Drum Gods

[lucimay]

Luci: I'd say Ringo is underated, because he's not shown that much as a drummer.
The only Beatles I've ever heard that has any kind of challenging drumming is Come Together...and it's only one pattern played over and over.

I'm not knocking him though...anyone who has played for as long as he has, can't be anything less of amazing. Underated drummer are often just that..underated.

oh whatever drummerboy. i'm going to want to hear YOU play Day Tripper and several OTHER Beatles tunes when i finally make my way up to NS!! get your KIT together. it's not just about difficult patterns or challenging licks, kid. surely you're enough of a musician to concede THAT? yes? not just paradiddles, eh? there's arrangement, finess, dynamics, knowing when to bang and when to brush? when to go balls to the wall and when to lay back? yes? ok. that's my point about Ringo.
don't be so smug.

[matrixman]

If John, Paul, George and Ringo are forever underrated as individual musicians, maybe it's because their musicianship doesn't draw attention to itself. The Beatles were about crafting perfect songs, not about showing off. They didn't need to be flashy to prove their instrumental skills to anyone.

[lucimay]

If John, Paul, George and Ringo are forever underrated as individual musicians, maybe it's because their musicianship doesn't draw attention to itself. The Beatles were about crafting perfect songs, not about showing off. They didn't need to be flashy to prove their instrumental skills to anyone.

THANK you!!

[Nav]

People like to be cruel about Ringo's drumming, but I have found that you can always tell a Beatles tribute band from their set-up alone: the drummer will only have three pieces of kit, and they will be very close together.

[drew]

Luci, I wasn't knocking him..I was saying he's underated, becasue for the most part, he's never really SHONE.

Earlier in this thread I talked about how people judge a good drummer..I realize it's not all about show, look at Charlie Watts, he's been named, "the Drummers Drummer" but has he ever done anything spectacualr with the stones? No. But I'm sure he could out drum my ass with one snare drum tied behind his back. (see my rant about Matt Sorum)

Good drummer aer one of the hardest musicians (yes musicians) to rate, becasue for the most part their drumming has to reflect the music..lets talk about Ringo again, to show I'm not biast.
If when I Wanna Hold you Hand came out, and Ringo was all over the kit, going Gene Cruppa crazy, the song would have sounded like crap.
now take a Band like Rush and Neil Peart...well in Spirit of Radio, the rythum alows the drummer to have a great time, and lay down a kick-axe beat.

Who is better dummer though, Ringo or Neil..it would impossible to tell with hearing them play eachothers songs, and even then, different training and styles would have to taken into concideration

[Marv]

without wanting to be overly anilytical(sp.)----RINGO ROCKS
do you need a better definition? HE ROCKS!!!!!!

[lucimay]

Who is better dummer though, Ringo or Neil

can't listen to Rush for comparison, driver. pick somebody else.

[drew]

without wanting to be overly anilytical(sp.)----RINGO ROCKS
do you need a better definition? HE ROCKS!!!!!!

But why do you say that? Is it based on his musicianship, or is it the fact that he's cool?

People tent to judge drumming on wether they can hear the drums or not. A friend of mine loves the band Weezer, and says that their drummer is his favorite..well from what I've heard from weezer, the drums aren't ANYthing special, but they are very Audible.

Let's take a band from your neck of the woods Tazz..AC/DC; they've gone through what three or four drummers, have any of them actually played anything that any drummer can't play within six months of playing? No, not really. But did any of thier drummers suck? I doubt it. the music just doesn't call for impresive drum licks.

If you've ever seen bands like that play live..you'll notice that the drummer try to put as many solo's in the show as possible. Reasons? One; they're bored and want to play. Two; they want to show everyone that they are good drummers.

Luci, here's a better example than Ringo and Neil.
Earlier when I talked about Gary Chester, if you went to the link and saw his credits, the first one was 'My Boyfriends Back' Listen to that song, and really listen to the beat...then listen to, I don't know.."please please me'-they're a simalar tempo-and listen to that beat.-Now I realize that Chester is a studio drummer, and Please me was early on in Ringo's carrer..I'm sure that if he re-recorded it nowadays, the beat, still wouldn't be mind blowing, but it might be more along the lines of 'Boyfriend'.

