my personal drum poll - Progressive Rock Music Forum

You'll be saying you drive next...

^ I think that Christian Vander is with Magma.

A bit of info about the drummers I chose:

Pip Pyle:

Drummer Pip Pyle had been involved with so many Canterbury Scene bands that one interviewer asked the entirely valid question "how is it you never managed to play with Soft Machine?" ("Well, I never got asked I guess" was Pyle's reply). He wasn't there at the beginning, but Pyle was Gong's drummer when they solidified a line-up around 1971. A year of the communal life with his Gong band mates was enough for Pyle, but the drummer would occasionally drop in on the band throughout his career and has always had kind things to say about Gong's leader, Daevid Allen. In 1972 he formed Hatfield and the North with Richard Sinclair and Phil Miller. Critically loved but without any commercial success, the band ground down to a halt in 1975. After the short-lived Shortwave with Hugh Hopper, Miller and Pyle started a new band with Alan Gowen, the beloved National Health. Although the proggy band was slow with the output, National Health had a loyal following until they dissolved in 1982. Pyle and Gowen had also taken a break from the band in 1979 to reunite with Hopper for another short-lived band, Soft Heap, while later Pyle rekindled his musical relationship with Miller for his '80s and beyond band, In Cahoots. The early '90s found Pyle back in Gong for the "Shapeshifter Gong" era and its resulting Shapeshifter album. By the end of the decade the drummer looked to front his own band and ended up with two. The 7 Year Itch album from 1998 was a solo Pyle affair, but 2000's Equipe Out was released under the name Pip Pyle's Equipe Out with Hopper, Elton Dean, Didier Malherbe and Sophia Domancich rounding out the group. His other band, Pip Pyle's Bash! with Patrice Meyer, Alex Maguire, and Fred Baker, premiered with 2004's Belle Illusion on Cuneiform. Equipe Out returned in 2005 with Instants on the Canterbury loving label Hux. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide

Pierre Moerlen

Born October 23rd 1952 in Colmar, Alsace, France.

1963-1967 : piano studies with Maurice Moerlen (Pierre's father).

1967-1971 : full time classical percussion studies with Jean Batigne.

1971-1973 : plays in various bands and works as drummer for french musical theatre production such as " Le Marathon " written by Claude Confortès.

1973 : january 73 to infinity....joins Gong at the time based in France south of Paris near Sens.

1975 : guest of " Les Percussions de Strasbourg " touring the UK, Greece, Israel and France.

1978 : records with Mike Oldfield (albums : Incantations and Downwind see discography page for more infos).

1978-1980 : goes on tours with Gong and Mike Oldfield on drums, vibes & timps.

1981 : tours South America with " Les Percussions de Strasbourg ".

1982-1983 : world tour with Mike Oldfield.

1983-1986 : plays and records with swedish symphonic rock band " Tribute ".

1986-1988 : re-forms PM's Gong with Hansford Rowe on bass, Benoit Moerlen on vibes & percussion plus many guests.

1989-1990 : joins " Alsace-Percussion " , a pool of percussionists&drummers.

1991-1997 : plays drums in Broadway Shows (Evita, J.C.Superstar,Les Misérables,West Side Story)on the road in Europe and in the United States of America.

1997-1998 : joins group " Brand X " with Percy Jones on bass, John Goodsall on guitar and captain Dynamite on keys for japanese tour followed by Europe. See live pictures in the gallery.

1998 : also plays with Classic-Gong in the USA , England, Italy & Germay.

1999-2005 : currently teaching and composing.

Sadly died May 3rd 2005 in the midst of reording new material

Mani Neumeier

Born 1941. He used to play in the Irene Schweizer Trio, a free jazz band. Became the head of Guru Guru. Formed in 1970, Guru Guru was a German prog rock outfit whose largely instrumental work set the group squarely within the boundaries of what is commonly referred to decades later as Krautrock. While guitarist Ax Genrich, Uli Trepte, and keyboardist/drummer (and Cluster collaborator) Mani Neumeier remained the core of the band throughout its ten-year existence, a number of other musicians passed through the band's ranks, including Cluster co-founder Hans-Joachim Roedelius, who played keyboards on 1976's Mani und Seine Freunde, and keyboardist Ingo Bischof, who assumed increasing control of the group until its 1979 dissolution following the release of Hey Du, recorded under the name the Guru Guru Sun Band. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide (This is pretty incomplete, but the best I could find)

Christan Vander

Led by classically-trained drummer Christian Vander, the Paris-based Magma was, in their way, perhaps

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the ultimate progressive-rock group; while other artists achieved greater commercial success and critical acclaim, Magma typified the many ambitions and excesses of the genre which won it as many detractors as fans, even going so far as to invent their own lyrical and musical language in order to bring their unique vision to life. The son of a jazz pianist, Vander initially followed in his father's footsteps, modeling his technique on the work of John Coltrane alum Elvin Jones and starting his career with a number of jazz and R&B outfits. While in Paris in 1969, however, he was struck by a vision of earth's spiritual and ecological future which so disturbed him that he decided to explore his fears by musical means, assembling Magma with the aid of wife and vocalist Stella, singer Klaus Blasquiz, and fusion bassists Francis Moze and Jannick Top.

