who except for jazz bores really pay attention to drummers
Christ almighty can we collectively outgrow this infantile know-nothingism about musicianship, please
― The Complainte of Ray Tabano, Thursday, 26 March 2015 19:29 (nine years ago) link
lol
― Leonard Pine, Thursday, 26 March 2015 19:43 (nine years ago) link
DNFTT
― Big Iron Shirt Wearer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 26 March 2015 19:45 (nine years ago) link
i mean the dude played on lulu, he's a great drummer in my book
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 March 2015 22:30 (Yesterday) Permalink
― chr1sb3singer, Thursday, 26 March 2015 20:30 (nine years ago) link
Also, as a friend of mine once said, "Lars is a terrible drummer, but he's the best possible drummer for Metallica"
― chr1sb3singer, Thursday, 26 March 2015 20:31 (nine years ago) link
chap otm. I also learned to play drums (and more importantly memorize arrangements and think about how everything interlocked) from Lars.
It's funny that this thread popped up, I've been listening to AJFA all week (as I do at least once or twice a year) and I still love it as much as ever. I wouldn't want it to sound any different either, the tight & mechanized drum sound is perfect for his approach on that record.
For me his true talent lies in his phrasing and the parts he makes up. They're so crucial to the song...there are lots of parts on AJFA where the same riff acts as interlude, verse, and sometimes even chors, and the only differentiator (besides the vocal) is the drum part. His parts are so hooky, and there are so many weird little fills and variations in the middle of the phrases that I don't hear other metal drummers do.
I don't really give a fuck if he can play it live or not (and he does rush hilariously live, but whatever). He came up with genius parts and recorded them perfectly...even if the sections were cut together with a million tape splices, he still played each part as he wanted it to be played (no Pro Tools magic).
I also think I relate to him (then & now) as a drummer whose head is better than his hands. He'd probably be a great electronic musician or beatmaker if he was born thirty years later.
― lil urbane (Jordan), Friday, 27 March 2015 20:54 (nine years ago) link
So sounds like most of us are more or less saying the same thing: he's not a great technical drummer but suits the music.
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Sunday, 29 March 2015 11:53 (nine years ago) link
Anyway, for those who'd like the idea of a Metallica with a better drummer (and guitar players), you have Megadeth "Rust In Peace" etc.
― Siegbran, Sunday, 29 March 2015 12:39 (nine years ago) link
I used to have lengthy debates with this pretentious Megadeth fan in the 90s who seemed to treat music as a competition who constantly referred to the band's musicianship as proof of their superiority. which was kind of missing the point (not just of Metallica, but the reason that Megadeth was good).
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Sunday, 29 March 2015 13:04 (nine years ago) link
I mean I like the little sloppy things Metallica does live like intentionally rushing the beats between chord changes in the chorus of Creeping Death. the only thing I dislike about Metallica live is how over the years they've gotten bored and messed with arrangements in ways that don't help. not at all against adding flourishes, but there's one lead riff Kirk added over the riff prior to the drum breakdown in "One" in the mid-90s that hurts more than it helps and I wish he would retire it...takes me out of the moment.
thankfully James quit doing the "I'm bored so I'm going to fuck around" mentality vocally speaking. Cunning STunts DVD is unwatchable to me because he occasionally adds goofy cartoonish voices (Sad But True), ridiculous exaggerated enunciation (even for him) on "Nothing Else Matters", etc. that one Mexico DVD from 2009, there are moments he yells where he almost sounds like the pre-yodel James.
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Sunday, 29 March 2015 13:10 (nine years ago) link
Remember when Megadeth used to refer to themselves as a "State of the Art Speed Metal Band"?
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, 29 March 2015 16:59 (nine years ago) link
― Siegbran
But with worse songwriting, sadly...
― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Sunday, 29 March 2015 17:03 (nine years ago) link
Never spent much time on Metallica, but greatly enjoying this thread for its nuanced Drummer As Important Member Of Rock Band vs. Drummer As Chops Monster discussion.
― Big Iron Shirt Wearer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 29 March 2015 17:21 (nine years ago) link
This got me thinking, it would be fucking awesome to see another Big 4 tour where they each do a full set of each others songs. Megadeth doing Bring The Noise? Metallica doing Raining Blood? Slayer doing Master Of Puppets? Anthrax doing Symphony Of Destruction? Please take my money!
