When I was 15, I saw the band Rush live in Portland Oregon. It was a very good concert, but the thing that really left an impression on me was the big guy in the back playing the drums as if the sticks were natural extensions of his arms. If you don't know his name, then you probably do not follow Rock and Roll very closely, or you have been living on the moon as far as Rock knowledge goes. Neil Peart treated the audience to a 12 minute drum solo that was nothing short of jaw dropping. It was after that experience that I started paying attention to the drums in the music that I listened to. Unfortunately for them, all drummers from then on, in my mind were held up to the Neil Peart standard. Not surprisingly, most fell short. I have since revised my criteria for what constitutes good drumming, and just because they are not Peart does not mean that they are bad. In fact this post is about my three favorite drum/percussion performances on albums. That is to say the albums that in my experience have the most impressive, noteworthy, creative or just Kick-A drum performances.
Keep in mind that this is a highly subjective evaluation of drum performances from a non-drummer, and from my own experience. By no means am I claiming these to be the best performances of all time, but they are my own three favorites. So here we go.
At number three we have the Metal band Kamelot. The album? "Ghost Opera." Drummer Casey Grillo, in my opinion, is a very solid and versatile drummer. For all of you Kam fans out there, you are welcome to contradict me if you wish, but here is my take. I have only heard Epica, Black Halo, and Ghost Opera. The drumming on Epica and Black Halo, while impressive and solid, don't really separate Grillo from the pack. However, the musicality that he displays on Ghost Opera is very impressive (compare and contrast the songs Ghost Opera, and the Human Stain.) Through my limited Metal listening experience, it seems that most of the drummers that I have heard just seem to want to show off how fast and how long they can pummel the double bass. In every song on the album, in 4/4 time. Grillo, however, and admittedly I'm sure the rest of the band has a hand in this, shows off and amazing ability to change up his playing. He tailors his drums very well to the heavily composed Kamelot music and really shows that he his a drummer who deserves to be at the top of the pack. Although I have not yet sat down to listen to it, I look forward to hearing "Poetry For The Poisoned."
Here is a link to one of Kamelots more well known songs:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9hGHnXPEi4
My number two, and this might be surprising to you considering the opening paragraph to this post, is Rush's album "2112." Why Pert ends up at number two I'll explain later. This album was my first and remains my favorite Rush experience. All I have to say about this is Neil Peart at the top of his game. Enough said. Check out the first few minutes of the 20 minute epic 2112 to see what I mean. Here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCj3oBHSA5M
Now. Are you ready for left field? Here comes my favorite drum performance of all time. Drum roll please.....
"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" by The Flaming Lips. If you have not heard it, go listen to it right now. Some of you may be scratching your heads right now. Kamelot, Rush and......The Flaming Lips? What the huh???
Let me justify my choice. On "Yoshimi" Drummer Steven Drozd really shines. It seems that these days most rock drummers seem to forget that they have anything to work with besides a kick, snare and toms. This album is produced and played in such a manner that you almost don't notice that the kick is there on many of the tracks. This in no way detracts from the amazing performance. Drozds work on this album is (at least from my non-drummer perspective) mind blowing. How he can get his mind to wrap itself around those crazy rhythms and change-ups, I'll never know. Some notable songs that really show this off are: "Are you a hypnotist??" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czd3fgnHPoc and, "In the Morning of the Magicians" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTuKHKIT4w&feature=iv&src_vid=NHK9C5cy74c&annotation_id=annotation_268723
Well there you have it. Let me reiterate, before I get 10,000 troll comments. Those are MY favorite based upon MY experience. If you take exception, by all means, expand my horizons. Tell me about some more drum/percussion performances that I should not miss. So what are your top three? Please let me know and tell me why.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Friday, September 16, 2011
Fall In Love With the Album All Over Again
How many of you can recognize this experience? You're sitting on the bus listening to your iPod, you have 50 bajillion songs or so and it's jumping around from hip-hop to classic rock, to country etc.... They say variety is the spice of life, but this age has really pushed the love of variety to it's extreme limits. Sure it's nice to be able to hold every song ever recorded in the palm of your hand, but what have we lost in the process?
Let me put it this way. When was the last time that you sat and listened to a whole album from beginning to end? Me? I do it everyday. I am a huge believer in the album as an art form. I think most rock artists (I'll use rock, because that's the main general genre I listen to) have stubbornly held fast to that same belief. Rock and Roll has for the most part not yet conformed to the release of the "single," as the number one priority. If there is a single than it is one song embedded into a larger artistic work. I have never been the kind of person that could sit down and switch from artist, to artist, album to album, and listen to only my favorite songs. I feel that I am cheating the artist somehow when I do that. I think the "random" button is somewhat of an abomination, an insult to the artist.