[lucimay]

here's what i do...when hearing a song for the first time, i listen to the drummer first. when you listen to the drummer everything else in the song, the other parts, arrangement, all falls into place. it's just how i listen critically. i listen to the drummer and the bass line falls into place, then i'm listening to what the drummer and the bassist are doing together.

regarding Ringo...Ger has always made a case for Ringo's abilities but i hadn't ever really listened nor paid much attention as i get so easily distracted by lyric and vocals...but then, one night of wandering in the city, i happened to be down in the Lower Haight at a poem show and i got bored with the "poetry" (i use that term ever so loosely) and wandered out on to the street to smoke...and on down the block to an Irish pub called Mad Dog in the Fog where there was obviously a live band playing...you could hear them from the street...they were playing Revolution.
it sounded pretty good so i went in to hear the rest of the song. it was a Beatles tribute band called Ticket to Ride.

they were so dead on the songs that i was amazed...they were BRILLIANT. i was so knocked out at the accuracy of their covers i started doing that critical listening thing, and of course, i started listening to the drummer first. i realized he was doing Ringo's drum parts lick for lick, dead on! that was when it occurred to me that Ger had been right...that Ringo was one of the "tastiest" drummers ever. the parts were simple punctuations, exclamation points, periods, question marks. they gave the songs "spine", created the skeleton of the song, if you will, onto which all the other parts of the songs were laid. a LOT of Beatles arrangements feel like this to me, built from the drum part out. (that's not to say i imagine i know how they were built, i just mean that's how it feels to me).

and so, my esteem for Ringo has grown. and i don't think a lot of people actually LISTEN to what the guy is doing. i've heard plenty of bands cover Beatles songs but most sound like the "reproductions" are MISSING something. before i heard Ticket to Ride, i didn't know what that subtle something was.

now i know it was Ringo. my originial statement. he's an immensely underrated drummer (meaning not much attention is paid to his contributions to the arrangements) and you CAN'T COVER a Beatles tune effectively without Ringo's drum parts, lick for lick.

[Cail]

Mad props for this guy too...


Talk about versatile, Anton Fig from The World's Most Dangerous Band can play anything.

[The Laughing Man]

oh yeah?

[drew]

Actually the most incrdible drummer I've ever heard ws a Busker.

Usivius may have seen him, as he played on street corners in Toronto, this guys kit looked like it cost about twenty dollars, thirty years ago, he was a showman as well as an incridible drummer, twirling and juggling his sticks, without missing a beat.

[The Laughing Man]

sort of on topic, anybody know what a Gaucho is? Every summer here, anywhere you happen to find yourself within the city limits, when the wind blows just the right way, you can hear the echoes of a battalion of marching drummers practicing.....something about massive drums in unison really gets me....

[lucimay]

most of the busker drumming going on here in SF are "pickle bucket" drummers.

once heard 3 Puerta Rican guys doing Beatles covers in front of the ASCAP building in NYC...they were amazing...and the drummer had a snare, a couple of small cymbals mounted on broom sticks stuck thru the holes of a milk crate and several different sized pickle buckets!!

[danlo]

Andy Ward of Camel and lately Bevis Frond--part psycho-but f-ing incredible drummer

[matrixman]

Nice drumming analysis from Lucimay and drew! I think they're both right. Ultimately, it's entirely subjective, as everything in music is.

Heh, Ringo is a musician I would've least expected to be the subject of heated debate. I guess we're stingy about what performers should be raised to the exalted status of Drumming Godhood, and in some eyes, Ringo's skills remain journeyman-like rather than divine.

[lucimay]

Ringo is a musician I would've least expected to be the subject of heated debate.

exactly my point.... my original post on Ringo did not champion him as a drum god...i said he was one of the most underrated drummer ever


and while i'm at it....Sheila E





takes after her daddy...Pete Escovedo

[Usivius]

Drew: yah, I do know that Toronto street drummer you speak of. He does have a 'regular' gig with a band, but takes to the streets for fun and a little axtra cash. But (forgive me for saying this), but as a former drummer myself, and after seeing him on a number of occassions, I view him as good, but a bit of a "one trick pony". But very entertaining. He can draw a large crowd very easily (not easy to do in jaded and shy TO...)

But I thought of another guy who, although doesn't quite deserve "god" status, is defintely a demi-god... "The Great" Bob Scott ... of 'The Look People'. It is unlikely anyone outside Canada heard these guys (maybe even no one outside Ontario), but these 5 guys were fantastic and Bob Scott could put most bigname dummers to shame. She was a small dynamo of energy and style. He could play anything! (The keyboardist went on to be in 'The Barenaked Ladies)...

Anyone? "The Great" Bob Scott?....

[drew]

Usiv, I was still a teenager when I saw this guy, and only saw him once.
I could see how after once or twice it would all start to sound the same.

You say you're an exdrummer...sucks doesn't it. When we moved into our currnet house I had to finnaly pack my old kit away (at mom and dad's)
that was about a year and a half ago.
Although I still get in plenty of Air Drumming in.

[dlbpharmd]

Ginger Baker - Cream