― Siegbran, Sunday, 29 March 2015 17:29 (nine years ago) link
you can always listen to stone among many other cool bands inspired by metallica. their drummer was cool. metallica famously supposedly stole their cool riff. and then the drummer ended up in amorphis? i think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaw90R2gHoc
― scott seward, Sunday, 29 March 2015 17:42 (nine years ago) link
siegbran, don't give them any ideas! i'd settle for some cool new music that i would actually want to listen to.
― scott seward, Sunday, 29 March 2015 17:43 (nine years ago) link
i feel like i can listen to death people for decades, but thrashers not so much. i'm always happy to hear a new immolation record.
― scott seward, Sunday, 29 March 2015 17:45 (nine years ago) link
Immolation are fucking godhead
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Sunday, 29 March 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link
Metallica w Dave Lombardo would be so gross
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 29 March 2015 20:08 (nine years ago) link
"I seem to remember a recent article about how the technical-facility arms race in metal drumming has led to some drummers using drum machines on stage, but trying to hide it, and the controversy/backlash being analogous to doping/PEDs in sports."
This happens a ton in the studio now with metal production where you get producers doing microscopic edits all over metal drumming by shifting hits around next to a metronome grid. People spend hours upon hours editing that stuff.
― earlnash, Sunday, 29 March 2015 23:04 (nine years ago) link
So I guess Ministry's "Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste" was indeed truly ahead of its time. Because the crazy drum programming on that thing was pretty much unreplicable, even with two drummers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLCZhQX_Fm0
We've come full circle back to industrial.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 29 March 2015 23:28 (nine years ago) link
i heard that Flo Mounier just records himself hitting each piece of his kit once and the producer uses one of those radio shack sampling keyboards to fill in the rest
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 30 March 2015 00:51 (nine years ago) link
Isn't that what they did with Tomas Haake from Meshuggah? The Drumkit From Hell software program was all built out of individual Haake hits.
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 30 March 2015 00:55 (nine years ago) link
there's one lead riff Kirk added in the mid-90s that hurts more than it helps and I wish he would retire it...takes me out of the moment.
― bernard snowy, Monday, 30 March 2015 01:28 (nine years ago) link
This happens a ton in the studio now with metal production where you get producers doing microscopic edits all over metal drumming by shifting hits around next to a metronome grid. People spend hours upon hours editing that stuff.― earlnash, Sunday, March 29, 2015 11:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― earlnash, Sunday, March 29, 2015 11:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― bernard snowy, Monday, 30 March 2015 01:30 (nine years ago) link
don't think there's any genre where moving all beats over to snap to grid isn't now the norm
― The Complainte of Ray Tabano, Monday, 30 March 2015 02:26 (nine years ago) link
having a nightmare now of going to see some tech metal band and having the drummer only be able to do kick+snare, kick+snare and audience starts booing
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 30 March 2015 02:41 (nine years ago) link
― earlnash, Sunday, 29 March 2015 23:04 (Yesterday) Permalink
A relative of mine was in a pro-style metal band, who worked with a "name" producer (I feel like he had done stuff with Korn or someone), they spent three weeks and untold amounts of money working on their album. The entire first week was getting drum sounds and recording each individual drum, uploading it into a computer and assembling the drum beats that way.
The drummer who played on the record was a fill-in guy. After the band got home and started looking for a new drummer they were dismayed to find out that no one could play any of the songs as they had been created in the computer. They spent a few frustrating months of not being able to get a replacement they eventually broke up and I don't think the album ever actually came out.
― chr1sb3singer, Monday, 30 March 2015 15:11 (nine years ago) link
LOL this thread is a great window into the insanity of modern metal.
― Bees and the Law (Tom D.), Monday, 30 March 2015 15:19 (nine years ago) link
thankfully James quit doing the "I'm bored so I'm going to fuck around" mentality vocally speaking
you will die
OHHHHHH
when i sayyy
WATCH ME NOW
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Monday, 30 March 2015 15:59 (nine years ago) link
love dizazter. this is from this year. impiety are from singapore but dizazter is from australia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-X2kNoPFSc
― scott seward, Monday, 30 March 2015 16:03 (nine years ago) link
Is the "No samples, no triggers" Bandcamp disclaimer 2015's answer to the "NO SYNTHS" LP shrink wrap sticker, or what?
