This thread will probably make the likes of down-to-earth garage-punkers like Townsman Bobby Bittman throw up. I apologize if you’re reading this, Bobby, shortly after eating. This topic is just a part of how I roll.
I love Stiff Little Fingers‘ “Suspect Device” even more than the band’s supercharged “Alternative Ulster.” The blistering, jumpy chord riffs and stop-start chorus are a needed sock in the gut. Jake Burns displays less vocal dynamics than one of those modern-day, overcompressed records our old friend homefrontradio used to complain about—in a good way! (And whatever became of the Hall’s Original Thunder Down Under, not to mention our more recent Aussie contributor, the delightful mikeydread? Be well and stay in touch, my friends.) It’s one of the most PUNK songs ever, and I know a lot of you think that should take a band off the hook for the pipe-tamping point of view I’m about to raise, but really, we’re talkin’ about music. Just because something’s “punk” doesn’t mean it can’t be improved another notch, does it? I would like to investigate ways in which “Suspect Device” could be improved, focusing on the drums, the one aspect of the song that I’ve always found lacking in excellence.
At last night’s Phillies game, seeing the supreme Roy Halladay live for the first time in 2011, I was reminded not only of his mojo-inducing pregame warm-up throw music, Led Zeppelin‘s “Moby Dick,” but his walk-up music, the opening line of Zep’s “Good Times, Bad Times.” Now that song is a balled-up fist of the highest magnitude, and think about how amazing drummer John Bonham‘s contributions are to the song’s rock ‘n roll phalanx.
Let’s say you were in on the original arranging sessions of “Suspect Device.” The song is at the point of what was recorded and released. Are you satisfied with the choppy hi-hats and uninspired fills? Do you share my view that the hi-hats can’t keep up with the precision of the guitars? Doesn’t it sound like drummer Brian Faloon is simply having trouble keeping up with the song and doing anything of substance? Assuming the guy had it in him to do a little better, assuming he could have relied on a more economical approach to finding a groove within those machine-gun guitar rhythms, can we suggest some ideas for how this song could have been even better?
If you think I’m full of it and want to defend the drumming on this song, be my guest. I’m not a drummer, which is part of the reason I ask whether there is a drummer in the house.
(The live version posted at the top of this thread is fun, but in fairness the studio version follows so you can hear the song in its finished form.)
By the way, did you know that Stiff Little Fingers formed as a cover band called Highway Star, after the Deep Purple song? I did not know that. Considering one of the most proto-hardcore of early punk bands has such roots, this may speak to my long-held theories about the later US hardcore punk scene being the result of teenage stoner metalheads who didn’t want to commit learning the necessary chops to play the music of their hard-rocking heroes.
I always liked the line that opens Boxcar by Jawbreaker – You’re not Punk, and I’m tellin’ everyone. Save your breath I never was one, and I think it fits here really well. So what if he can barely keep up? It’s not Yngwie Malmsteen, it’s Stiff Little Fingers, and the drums on Suspect Device seem to keep up at least as well as Jake Burns. I like how those fills kind of lag a little behind the guitars and I can’t think of anything I’d have said if I had produced that track, other than “Holy shit….They’ll be trying to figure out why this came out so great thirty years from now!”
Or, “Ok, that’s it then. Be back tomorrow for the next song.”
I just want the song to be raised a slight notch, so that it’s as good as “Good Times, Bad Times,” 2K. I say this with full knowledge that you’re probably the Townsman least impressed by any Led Zeppelin song.
I like the song a lot, but that drummer is stiff as a board. Bonham had swing. Faloon does not. That bothers me more than the fills.
Listen to the first Clash LP (the US version) and the difference in drumming between the Terry Chimes songs and the Topper Headon songs is night and day. I think you’re asking way too much of a drummer in a format that’s possibly even more rigid than the blues. Topper could play his way out of it. Most can’t.
Thank you for listening to the music, Scott. I agree, it’s his stiff, choppy way with the hi-hats that I have to work to ignore. Imagine if he just played quarter notes for some of those parts instead of trying to keep pace with the guitars’ eight notes.
Chimes wasn’t fantastic, but his arrangements played to his limitations. Same goes for the Undertones’ drummer more than anyone. That guy’s nothing special whatsoever but someone had the good sense to keep his parts in the service of the music. I know I’m coming at this from an unnecessarily musico angle, but this is why I’m calling on drummers. Charlie Watts does not possess brilliant chops, but he knew how to play within the song. All I’m saying – and of course it’s nitpicking – is that this song would have scored a 100% had the drummer been able to find a useful part. I know the band’s parents won’t be upset by the 96% they’re bringing home. I just want to see them do their best.
Have you seen Dennis Wilson in the clips of the Beach Boys from the T.A.M.I. show? Now that’s drumming!
I agree that SLF could have used a session man for the recording!
NOT swinging was part of the point of this style of punk. It used to be called ‘forcebeat,’ though I don’t hear that term much anymore.
