Dayton Ohio Drummer

John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom

Here’s a recent video where I’m playing a live cover of John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom with Sticky Reed & Last Fair Deal. This is a good example of how great that Gretsch Catalina Club kit sounds. You can see more videos of the band here.

Ableton LIVE

I’ve been sequencing music off and on since the Commordore 64 using Passport Mastertracks Pro (yeah, I’m showing my age). I use Reason and MOTU’s DP7 now, and the same basic principles apply. I get it. No problem. Then I hear about this program called LIVE several years ago. Hmmm. Sounds interesting. I’ve seen some amazing videos on YouTube of a guys who is building/sequencing recorded audio tracks in a realtime performance situation, and I’m thinking…”I’ve got to have this!” So I download a trial version. That’s when the madness begins.

Ableton LIVE is nothing like any other sequencing program I have ever used! It is not intuitive. It is not user friendly. It’s a pain in the _ _ _ to figure out. I spent hours reading, watching videos, surfing the  web for help. Finally, I uninstalled it. YUCK!

During the next year, I keep hearing and seeing things about how Abelton LIVE is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and how no musician should ever be with out it (OK, I made that last part up). So again, I downloaded a trial copy and gave it another shot. It was another exercise in futility though. I just didn’t get it. And after hours of struggling, I didn’t want to anymore. I resigned myself to just not getting it.

I was still on the Ableton email list though, and a few weeks ago they sent me an email stating that I should upgrade to version 8. Well, here we go again! So i downloaded it. Am I a gluten for punishment? Maybe. But something in the back of my head keeps telling me “This is an amazing piece of software. FIGURE IT OUT!” So I dug in again. I don’t know if I got smarter since the first time I downloaded it, or the documentation got better, or the program has evolved, but I actually started to figure this thing out. I sequenced the old Steve Miller song Fly Like An Eagle using an amazing VST plugin from Genuine Software for the organ sound called the VB3, and used Reason for the synth sound effects. Then I set it up so I could trigger the different sections/sequences with my Alesis ControlPad. Now I can sit down at the kit, and start the song, control what section I’m playing, and arrange the song anyway I like. AWESOME!

I will say that some very basic information I needed was really hard to find on the web, and I spent hours searching for it. Little things, like how to turn down the volume of the click. After a hour of searching, I finally found it buried in a forum somewhere. So, I’m dedicating a new section of my blog to using Abelton Live with the drums. Stay tuned.

Acoustic Blues Band in Dayton

When I returned to playing drums again after 20+ years of writing and producing, I decided that what I really wanted to do was play in a blues band. Well, I’m happy to report five years later (and several Classic Rock bands later) that I’m finally playing in a Dayton Blues Band – Sticky Reed and the Last Fair Deal.

Sticky Reed & the Last Fair Deal at Cadillac Jacks (with a smokin' guest sax player)

The core of the band has been together for years, consisting of Carl Moel on Harmonica, Tim Underwood on Acoustic Guitar and Dobro, Scott Stevens on Acoustic Guitar and Dobro, and my very good friend Greg McMullen on Bass. Greg and I played in Relic together, and that’s how I came to play in the band. We play interesting versions of early blues from legends like Muddy Waters and JellyRoll Morton to recent blues from folks like Chuck Berry and William Clark and more. This band is great to play in, for three reasons: 1) it’s GREAT music, 2) it’s acoustic, so I don’t have to wear ear-plugs (and neither does the audience!), 3) the band can really groove.

We actually did some recording in the late winter/early spring of 2011 so we could get a demo into the hands of some club owners. Take a listen to Sticky Reed and the Last Fair Deal.

Vanilla Fudge Keeps Me Hangin’ On

I’ve been sitting in with a local classic rock band while their drummer is out, and one of the songs they are working on is Vanilla Fudge‘s “Keep Me Hangin’ On.” At first I thought this is a fairly straight-forward song. It was always one of my favorites as I was growing up.

Straight-forward, except that a few of the transitions seemed a bit off-time, and the bridge section was played extremely odd with quarter-notes on the snare. I struggled a bit, but I figured it out…no big deal. Till I got to rehearsal. The band had learned the full length version of the song (five plus minutes). I apparently learned the radio edit (three minutes tops). So after muddling through it a time or two, and trashing all the changes, we decided to table until I’d had a opportunity to learn the other arrangement.

So when I got ready to learn the other version, I thought, “Lets see if I can find a version of this on YouTube.”

Well I found it. It’s a version of the band on the “Ed Sullivan” show (the same show where I first heard The Beatles). And low and behold the drummer was Carmine Appice. Huh. No wonder I struggled with the timing and bridge. Carmine is nothing short of amazing. Here’s the video, and even though I feel it’s a bit “over-acted,” his performance is nothing short of amazing.

FYI – you can catch the bands live performance on Jimmy Fallon here.

Low-volume Drumset… an Oxymoron (kind of).

OK. First and foremost, I will admit, I am a hard-hitter. And my drums are LOUD (that is an understatement)! It can tend to be a problem on occasion, especially on the low volume gigs in small spaces.

So… I’m on a new mission…I’m going to put together a drum kit that is naturally a low volume kit (hopefully).

Now some of you may think that’s a oxymoron – a drum set that is not loud – but I think it can be done. You see, different woods/materials have different sound characteristics. For instance, I owned a set of Ludwig Vistalites back in the day. Vistalites are made from Plexiglas, they were the loudest drum set I have ever owned. I just got a great deal on a Gretsch Catalina Club Rock kit that is made of Mahogany, and much to my  my surprise, the kick drum and toms are much softer sounding than my PDP Maple LX or MX kit. I have also heard that Birch drums are loud,  but I have no experience with that.

As far as cymbals, I recently began to checkout Dream Cymbals (I’ve always been a Zildjian guy), but there is something intriguing about the sound of these cymbals. They remind me of the old Zildjians from the 50′s and 60′s. I recently bought a set of 14″ Bliss Hi-Hats, and was amazed to find that next to my 13″  Zildjian K/Z hats, they are much quieter.

So here’s what I’m doing… a small jazz BeBop kit (18′ or 20′ kick, 12″ tom, 14″ tom) made of Mahogany, and a set of Dream Bliss cymbals. Certainly the new 14″ Bliss hats are going to be a part of this setup. The main requirement of this set… low cost. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Drum technology has really come a long way in recent years, and even cheap drums in the hands of a drummer who understands drumhead selection and tuning can sound pretty phenomenal!

There may be hope for this old rocker after all. Stay tuned…