Let me draw a comparison. Take da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." To only listen to one particularly excellent song on an album and then move on would be like intense scrutiny of only Mona Lisa's mouth without ever seeing the whole of the painting. Sure, the smile is famous. Astounding even. However, I am certain that da Vinci suffered and labored over every inch of that painting, and it is only in the context of the whole picture that we can truly appreciate her smile. It is the same with the album. Context, in a rock album can be very powerful. How did the previous song end? How did it lead into this song? Why did the artist decide to place them in this order? (Believe me it is not an arbitrary decision). What is the first song on the album? What is the last song? How do the songs in-between tie the two together? What are the first words of the album? What are the last? What is the artist trying to portray with this work? How does the album flow as far as song intensity, tempo and mood go? What kind of emotional response does the album elicit? What kinds of things do you think the artist was going through and thinking about as they wrote this album? What sort of innovative things are done throughout with structure, musicality, and lyrics? What are you thinking about as the album ends? Is there a theme to the album?
I find myself listening to a single album maybe 20 times over the course of a couple weeks and discovering new and wonderful things about it each time. I contend that a good rock album is every bit the work of art that a good painting or sculpture is. They are deep, meaningful, emotional, well thought out, intentional, and beautiful. Now, I am a bit of a rock fanatic, so I don't expect you will listen with the same habits that I do, but I challenge you to sit down, choose one of your favorite artists, put in one of their albums and listen, really listen to the album from beginning to end. Ask those critical questions. Connect with it. Let it take you on the journey that is intended. Don't sell the artist short by listening to a few favorite songs and moving on. I challenge you to fall in love with the album as an art form. You will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of music than you have had before. It may even inspire you to make some of your own.
Let me put it this way. When was the last time that you sat and listened to a whole album from beginning to end? Me? I do it everyday. I am a huge believer in the album as an art form. I think most rock artists (I'll use rock, because that's the main general genre I listen to) have stubbornly held fast to that same belief. Rock and Roll has for the most part not yet conformed to the release of the "single," as the number one priority. If there is a single than it is one song embedded into a larger artistic work. I have never been the kind of person that could sit down and switch from artist, to artist, album to album, and listen to only my favorite songs. I feel that I am cheating the artist somehow when I do that. I think the "random" button is somewhat of an abomination, an insult to the artist.
Let me draw a comparison. Take da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." To only listen to one particularly excellent song on an album and then move on would be like intense scrutiny of only Mona Lisa's mouth without ever seeing the whole of the painting. Sure, the smile is famous. Astounding even. However, I am certain that da Vinci suffered and labored over every inch of that painting, and it is only in the context of the whole picture that we can truly appreciate her smile. It is the same with the album. Context, in a rock album can be very powerful. How did the previous song end? How did it lead into this song? Why did the artist decide to place them in this order? (Believe me it is not an arbitrary decision). What is the first song on the album? What is the last song? How do the songs in-between tie the two together? What are the first words of the album? What are the last? What is the artist trying to portray with this work? How does the album flow as far as song intensity, tempo and mood go? What kind of emotional response does the album elicit? What kinds of things do you think the artist was going through and thinking about as they wrote this album? What sort of innovative things are done throughout with structure, musicality, and lyrics? What are you thinking about as the album ends? Is there a theme to the album?
I find myself listening to a single album maybe 20 times over the course of a couple weeks and discovering new and wonderful things about it each time. I contend that a good rock album is every bit the work of art that a good painting or sculpture is. They are deep, meaningful, emotional, well thought out, intentional, and beautiful. Now, I am a bit of a rock fanatic, so I don't expect you will listen with the same habits that I do, but I challenge you to sit down, choose one of your favorite artists, put in one of their albums and listen, really listen to the album from beginning to end. Ask those critical questions. Connect with it. Let it take you on the journey that is intended. Don't sell the artist short by listening to a few favorite songs and moving on. I challenge you to fall in love with the album as an art form. You will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of music than you have had before. It may even inspire you to make some of your own.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The Problem with Numbers
The problem with numbers is this: I can tell you that 1.3 million people in China were forced to leave their homes for the construction of a dam, or that 99% of the Urban population of Nepal lives in slums, but what would that mean to you? I could tell you that hundreds of families in your local area don’t have enough to feed and clothe their children, but how would your mind react? For most of us, we think, “Wow that’s so horrible! Someone needs to do something about that!” We are horrified for about three minutes, and then the microwave beeps, or our show comes on, or our baby starts crying and we thrust it to the back of our mind to be regarded as just one more unpleasant fact in an unpleasant world. Numbers marginalize the real story.