I think the drums could have been recorded better, but the playing sounds fine to me. Nice fill at 2:17. It seems to me that the drummer is playing the exact equivalent of the no-frills guitar-playing. Bonham-style thunder would have been inappropriate.
True confession time: I don’t like most early punk. I find it ultimately boring as hell. Punk was a basically very limited and self-limiting style and the scene had some of the narrowest and most intolerant-of-change fans ever. When you endlessly gig like most of the musicians, you can’t help but get better and you start thinking about going beyond the amateurish punk-thrash box. There were punk “fans” who were livid when the Clash started getting more sophisticated by the time of London Calling, when Siouxsie and the Banshees stopped caterwauling over noise and began making actual songs, and when John Lydon dropped the “Rotten” moniker and started Public Image Ltd. “What? Guitar solos? Chord changes? Keyboards? Who the fuck do you think you are? Pink Floyd?”
Once punk started transforming itself into New Wave, then things got much more interesting musically.
I hear you Mr. Mod, but you’re a bit at odds with yourself. You want him to do more but then dig drummers who know when to stay in their place. I think his drumming is very serviceable to the song. Now, if he was Mark Laff (generation x) would the song be better? absolutely yes. But I think his drumming fits with the diy ethos of the band.
Not really, I want him to do better. I suggested he could have played quarter notes on the hi-hat and possibly helped the performance. Like I said, there’s no shame in a 96, but I’m asking for 100. Too bad andyr has been silent on this issue, but I know his mind is occupied on the Flyboys.
Well, I suppose that everything that Stiff Little
Fingers is is everything that Led Zeppelin is not. I guess I’m good with that, and think Good Times Bad Times gets it’s ass spanked pretty good by everything on Inflammable Material.
This is one of those things, as a non-musician, that I comprehend when it is pointed out to me: yes, the drumming is at best rudimentary on Suspect Device. But, really, it’s a great song and a great recording, for my money, and it is not clear to me that better drumming would enhance my enjoyment of it.
He’s not playing that much differently than the Undertones first album. He’s just not as good. And The Undertones production serves the drum sound better.
It’s a little unfair to expect him to be as good as those other guys. That’s what was great about that first Punk explosion. There really were bands with hit records that could barely play.
They got better. I saw them when Bruce Foxton was on bass. Stiff Little Foxton.
This thread doesn’t make me sick at all, Mod, even if I’m mostly with Chicken on this one. Still, I do think the most important thing a band, even a punk band, needs is a good drummer (after all, one of Rock & Roll’s other names IS “Beat Music”, which neatly sums up the importance of that element of the). The Clash’s records with Topper were a million times better than the ones Chimes played on. Even if it’s a super-minimalist approach, like The Ramones, you need someone who can do it right & keep up – Clem Burke tried once, and he couldn’t do it – great drummer in a lot of respects, but the wrong guy for that job.
There are times I suppose it doesn’t make that much difference, and there are plenty of records I like on which nobody in the band plays particularly well, but the sum of the parts is inspired, and makes up for any technical deficiencies. Still, if I had to choose the one role in a band that most requires competence to make the whole endeavor work, it would be the drummer…I have much more patience with, say, sub-par guitar playing, if the drummer is doing his/her job within the framework of the music….if that makes any sense (I’m goofy from allergy medication today, so try to cut me some slack if I’m less than articulate here).
So, yeah, I would like this record better if the drummer weren’t so stiff, but for me it falls into the category of the inspired sum of the parts type of thang.
The production aspect of the drums is also the weakest thing about the record, as far as I’m concerned.
I agree with the sum of the parts perspective, BB. I’m tickled that you and I are pretty much in agreement here.
The drumming is sufficient for the song and attitude. The essence of SLF and The Undertones were it’s err “straightforwardness”.
HOWEVER, I can’t believe this punk drumming thread has gone on this long without someone mentioning Rat Scabies from The Damned. His showiness was match only by his raw talent. Much like Keith Moon without the sloppiness.
I submit to you a clip from the mid-80’s version of the group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu40IgcBDRA&feature=related
That’s a weird line-up for The Damned. I don’t know much about that band, but are Scabies and Vanian the only usual members? Here’s another version of that song, with Vanian in his most-distracting Look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m2JyiggwAU&feature=related
Funny. The “punk Alice Cooper?”
Agreed Machinery. I’ve never much cared for the look of The Damned. In fact, for years I ignored them based on their look, but eventually came around after downloading Machine Gun Etiquette.
I was trying to find a version of Love Song from the original era, but they were mimed versions. In the version I posted only Vanian and Scabies are the original members. By that time Captain Sensible had already done his whole “wot” thing and was heading towards obscurity.
Just pulling out of my flyboys-inspired depression……
The drummer does a good job of keeping the pulse of the song going but he is definitely a little short on some of his fills. I personally would have stopped the track after his first bad fill (less than a minute in) and worked it out. Something my bandmates know I am wont to do.
I agree 100% with the hardcore reference – that what it sounds like. Power over percsison. Terry Chimes and Billy Doeherty definitely knew how to keep it driving but avoding anything embarrasing.