"Time Waits for No One"= tick-tick  "Miss You" 

I don't know  what you mean.

Oh! I am so sorry

The first track shows a bare minimum timekeeper tendency at its most primitive (metronome) and the second a disco shuffle that would make Chic feel un-chic! 

Oh. I will check them out.

Jimmy Carl Black is a bad drummer? Not to my ears.

 

Hawkwind's drummer on Warrior on the Edge of Time.

 

Poor slugger's better at picking his nose.

Not if you saw him live , as his idea was to hypnotize brutally ! Like seeing John Bonham live, its the real way to judge! 

on that basis I would add John Mayhew (Genesis) . Both were decent drummers just not as amazingly talented as the people that replaced them.

he also upped the ante in UK ( now who was that guy he replaced?)

 

Cookies' a genius. Andy Edwards is also excellent, but no way is he better than Paul Cook. And Ian Mosley is a very fine player indeed; see his work with Trace.

 

 

So that's my pick. 

Exactly what I was thinking.  I thought first of Mayhew before I was reminded of Rutsey...

Agreed. Ian Mosley is so much better than Pointer. Maybe a tribute band can redeem SfaJT sometime in the future...

@Toddler

I think you're talking about Fudge Smith, who was also in Pendragon until 2005.

 

A bad drummer is someone who drags the time while you're playing 32 second notes which in return makes you, the guitarist or keyboardist sound as if you are unsure of the piece. It also affects the sound of the entire band who now must play a fast up tempo piece at a slow and moronic sounding pace. Bad drummers will pull your gravity awkwardly on stage during live transmission and all you can think of is how bad you want to throw a glass of water at them..but nevertheless you are professional and must as a rule.. paste that stupied phony plastic smile on your face hoping the crowd hasn't noticed.

 

A bad drummer is someone who doesn't bother to learn stage signals. You're touring constantly and so one night your singer has the flu. Unfortunately the promoter of Electric Factory Concerts doesn't see any reason whatsoever to cancel the show because of the flu. Your vocalist is singing a song that he/she has sung for a hundred nights in a row..but now begins to stare into space with a fever. Instead of singing the correct follow up section ..which might be a bridge..they go back to the chours. Because the bad drummer is not paying attention to the movement of the vocalist he/she plays the bridge while the band who has been keeping a close watch on the singer ..is following the singer into the chours. Bingo...trainwreck. Carl Palmer watched every move Emerson made during live transmission and that's what made them tight.

 

A bad drummer isn't always the guy/girl who hits the rims during a roundhouse. A bad drummer is someone who has no dynamics and plays the verse just as loud as the chours when the whole time a message is written in front of them to do otherwise. A bad drummer is someone who is on an ego trip of their own and as a result (for some moronic reason or other), decides to NOT follow the bass player. The bassist and drummer must drive the unit and feed off each other. I don't give a hoot if you're playing a beautiful John McLaughlin guitar solo note for note..with feeling...you will sound lame if the drummer and the bassist are conflicting.

 

They must have used the surface of their talents at the audition and pulled the wool over someone's eyes. Maybe a specific band lost a impeccable drummer and were pressured to go on tour and quickly hired someone who sounded professional at obvious points yet never revealed what was in store for the band. You might say to the drummer..."You will need to speed that part up after so many nights of playing it"..."We know you're struggling with it and so we will play it a little slower because it's difficult for you now...You've only got a week before the bookings. Little do you know that this drummer has other slop-king ideas up his sleeve. Alan White was given 2 weeks to learn material for YES and to go out on tour. He sounds a little unsure of himself on YESSONGS, makes a few mistakes, but! he continued to work the music out until the band was tight again. He was already a seasoned drummer in other styles of music..he just needed more time. In the case of others...I don't know . I mean ...I can't see any professional musician hiring a drummer that's bad unless the motive was to make money or perhaps the fear of losing money would be for that desperate move. On the other hand..some fantastic musicians have a mental block. Keith Emerson once raved about Randy Bachman and also played with Davy O"list ..who neither of them as guitarists can compare to the level of Emerson on piano. Color me blind because why wouldn't he bragged about someone who was completely outstanding? Listen to how awful David O'list's leads are with the NICE. It's not only terribly distorted..but no feeling, sloppy, and a very bad buzzsaw.

