Pearl Jam backing Robert Plant for iirc his only ever performance of "Fool in the Rain."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqJJMiMzkks