Charlie Watts' Golden

Overheard:

The key to Led Zeppelin is that somebody is always playing a counter point. You can hear that. ~Jimmy Page

I know that Page was talking musically, but the phrase popped into my head as I began write a tribute to Charlie Watts who will celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary in October.

Through all those years of temptation, one guy stays true and faithful. That's sort of a "counter point" isn't it?

I always thought Charlie Watts' rock drumming was deceptively simple. It wasn't hard to copy. His jazz drumming is another story. You can tell he's an old school drummer by the way he holds his sticks: traditional grip.

Here's Johnny Depp narrating Keith Richards' version of the time Charlie Watts slugged Mick Jagger.  [skip to 3min 43sec for the violent part, but watch the whole thing for context]:

Sole Sacrifice

Carlos Santana practically invented "Latin Rock" in the 1960's. He had started out as a blues and jazz influenced musician, but in San Francisco he met Latino and African drummers who beat different rhythms. Hanging around the developing hippie scene in San Francisco, he and his band noticed that girls would spontaneously dance in new and interesting ways to the exotic sounding rhythms--usually with much more hip gyration. He and the band liked this from a stage's eye view, and so the fusion stuck.

The band Santana made its national stage debut at Woodstock in 1969. Three successful albums later, the band had begun to fray, with Carlos wanting to move more towards jazz. Caravanserai (1972) was the last Santana album that I liked. Half the band left him afterwards and later formed the core of the band Journey.

A favorite track from Caravanserai, called Waves Within:

It's Only Rock and Roll But I Like It

Driving up the 5 freeway the other day, tapping out the drum part on the steering wheel on "It's only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)," I noticed the most remarkable thing about the song:  The Ben Hur drum track!  Watch this clip again:

Now check out this brief clip of the Stones' song I made;  I counted out the syncopated snare beats to draw attention to them: Link

I had always assumed that Charlie Watts played drums on that track--wrong!  It was Kenny Jones of The Faces, along with ex-bandmates Ronnie Wood and David Bowie!  The incredible story is here. Here's what Charlie Watts says:

I didn't play drums on that, Kenny Jones did. I was in bed, sleeping at the time. They called Kenny Jones because he lived nearer to Richmond, it was done in a very beautiful house there that Ronnie used to own. Pete Townshend owns it now:

Keith Richards wrote about the making of the song in his autobiography, Life.

That's where I first heard "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," in Ronnie's studio. It's Mick's song and he'd cut it with Bowie as a dub. Mick had gotten this idea and they started to rock on it. It was damn good. Shit, Mick, what are you doing it with Bowie for?  Come on, we've got to steal that motherfucker back. And we did, without too much difficulty.  Just the title by itself was so beautifully simple, even if it hadn't been a great song in its own right.  I mean, come on. "It's only rock and roll but I like it."

You can hear traces of the original track embedded in the song. Listen here to the "quiet" part near the end--all the original players emerge: link

What about the Rolling Stones' big 50th anniversary tour? There are rumors that Keith Richards is fighting an unnamed illness.  Here's what the man says:

'Basically, we’re just not ready,' says Richards. 'The Stones always really considered ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie [Watts] didn’t actually join until January. We look upon 2012 as sort of the year of conception, but the birth is next year.' link

Battle Speed!...Attack Speed!...Ramming Speed!

Sheer Brilliant Lunacy

Bargain was a track from Who's Next and was allegedly inspired by Pete Townshend's spiritual guru, Meher Baba; I think the lyrics work just as well substituting a woman or a true love.

I put the video up to call attention to an outstanding piece of drumming by Keith Moon which I've never heard equalled. It's the part here where he comes back to close the song. Listen to how Moon pedals a bass line with both feet! He played double bass drums and perfected bass drum triplets, evident throughout the whole album, but most conspicuously there. You can hear John Entwistle dabbling in and out, accenting Moon's shin-cramping pedalled paradiddles.

Can You See The Real Me?

This is a very favorite Who song from Quadrophenia (1973).  It's one of just a handful that I used to spend hours trying to mimick as a teen.  I'd wear headphones and blissfully play along, trying to get every Keith Moon chop down. I once told that to somebody more talented than me: "Well that wasn't being very original, was it?" The withering disdain stung, but now, years later? pffft, whatever. While I take the point about originality (and our garage band did have nascent originals), copying your betters is important too.  I wrote about how drumming used to benefit from having great elders worth copying here. A little bit of the great rubs off in everybody.

50 Years Of MyTunes: A $20 Reward...

...for the verified identity of this song. I want to buy it from iTunes or the like. I wouldn't be offering money if I knew what it was.

I'm working on a blog post about instrumental surf, and I want to include this. Here's what I know about it.  I recorded the song on WORT listener sponsored radio in about 1986 or 1987 in Madison, Wisconsin. I subsequently lost the original play list, and now have it only on a compilation. I think I mislabeled it as Link Ray.

Update: Jason made the right call: It's Sandy Nelson's And Then There Were Drums from 1962.

Update 2: Sandy Nelson sounds like an old-fashioned Gene Krupa schooled drummer.

Beats Me Man

Ron (@kngFish) tweeted me a video link the other day:

@chickelit This is stuck in my head...live, from 1938. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S1I_ien6A.

His link goes to:



The drum track on that Benny Goodman song caught my ear. I was, for some reason, instantly reminded of the drums on this (still unidentified) instrumental surf track:

Are the two drum tracks separated at birth?