I would rate Cook as ultra solid ('genius' is way over egging it i think) while Andy Edwards brought a sense of dynamics that was previously lacking (imo)

I was never that impressed with PT until I heard Deadwing but as you suggest maybe that was more to do with the style of music ( more metal) than anything else although I think Harrisons drumming on that album is exceptional and of a higher standard than anything else I've heard in the PT catalogue ( I have pretty much everything). Up The Downstair was released with Harrison drumming on it so you may want to compare that rather than the later ones.

I have no doubt he can play any style and maintain his impeccable sense of time and unrivaled mastery of rhythm.  It's interesting that he calls himself primarily a Jazz drummer, though, because he seems to lack the "subtlety" and "variety" of texture, as well as the "warmth" and "depth" of expression I look for in a great Jazz drummer.  There is definitely an academic side to modern Jazz, but at a certain level, it's more about "feel" than absolute rhythmic integrity.  I've never heard anything to suggest that Harrison is capable of feeling swing and not treating it as a mathematical exercise.

Moving on... One example of a less-than stellar live drummer is Phil Ehart of Kansas.  His sense of time has a tendency to wander.

I like Lars. It's is what attracted me to the band in the first place.

Better than Taylor? He's brilliant!

 

I always thought Roger Taylor was an excellent drummer.  Of course, he's not Bill or Phil or Neil, but for what Queen were doing, he was perfect.  And he could write and sing pretty dang well too. 

But when you see a drummer going through the motions looking bored , regardless of the level of complexity of the rhythms, you get the feeling he is just a keeper of time . Which explains my Charlie Watts rant!  

 

Sounds like Doane Perry's predecessor in Tull. Gerry Conway's fill during "that" moment in "Aqualung" should be epic, but the live recording in the 20 Years box reveals a guy who thinks a series of mindless cymbal crashes works just fine.

My opinion was that the drumming was quite weak, although it was part of their "medieval vibe."

Here's a bit of video on the band's reunion.  

 

Almost all "prog"?

 

Besides, if I wanted a metronome, I could buy one for $20 and not waste a musician! Why even bother, though, since all the DAW's these days have a drummer that does not miss the time!

 

Charlie ... as in "Fantasy Girls"?

 

You're kidding me ... that's Steve Gadd ... though he says it wasn't him but someone else ... I say it was his younger brother ... and that drumming is nice for a rock band!

I would probably pick The Wake as my favorite Cookie drumming album. Can't beat the first rampaging minutes of Widows Peak

Still feel that Andy Edwards added dynamics that I hadn't really heard in IQ before. The Province of The King is the best example. The last section is not dissimilar to that on Harvest Of Souls (both are very similar to the Apocalypse section on Suppers Ready) . Worth comparing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I happen to think that Chris Maitland fit better with the Porcupine Tree sound of the day. In many ways, I prefer the drumming you get from Coma Divine over anything they've done with Gavin behind the kit. Sure he's more technically proficient, but that's thankfully not all there is to playing music.

Listen to this for instance:

Oh and gotta say that I completely echo your sentiments regarding Andy Edwards in IQ. He's infused so much more energy and snarl into the sound of the band.

 

Mike is not a great drummer. He is a clown, disguised as a drummer, which makes people think he is better than he really is! 

 

With that said, the amount of music that he did with DT is commendable and acceptable and very good, and as such ... he deserves some of the credit for the quality of the work. But Mike doesn't know how to do soft stuff that does not require a "beat" ... and this makes his other stuff, mechanical, and condusive to calling his a "drummer".  A "metronome" is more like it! He woldn't be able to do "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and other stuff that does not involve a snare drum ... which I would brak over his head ... to see if he can play drums without it!

 

Most "prog", in my book, is not good enough, and well composed enough, to be considered ... "good" anything ... for the most part it is just kids learning music and hoping to make it somewhere in the sphere of the dreamland! As such, they will rarely be able to move past their lessons to create something new, something different, and something that many people will remember for years to come!

 

As I said before, it starts with "YOU" and has nothing to do with fans, or history ... and Mike, of all folks should know that ... but he is stuck in time, and his ability is now showing on the lazy side, when he should be showing folks, things ... that no one else can do!

