Great record, terrible drummer

metal box

Bob Bert was the master of the metal box.

lightning bolt
boredoms

haha wrong!

i always thought the drive like jehu records could've been even greater with a more pummeling drummer. a guy such as mac mcneilly or zach barocas would've made wonders for their sound, drums on most jehu songs are a bit too pedestrian and mechanical for my liking.

Tim Powles used to bug me a bit.
Makes me wonder how the Church would sound (now) with a punchier drummer.

Probably punchy ain't their point though, right? Yeah.

matt sorum on GNR. uninventive, awful timing, absolutely no swing. hate the guy.

Wow, hard for me to imagine "Yank Crime" being any better, though I guess the drums are the last part of the equation for me with that band (GUITARS!!! > Froberg's voice > tunes > everything else like the drummer). Would love for this band to make another album, which won't happen, but the idea of Mac McNeilly sure is an intriguing one.

Dirty Projectors ffs

imagine a drummer on par with those vicious, quasi virtuosic riffs by reis. a wet dream prob. i love the jehu but i've always felt the drumming was their weakest link (well, that and the fact froberg was a pretty sloppy gtr player but anyway)

I always thought the drums were fine, some cool parts (guy wasn't a BAD drummer, just not particularly special imo). Love Froberg's guitar playing, sloppy or no. Kept them from being too prog or virtuosic, which I think suited the feel of the music extremely well. Some of the rawness makes the band more vital, to me.

Dirty Projectors ffs

― Evan, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 10:24 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you mean on the current record, yeah I think it could be a little better, although I like the record a lot and maybe it just didn't need cool drums

Actually I didn't mean the new one, I haven't heard it. I'm more familiar with Bitte Orca but I didn't think the new one would be much different in that respect.

There's no such thing as a great record with a terrible drummer

i like the drummer on bitte orca a lot

so bite me, dorka

This is amazing:

besides, drumming has changed over the years. it's become a bit more minimal. as much as i love keith moon or bonham, would they really sound right backing sufjan stevens, animal collective or the
microphones?

The microphones, truly the Led Zepplin of their day

hahaha how did i miss that post?? Keith Moon's Microphones would have been a barnstormer of a team-up, I would buy that.

Is it him or is it the shitty drum SOUND on albums after 92?

Well, Sister sounds like shit, drum-wise, but again he's all over a lot of those songs.

They just have less rock-out moments after Dirty, I'd say. And even in their wilder moments he's strangely muted.

When SY got relatively 'less' weird, they kept the volume and distortion. When they got rid of both, then what's the point?

Usually it's not an incompetent drummer that'll ruin a possibly great record but a drab one, or poor mic'ing. I've never given The Travelling Wilburys a chance b/c I just can't deal with having a hot unchanging snare -> DA-88 on every offbeat in my ear for half-an-hour

One drummer who would have gone well with Drive Like Jehu would be Orestes Morfin of Bitch Magnet, monster drummer.

Privately I've held that drummers with so-called "bad" time, though possibly insufferable in a live setting, are golden on a recording, speeding shit up and down or whatever like Palmolive, man I love that

XP - Orestes name was the first I thought of reading the Jehu posts too.

Is Steve West (Pavement) considered a poor drummer? I've never had a prob with him, anyone? (I love Gary Young's playing on the early records, but is he technically good? No clue here)

Whiney's right, there's no such thing as a great record with a terrible drummer.

In my opinion, Gary Young was a phenomenal drummer with decades of experience.

Steve West, in comparison, was a far lesser talent, with an inability to keep proper time or vary from that "shuffle" he always resorted to.

Again, this is merely my opinion. I loved these guys, and truly enjoyed that the always gave mad props to the Garden State.

uhhh as someone pretty new to this forum was everybody just devoted to incoherent contrarian stances back then??

pretty much yeah. i'm kind of glad the board is more argumentative than it used to be because people really get away with saying some bullshit back then.

Chris Franz is sort of the weakest link on every Talking Heads record, or at least the least distinctive player, but he suits the group just fine and certainly doesn't get in the way of their greatness.

I just figured assumed everyone in this thread was joking xp.

I feel that Chris Franz provides the worst moment on Stop Making Sense ("Genius of Love"), but yet somehow redeems himself as "Yella"...

Just my two cents...

i always thought the drive like jehu records could've been even greater with a more pummeling drummer. a guy such as mac mcneilly or zach barocas would've made wonders for their sound, drums on most jehu songs are a bit too pedestrian and mechanical for my liking.

― cock chirea, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 7:18 PM (1 month ago)

Ehh........... you guys are mad.

This is shitty youtube quality but I cannot disagree more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd0a1qtL2c8

Can't believe people are saying Anton Fier is a bad drummer

maybe they meant Anton Fig

http://www.drummerworld.com/pics/drum2/AntonFigMD.jpg

would be harsh on either

uhhh as someone pretty new to this forum was everybody just devoted to incoherent contrarian stances back then??

― no love spud webb (fadanuf4erybody), Friday, October 12, 2012 10:07 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty much yeah. i'm kind of glad the board is more argumentative than it used to be because people really get away with saying some bullshit back then.

― some dude, Friday, October 12, 2012 10:15 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this thread is unreal bad at the beginning, but almost every classic rock thread has a bunch of terrible challops from like 2001

Jefferson Airplane - Crown of Creation, but I think I've flogged that horse on here before.

And it's not really a universally acknowledged classic record anyway.

Also slightly tempted to challop the fuck out of the thread by saying Zen Arcade.

grant's no monster, though i feel his playing is kinda great in a way

It's very one note. You know exactly what's coming next

That can be great, but..

I know (from other discussions) that I'm the minority here, but I still think Robert Gotobed's motorik drumming is the weakest part of 70s Wire.

Also, shall we get the obligatory Helen Wiggin (The Shaggs) mention out of the way?

don't know if terrible but Ralph Molina

― nostormo, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 6:43 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is true. He's not good by any definition.

There are some amazing botched fills on the new crazy horse record

Molina is by far the best answer to this thread

xposts Phew that was less of a flaming-torch-carrying mob style reaction that I expected.
'Terrible drummer' would def be an overstatement but I find that the drum beats on songs like What's Going On and Turn On The News have a slightly clip-clop feel to them which mars the tunes a bit for me. It could well be down to how the drums are recorded as much as to the actual patterns Grant plays.
OTOH you could never say the drumming on Reoccuring Dreams is terrible.

Hart's Keith Moon-like aversion to hi-hats was a negative IMO

Love Ralph Molina, but haven't heard the new one yet. Can't think of a single song he's on that would be improved with a different drummer (and when other drummers play with Neil, they can't cut it on the Ralph/Crazy Horse songs).

I love Hart's drumming, but that might be cos I came to Husker Du as a hardcore band, and Hart's basically a hardcore drummer a lot of the time. That might be what you're hearing as clipclop....