It is a fact, that behind those numbers are individuals. In China, 1.3 million individuals with histories, passions, goals, dreams, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters; men and women who have felt love, hate, joy, envy, sorrow and a myriad of other things were forced to leave their homes with nothing but what they could carry a lot of the time. Our mind retreats when we try to comprehend the meaning behind such a number. Saying 1.3 million people is far easier than contemplating the cost in individual losses of home, dignity, livelihood, and happiness. It is much easier to confine the thought to 1.3 million people in China. Well, China has over 1 billion people right (another number)? So…1.3 million out of 1 billion is not so bad.
How old are you? Think of everything that you have experienced that makes you who you are today? Think of your fondest memories, your worst. Think of your hardest struggles and your moments of enlightenment. Think of the people whom you love. How does it feel to love someone? All of these things make you who you are. You share the planet with billions of other individuals who share with you with human experience. To you, they are 7 billion other people. Guess what? To them, you are just one of the seven billion other people. It is a concept that has no real meaning to us. It is a very large number. A 7 with 9 zeros after it. It is easy for us to think of the world in this manner. We as a race like to put things in categories and ignore the complexities that lie beneath.
Some would say that the environment of the world is going to pot because of the immense size of our population, and the trajectory of its growth. I say, our biggest environmental problems all stem not from how many of us there are, but how we treat one another.
We are growing ever further apart from our neighbors. The world is becoming less and less personal. How many times have you ridden a plane or a bus full of people, but void of interaction? How many times have you looked around to see a sea of blank faces, all of them afraid to catch one another’s gaze? How many times have you walked down a busy hall where everyone was trying their hardest to not even brush up against another person. Have you ever apologized for brushing against a stranger? Have you ever asked yourself why?
The problem with numbers is that they take the human out of humanity. They strip from individuals their individuality. They give our minds and hearts an easy escape from tackling those most important problems that face the world today. I would wish for a world where we could let ourselves become human again. I would wish for a world where we could let our neighbors become human again.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Gallery
The Gallery
Why bother adorning the walls.
A man imagines his own gallery.
Easier to dream than to do.
The mind conjures the image of a perfect work.
The hand just fumbles.
The hand just fumbles.
Easier to dream than to do.
The mind just fumbles.
The hand conjures the image of a perfect work.
A man adorns his own gallery.
Why bother imagining?
Why bother imagining?
(Yeah I'm entitled to write bad poetry too.)
Monday, January 17, 2011
Place Attachment
“Place attachment.” It is a term used in recreation resource management to try to describe the deep and complex emotions felt by those people who frequent an area not because it has the best fishing, or the best weather (although those things can admittedly be factors), but because they have a personal relationship with the land. Scott Russell Sanders said, “We commonly treat homesickness as an ailment of childhood, like mumps or chicken pox, and we treat nostalgia as an affliction of age.” However, like Sanders we find ourselves with deep emotional attachments with the landscapes of our childhoods. These places to us are the places, “…by which we measure every other place.” (Sanders).
My measuring stick is a little property in Canby, Oregon. Well, that is to say, the address is a Canby address though I always had the impression growing up that we were decidedly outside of the influence of the city. It is a place that can be arrived at only after braving a quarter mile long gravel rollercoaster of a driveway that wound its way past pastureland, and lowland boggy forest. The final ascent to the property was an improbably steep hill that was often difficult to navigate in the winter months and required a decent amount of speed to climb successfully. On the left was a flower garden, sometimes impeccably kept, sometimes overrun with blackberries, but in my minds eye, always beautiful, that terminated in a wall of young pine trees at the high end of the hill. On the right and running the length of the lower side of the hill was the beginning of a pine forest; tangled with ivy, overrun with blackberry bushes, invaded by stinging nettle and absolutely perfect. The garden was planted by my mother and maintained by my mother and whichever of her children she could wrangle into helping her. The forest was a gift from God and was maintained by the natural forces that work together in their intricate web of life for the betterment of themselves, for the benefit of themselves. The forest had been there long before me and will be there long after I am gone. However it will forever haunt my memory. It is, as Sanders said “The place by which I measure every other place.”