As outlined on the group's eponymous 1970 double-album debut, Vander's tale -- projected to be told over the course of ten LPs -- pitted earth against a rival planet named Kobaia. Over the course of 1971's 1001 Centigrade and 1973's Mekanïk Destructïw Kommandoh (recorded with a choir), the story -- much of it told in native Kobaian -- unfolded to depict an earth so uninhabitable that its citizens must flee to the nearby planet, where years of conflict culminated in the achievement of cosmic harmony and a reconciliation with the deity Ptäh. Chart success was not forthcoming, and after a few early tours of the U.S. and Britain Magma spent the middle years of the decade almost exclusively in France, where they launched records including 1974's Kohntarkosz and the next year's Live. After the commercial failure of 1976's Udu Wadu and 1977's Edits, Magma essentially disbanded, although the group lived on in various forms, as alumni founded a number of loosely-affiliated splinter groups to carry on Vander's work in subsequent years, including Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Ensemble Nimbus, Happy Family and Ruins. In 1983, Vander himself resurfaced with the acoustic project Offering, but later returned to more grandiose designs with Les Voix de Magma, an attempt to resurrect his early material for a new generation of listeners. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Christian Burchard

The name Embryo conjures up the birth of a new trend in fusion. Originating in the exciting Munich scene from the late sixties, Embryo was actually formed in 1969 by percussionist Christian Burchard who had previously been member of another seminal band Amon Duul II, and who was currently working with pianist Mal Waldron, Reeminiscing about the spirit of the moment, Burchard declared:"(Amon Duul) had this three room apartment and were living with 15 people. They called me up and said:"Come on over! We're doing something new!", you know, I went there, and they said:"We've burnt all our jazz LP's - we have nothing to do with jazz", and they played me what was new (also for my ears at the time): Hendrix, Cream, Hapshash". Alongside other underground musicians (many of them with a similar jazzy background), Burchard had the vision of a band with a very definite aim:"to work collectively, intuitively, and let the music evolve of its own".
The initial core of the band was made up by Burchard (drums, piano, percussion, vocals), Edgar Hoffman (sax, violin, vocals), Ralph Fisher (bass, organ, voice), ex Ten Years After member John Kelly, (gutar, vocals), and several occasional collaborators. During their first period, stretching from 1969 to 1972, while going through constant changes of line-up, Embryo released three albums. The first of them, "Opal", is still considered their masterpiece. Featuring Lothar Meid on bass, "Opal" was released on the legendary Ohr Musik label (flagship of the progressive German rock of the moment), and featured an inventive, freaky sound with an intriguing jazzy twist. The band's follow-up was "Embryo's Rache" (1971), a surprising album which set the unique Embryo sound, "often dynamic and riffing, with ethnic touches and Edgar Hoffmann's expressive sax, hypnotic and complex music". "Embryo's Rache" featured the political "Espagna Si, Franco No", a song that led to the cancellation of their planned 1972 Spanish tour due to pressure from the Fascist dictatorship then ruling Spain. Over the next eight months Embryo recorded three albums, but two of them would not appear until much later, as the band's current label, United Artists chose to release only their more "commercial" disk: "Father, Son and Holy Ghosts", a record that showed a more condensed and accesible style.
A key development in Embryo's history happened when veteran saxophone player Charlie Mariano was introduced to the band. In Burchards own words: "Charlie paid us a visit, stayed with us, and we had a jam. The musical communication between us worked, so that as a logical consequence we played concerts together... Of course it was a big surprise for us, because we thought Charlie Mariano was a size too big for us!". The addition of Mariano led to the release of "We keep On" (1973) for the BASF label, a very fine album that showed Embryo in an unusual quartet format also featuring Burchard, roman Bunka, and Deiter Miekautsch. "We Keep On" was the record that broke Embryo around the world.

Their two following albums, "Surfin'" (1974) and "Bad Heads & Bad Cats" (1975), were fine recordings but a mite too commercial for Christian Burchard. Annoyed at what he saw as their label's manipulating schemes, in 1976 he embarked on an extensive trip to India alongside the rest of the band. During several months, the Embryo crew travelled through the northern regions of this country, getting to know and experimenting with different local musicians. One of them was Bombay singer Shoba Gurtu, who collaborated in the recording of their following project, the controversial "Apo Calypso" (1977).
In 1978 Embryo embarked upon an ambitious touring performance and recording trip to the Middle East via Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. The trip lasted nearly two years and was documented on hundreds of hours of tape. As a result of this journey, the band released "Embryo's Reise" (1979), a document on their experiences in Asia, a pioneering effort in the addition of ethnic elements into rock, and a sample of exciting live and studio recordings. After releasing the weird, world music-inspired "Life!" (1980), the band kept wandering through Asia, the Middle East and Egypt. During 1980-1982, the Embryo tours featuring Indian musicians enjoyed tremendous success. Particularly renowned was the concert the band offered at the Opera Theatre in Beirut alongside the Yoruba Dun Dun ensemble. Amongst the Albums from this period, the double LP "La Blama Sparozzi" (1982) particulrly manages to capture th magical essence of their ethnic crossover.
After endless changes in their line-up, in 1984 Embryo recorded their irst studio album in seven years: "Zack Gluck", an almost instrumental LP in which the old classic Embryo style is fused together with lots of new elements. Now touring Africa, the band became deeply involved with Nigeria's Yoruba Dun Dun Ensemble. As product of their collaboration with the African orchestra, Embryo released two intriguing albums: "Yoruba Dun Dun Orchestra" (1985) and "Africa" (1985). Celebrating twenty years of Embryo, "Turn Peace" (1989) offered additional surprises, proving that Burchard and crew were still willing to try new ideas while still recreating the music they originally set out with a much more spacy ethnic feel. Embryo is still going on strong, constantly surprising with their innovations, proving to be only the Krautrock band to have stuck to their ideals over 25 years whilst always moving on.

Jordi SoleyOctober 1998

BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.