First a brief news item generated from our very own Moderator, that is, me. Then I’ll open up discussion based on a recently received offlist message from the Mailbag.
First the news!
ROCK TOWN HALL, EARTH – Mr. Moderator has proposed to the Rules and Regulations Commission of Rock Town Hall a cap on cymbal and hi-hat fills by rock drummers.
“Think of the cymbals and hi-hats as the supporting percussion bag of the drum kit,” said Mr. Moderator in his 48-page proposal to he Commission. “They’re there to assist the drummer in fortifying his or her key beats. You wouldn’t want Ray Cooper hopping about playing tambourine and vibroslap fills indiscriminantly, would you?”
In brief, Mr. Moderator proposed no more than one cymbal crash per every 4 measures and a maximum of 2 open hi-hat fills (as opposed to rhythmic variations within the standard hi-hat pattern) per song. He noted that special cymbal privileges could be obtained by the likes of Keith Moon and Mitch Mitchell.
Proponents of the proposition include Peter Gabriel, who said, “If we’re going to allow any cymbals, this is a more than reasonable proposition.” Opponents of the measure include Mr. Moderator’s bandmates, Townsman Andyr and Townsman Sethro.
As for the Mailbag question…
I’m a little confused by the pro-drummer sentiments from you and Andy. I thought bass was the single most important ingredient for the Nixon’s Head crew.
Let me think more about how to answer this fine question. Meanwhile I’ll throw it open to my bandmates in the Hall and the rest of our members. Thanks.
I look forward to our responses.
So, Townsman Oats, to begin to answer your question, I place prime importance on rhythm, and to me it’s more likely that a great drummer can cover for a mediocre bassist than a great bassist can cover for a mediocre drummer. It could be argued that McCartney, for instance, covered the technically challenged Ringo for years, and I would agree. More often, though, there are examples like The Clash (Topper=tremendous; Paul=seviceable), Rockpile (Terry Williams=awesome; Nick Lowe=good), X (DJ=fantabulous; John Doe=barely average)… Of course the ideal situation is having both an awesome drummer and an awesome bassist, as the hell we’ve put Seth and Mike can attest to at least the aim of achieving such a lofty goal, but for foundation purposes, I say get a drummer who’s holding down the fort and the rest will fall into place.
Thanks for the explanation, Jim. I agree with your general presence, but I think Lowe and Doe are fine bass players for those bands; they keep things moving (the most important job of a bassist), they help their bandmates shine; they stay out of the way but do something catchy when needed.
No one seems to consider that St. Bruce Thomas played that way you love in the Attractions because he pretty much had to, given who was playing guitar in that band; talk about barely average! If St. Bruce played that way in X or Rockpile, on top of shit-hot guitar-slingers, it would’ve sounded like shit.
Also, it just occurred to me: Peter Gabriel in time broke his no-cymbals rule in a big way, by relying on Manu Katche, the man of a hundred splash cymbals.
It’s not a pro-cymbal/anti-cymbal issue, its just that I don’t want to be tied down by regulation by The Man . I want the flexibility to arrange cymbals and high-hats as I see fit..
Now, if you proposed a regulation on drummers not doing what they know they should be doing….well then I’d line up right behind you.
To get to Oats point. Bass is important too, but it has always started with Sethro. This goes back to our earliest days when Sethro was by far the best at his instrument (and still is). Also, as Mr Mod said, NH is a rhythmic band. It’s just as important for the drums and rhythm guitar to link up as it is Chickenfrank’s bass. This allows Mike to have more fun jahming.
Oats wrote:
No, you can’t just turn ON the way Bruce Thomas plays. That guy’s got open-access to all levels of security on the fretboard. As he approaches a new octave, the guards just give him the “6-guns” and let him walk right past. Thomas plays bass on an album by Mitchell Froom’s wife (at least at the time), Suzanne Vega. He’s a monster on the couple of songs I heard. Not even Froom can make him sound boring:) I think Bruce would have sounded fine in Rockpile. He probably would not have fit in with X in any way.
There’s nothing wrong with Doe per se, but he’s not capable of getting anywhere near the security access that Thomas or even Nickc Lowe is granted.
Oats wrote:
Does this constitute a rock crime of some degree, considering that Gabriel was so fiercely opposed to cymbals?
I’m afraid that capping crashes at ‘no more than one every 4 measures’ will lead to an automatic cymbal crash every single fucking fourth measure. There’s nothing I hate more than the clockwork crash, unless it’s overuse of the ‘simultaneous double crash (one with each hand),’ which Terry Chambers is guilty of in this otherwise excellent performance. God, I love this song!
Didn’t the Bill Bruford/Tony Levin/Adrian Belew version of King Crimson also eschew cymbals altogether? I thought I remembered Fripp talking about how they took up too much high frequency space.
Yes, I think you’re right about Fripp moving to limit or ban cymbals. I’m in good company – among tight asses.
I love the way Andy Partridge had Terry Chambers conditioned. The guy was an awesome drummer, totally conditioned, and TOTALLY arranged. Partridge must have had him chained to a radiator, like Ricci in Black Snake Moan.
BigSteve wrote:
“Didn’t the Bill Bruford/Tony Levin/Adrian Belew version of King Crimson also eschew cymbals altogether? I thought I remembered Fripp talking about how they took up too much high frequency space.”
not quite:
fripp said he was toying with the idea of decrying that bruford shouldn’t be allowed to even set up his cymbals up because cymbals clutter up the high frequencies and he was such a cymbal oriented drummer.
But, no, they didn’t eschew cymbals altogether. all you have to do is listen to the belew-era their records (if you can stomach it…i know i can’t anymore) to hear cymbals and conventional hi-hat, snare, kick-drum beats on almost every song.
but bruford definitely curtailed his cymbal proclivities at fripp’s request.
there are a couple of youtubes that show him with one china boy, a splash, and one crash (a minimal number of cymbals for bruford!). or a coupla gongs…but he got around it by using all sorts of electronic devices that generated cymbal-like sounds…
Actually, Art, if you listen to the Discipline album, which I can still stand to do, you will notice several up-tempo pop-ish tunes where the bulk of the song is entirely cymbal-free. He may throw “crash” sounds in which are samples of cymbal-like sounds with high-end issues. But generally they are all drums. If you liked what they did, and I did at the time, it worked without cymbals, with the exception of a few ballads. I would only say that at the time when I liked that group at the Tower Theater, it was because we had been misled at the time by faulty intelligence. If I had known what Fripp was planning a few years down the road, I never would have approved of the Discipline album. And now, with the overwhelming condemnation of hindsight to show me the error of my ways, I would in retrospect tell you that that record beyond a doubt blows chunks.