I think so. They share something. They share a common influence--the great jazz and bebop drummers of the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's. I cannot recall the name of the surfer band in my YouTube link. I recorded it from the radio in Madison, WI in the late 80's. I initially marked it as Link Wray--however, I have since been unable to verify this nor match it to any Link Wray tune.

The drummers of that bygone era all learned their chops from the greats like Gene Krupa.

Jim Chapin (1919-2009) wrote a highly influential book called Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, first published in 1948 and which went through about 60-odd printings:

I bought a copy around 1976 at Ward-Brodt Music on Henry St. in Madison when I took lessons (briefly) from a local jazz drummer. I lost my original somewhere, but recently bought another copy.
It's a classic.

With the Power Trio of Soul, Anything was Possible

From the same New Years show 1969-70:



I've always loved the structure of this song--it's a real composition. I used to know the entire drum part by heart. IMO Mitch Mitchell was a better drummer for Jimi overall, but Buddy Miles did a great job at these shows, except when he tried to upstage Hendrix's singing.
And Billy Cox was a way better bassist than the racist Noel Redding. Just sayin'. I mean, just listen to that groovy bassline supporting Jimi's wailing minute-long solo beginning at the 0.21 min mark.

[note added]: Hendrix and Cox were stationed together at Fort Campbell KY about 10 years after my father was there.

[Another note added: the original video I linked here no longer works so I swapped it out. The first one was actual footage from the New Years Eve show. If I find it again I'll put it up here again.]

Rock Band Rocks!

Today, September 9th, Harmonix Music Systems released the Beatles's music catalog as part of the Rock Band video game. If you're unfamiliar with "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero," you probably don't have or know any teen or pre-teen kids (actually I first learned about it from our wild and crazy 30-something DINK neighbors).

We have the Wii version of "Guitar Hero." The Wii version is like the "Rock Band" video game, that is, the game allows one to play the guitar, vocal, bass, and drums for many popular songs. Of course you have to have the Guitar Hero "guitars" and drum kits that are adaptable to the wiimotes.

Guitar Hero has been derided by some because it doesn't really foster learning the guitar. Allegedly, Jimmy Page is withholding release of Led Zeppelin's catalog because he is upset that kids aren't learning guitar, but rather a simulated version of it. Also sayeth Page:

Obviously, there have been overtures made to Led Zeppelin, but if you start with the first track on the first album, ‘Good Times Bad Times,’ and you think of the drum part that John Bonham did there, how many drummers in the world can actually play that, let alone dabble on a Christmas morning? link.

He'll come around, mark my words, just give it a few more years, and a few lackluster sales of compilations.

But it's true: the "guitars" in Guitar Hero have no strings, only a right hand strum pick and a left hand set of buttons that allow you to "fret" notes and chords. On the other hand, the drum set- up for Rock Band features a set of four pads and a bass drum.

In my experience, the Rock Band drum simulator actually requires you to have or develop the same motor skills that it takes to play real drums. The drum set even resembles the sort of practice pads that real drummers use in lieu of a real set. So screw Page and Led Zeppelin for the time being.

Another great rock drummer was of course Keith Moon. Whereas John Bonham had controlled precision, Moon was all over the place, almost the essence of chaos. Moon had a top heavy, splashy style, having a much higher center of gravity than Bonham. Moon played double bass drums, forgoing the high hat cymbal for much of his playing style and sound. When I think of Keith Moon playing, I picture him riding his cymbals and tom toms and with both feet stomping his double bass drums.
Here's a video that gives you a good look at how "Rock Band" drums actually work:

The Hammer of the Buzz

I've just been getting around to listening to Mothership, yet another Led Zeppelin compilation produced by Jimmy Page to milk the legend. What is new on this otherwise predictable rehash is a nice remastering of the drum track: mainly the enhanced sound of John Bonham's drumming.

Others have described Bonham's style as his special "groove." Yes he had that, but there was something more about his drumming style. Bonham owes some of his sound to Carmine Appice, who introduced Bonham to Ludwig drums during Zeppelin's first American tour (Geez, I wonder if Trooper York knew the Appice family?-Brooklyn, boomer, Italian American?). I also think there's a noticeable difference in drum "sound" between their first album and Led Zeppelin II. The very first song on their first album, Good Times, Bad Times, features those shin-cramping bass drum triplets that marked Bonham's style. Later, he perfected a more fluid, all around triplets sound as demonstrated here by Appice (if the videos won't play for you it may be because they are Quicktime ".mov" videos. You can download quicktime here (thanks Jason!).

Bonham had a certain precision and economy to his style--almost approaching perfection in the sense that one could not easily imagine doing it better. His exquisite, almost metronomic timekeeping was due to his use of his left foot high-hatting between and during breaks, a technique borrowed from earlier drum legends. You can see it in this demo.

Whenever Bonham's right stick came off the high hat during a beat, his left foot would kick in to keep the same rhythm: this style is very obvious in for example this version of Whole Lotta Love. If you still can't view the videos, just crank up your own version of Whole Lotta Love and listen closely to the middle "trippy" part and the remainder of the song until the break. Bonham is left foot high-hatting throughout his turns around the cymbals and tom toms: zsip-zsip-zsip-zsip-zsip-zsip-zsip-zsip-zsip....

I learned these things as a teen (way before Internet tutorials) when I played drums as part of my misspent youth. I used to listen for hours on end to their songs, trying to copy and learn his style. My friends and I even had a little high school garage (basement) band in the mid-70's: we called ourselves "Buzz Hammer."

John Bonham has been dead almost 30 years--can you believe it?