 

 

Your Portnoy bashing is getting really tiresome. he is , of course, a great drummer.

HOOORRZZAAAAA!!!!

Yet there is a truth to what I think Pedro means, and that is that these modern day drummers, who all are outstanding technical and can play insanely complex rhythm patterns, at times feel strangely metronomic and predictable. Personally, and speaking from a drummers point of view, then I think it's down to feel - and courage to push oneself out there where mistakes and missing beats suddenly can take on new form and give to the music something that is totally different, than what you would've gotten had you had a guy like Portnoy play. I think it has to do with just how much these guys have been playing and rehearsing, that it comes to a point where you get so good that it almost becomes a tournament in how never to make mistakes again - and it just so happens that I think some of the absolute finest parts of music stem from "mistakes" or bended "truths" - bended in that it gets transformed and moulted into something that truly transcends the word mistake.

Maybe I'm just rambling, and I definitely don't agree with Pedro in regards to Portnoy, but I guess I feel much the same about drumming, and music in general. 

I think my sig best explains how I feel about music actually. 

Yeah, I agree with a lot of Pedro's observations but I wouldn't go so far as to call Portnoy a clown disguised as a drummer.   For his exceptional skills, he is a great drummer imo, but I can safely say he is my second least favourite member of DT, after LaBrie.  Especially on Images and Words, I find his work loud and intrusive.   If you listen to DT's cover of Hallowed Be Thy Name, it's interesting to note how much of Burr's nuance he misses, especially in the middle, around the guitar solo, where he fails to soften his attack.  He just keeps playing at the same intensity which makes the cover sound monotonous, but it is not a monotonous track, rather, pretty dramatic, if anything. Actually, if DT didn't have Petrucci, I wouldn't listen to their music but that's a different issue.

On the other hand, I think there are amazing modern drummers but the drummer fraternity only seems to be obsessed with these 'monsters' like Portnoy.  Never the ones who can play with a lot of feeling and adapt to the requirements of different types of music.  I'd much rather listen to Matt Chamberlain than Portnoy.  But some of his best work is as more of a sessions musician than a full time band member (like Fiona Apple's When the Pawn...album), so, like Steve Gadd and Jeff Porcaro, people forget to mention his name when the topic of drummers comes up.   In a way, it's similar to the vocal scene...only the 'range Gods' like the annoying pop divas and the metal angels get a lot of hype.  Not people like Apple or Layne Staley who could make you feel the words.  

  

Somewhat relevant. If you remove "prog" from the thread topic. 

...And "good."

I disagree with the name of the video, but ye bump-thock beat gets me every time.  

A lot of the best musicians in the industry are session musicians, and it's pretty easy to understand why.

rogerthat wrote: In a way, it's similar to the vocal scene...only the 'range Gods' like the annoying pop divas and the metal angels get a lot of hype.  Not people like Apple or Layne Staley who could make you feel the words.

Actually, you could apply this to almost any instrument.  It ties in nicely to the "importance of virtuosity" debate.  When virtuosity is defined solely as technical prowess, which is an oversimplification, it is the technical masters--the Gavin Harrisons, Joe Satrianis, and so on--who are the most-lauded.  But that oversimplified definition of virtuosity neglects the importance of emotionality, sensitivity, and subtlety.  Think of Classical virtuosi: it's not just their technique that earns them the title.

I understand what you are saying if no one else does. I can remember Carl Palmer being very dismiissive of Dream Theater as just having good chops but little else ( and yes I do realise that many here will find that a very ironic comment coming from Carl). Portnoy is easily the most mechanical drummer around but then there are a great many to be honest. 

One of the things that constantly surprises me is how much I like Fred Schendels drumming in Glass Hammer. He used to play a silly little electronic kit that was not even a proper drum kit. He never did this live but only in the studio but his sense of timing and feel overcomes everything. Its really strange how how much better drummers like Matt Mendians came into the band later but could never replicate the same feel. Fred was in a sense another Nick Mason.

Saying this I can't think of any drummers I've disliked over the years!

Some of my fave drumming is in that little piece. And personally I don't think anybody in modern drumming can do what Moerlen does here,- yet he purposely makes "mistakes". Maybe there's too much 'ego' around these days to let oneself take such chances? I don't know really, but I miss more of this stuff to be honest.