I felt, not consciously, like a lucky intruder when I broached its boundaries. I remember a still reverence when I wandered the lowlands by the fickle banks of Bear Creek. It is there that I wrote many stanzas of bad poetry, where I struggled with the common ailments of every teenage boy. Issues inconsequential to adults, but life changing to the uncontrolled emotional raging of a dramatic adolescent. I never kissed a girl by those banks. It occurs to me too late in life that it might have been a pleasant thing to do. However, I spent summers catching crawdads in its waters, lighting ground-bloom flowers on the culvert, chasing my runaway dog through the stinging nettle, burrowing through 5 foot tall grass before the owner mowed it with his tractor and living the adventures of Dwarves, Elves, Dragons, Wizards, and Kings. I died a thousand deaths under the canopy of those trees, and I lived a thousand lives. I sat by campfires, slept in a poorly erected tent, slept on a blanket laid on meadow grass, and wandered the forest at night when the wood-scape became not sinister like some strange forests of my experience, but more thrilling.
Those woodlands hold almost no economic value. The timber is not particularly valuable, the lowlands flood a half a dozen times every winter, and the whole forest is full of noxious and invasive weeds. However, I have never entered woodlands to equal them. That is the embodiment of place attachment. When my parents sold the property that bordered it I was devastated. It was a logical move. My parents were getting older and all of us boys had moved out. It was a difficult property to maintain and my mother just did not have the energy to work in the yard for 8 hours every day. I do not blame them, but I will always be heart broken. The forest of my childhood remains the forest of my dreams. I may never get to walk in it again but I will always be loyal to its memory, and as Sanders said, “Loyalty to a place arises…from our need to be at home on the earth.” Now, as an adult, I have a home in Utah, but the forests and lowlands of my Oregon childhood will forever remain my home on earth.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The trouble with habits
Habits are funny things. The bad ones are hard to break, but easy to develop. The good ones are hard to develop but easy to lose. Good ones can turn into bad ones if taken too far. Bad habits can often be the most enjoyable. Good habits can sometimes feel like torture.
If there is anything that I know, it's bad habits. Had them my whole life. Lots of them. I have defeated a few, picked up others, defeated others and picked up more. Good habits? Not so many I'm afraid. Lately I have had to change my thinking somewhat. There are some things that I did, which brought me a lot of enjoyment, that I stopped because they are considered by most to be "bad" habits. I never felt guilty doing them until someone told me that I should. Granted, sometimes habits can behave like addictions, and I admit that I have had my share of those. But if it is done in moderation (I'm not talking controlled substances here so stop worrying) I just don't see how it is all that bad.
I have come to the point where I have cut out from my life almost everything that I used to do for stress relief because it has been labeled by one person or another that I love as a bad habit. I now have a lot of stress, probably more than at any other point in my life, and no way to let it out. I have considered looking up "hobbies" on the internet and going through them like some sort of shopping list hoping to discover something that I might enjoy that won't get in the way of anyone's agenda for me. Alas I like to have peace in my relationships. I like to please those that I love. Many times however, the cost of pleasing those around me comes at the expense of my own enjoyment and quality of life. Perhaps I am being too honest. The trouble with habits is, I don't seem to have any anymore.
If there is anything that I know, it's bad habits. Had them my whole life. Lots of them. I have defeated a few, picked up others, defeated others and picked up more. Good habits? Not so many I'm afraid. Lately I have had to change my thinking somewhat. There are some things that I did, which brought me a lot of enjoyment, that I stopped because they are considered by most to be "bad" habits. I never felt guilty doing them until someone told me that I should. Granted, sometimes habits can behave like addictions, and I admit that I have had my share of those. But if it is done in moderation (I'm not talking controlled substances here so stop worrying) I just don't see how it is all that bad.
I have come to the point where I have cut out from my life almost everything that I used to do for stress relief because it has been labeled by one person or another that I love as a bad habit. I now have a lot of stress, probably more than at any other point in my life, and no way to let it out. I have considered looking up "hobbies" on the internet and going through them like some sort of shopping list hoping to discover something that I might enjoy that won't get in the way of anyone's agenda for me. Alas I like to have peace in my relationships. I like to please those that I love. Many times however, the cost of pleasing those around me comes at the expense of my own enjoyment and quality of life. Perhaps I am being too honest. The trouble with habits is, I don't seem to have any anymore.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
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