― bernard snowy, Monday, 30 March 2015 16:20 (nine years ago) link
Once you start down the adjusting-drum-hits-individually, forever will it dominate your destiny.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 30 March 2015 16:48 (nine years ago) link
Posting this video to this thread because the drummer rules. Thanks to scott seward for posting it somewhere else!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaOLR9N0WVM
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 30 March 2015 20:32 (nine years ago) link
yeah!
― scott seward, Monday, 30 March 2015 20:36 (nine years ago) link
great beat. btw you guys might enjoy this thread:Drum geek sick chops youtube thread
― lil urbane (Jordan), Monday, 30 March 2015 20:40 (nine years ago) link
All Che-a's YouTube videos are from 2010-2011; I wonder what happened to them? I bet they have regular jobs now.
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 30 March 2015 20:40 (nine years ago) link
Read that as "the drummer ended up in animorphs"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3a/Animorphs_32_The_Separation.jpg
― how's life, Monday, 30 March 2015 20:44 (nine years ago) link
http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/09/11/More-Seeds-We-Sow-for-Lindsey-Buckingham-4BCGU0G-x-large.jpg"Tell me about it."
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 30 March 2015 20:45 (nine years ago) link
I've heard that there was one Fleetwood Mac song where Mick decided he had to have his drums recorded with ribbon mics - very expensive, very sensitive, very easily damaged microphones usually used for vocals - and they blew out a bunch of them while recording his drum parts in multiple takes.
― ^^^ NOT METAL (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Thursday, 2 April 2015 21:17 (nine years ago) link
lol most engineers I know are hesitant to let singers at a ribbon mic, you can blow those things out easy and indeed they are massively expensive
― The Complainte of Ray Tabano, Friday, 3 April 2015 22:59 (nine years ago) link
I heard that Tony Cohen set out to record the Birthday party's Junkyard with contact mics attached to the interior of the drumkit which kept on blowing.
― Stevolende, Friday, 3 April 2015 23:42 (nine years ago) link
Reminds me of the story in the making of Never Mind The Bollocks video where they talk about finally getting a real cheap mic for Johnny Rotten so he could kind of throw it around and give the required performance.
― Is It Because I'm Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 3 April 2015 23:47 (nine years ago) link
Also, for a while thought that picture of Lindsey Buckingham was Jojo Mayer for some reason.
― Is It Because I'm Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 3 April 2015 23:50 (nine years ago) link
Hmmm.
http://i.imgur.com/GLTmA28.jpg
― StanM, Friday, 17 April 2015 15:41 (nine years ago) link
― ^^^ NOT METAL (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Thursday, April 2, 2015 4:17 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
there's a great anecdote about mick and lindsay doing "what makes you think you're the one?" off tusk, and they are at the studio by themselves one night and they actually take apart a handheld cassette recorder and put the mic from that inside the snare drum to get that sound (the whole unsaid subtext to the anecdote being "we were insanely coked up")
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 17 April 2015 15:49 (nine years ago) link
but yeah i almost wish there was a special ILM metal thread for "metal records that don't sound like shit" because i would check them out no matter what genre
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 17 April 2015 15:51 (nine years ago) link
also lars 4 ever #! lars fan 4 life! lars ulrich fan club!
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 17 April 2015 15:53 (nine years ago) link
The Ringo of metal imo. Team Lars 4 Life
― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Wednesday, 1 November 2017 00:49 (six years ago) link
re: this, I don't think Kirk gets enough flack for how badly he occasionally blows this live. like, there's mistakes, and there's him occasionally falling two entire measures behind (as I pointed out upthread), hitting the wrong frets, bending out of tune, or on one 1986 bootleg, actually fucking up the harmonized interlude to Master of Puppets because he started on the wrong fret and couldn't fix it, so he was playing dissonant garbage while James played it correctly.
and then there are the shows where he IS a machine and nails everything. but he's so casual live to the point where he sometimes comes across as not gaf, and yet the knock on Kirk = "he's a lame guitarist in that his lead compositions suck, but he can play technically like a mo'fo!".
anywho, I stand by what I said upthread about Lars, but lord, Kirk has degraded over the years and hides a lot of his mistakes in wah (which he's done for years), but I'm fairly sure they had to fix a lot via overdubs on live recordings for him.
― I am a free. I am not man. A number. (Neanderthal), Saturday, 23 May 2020 15:13 (four years ago) link
I have a story about that Delaware show... I posted this on my Facebook some time ago but some here might enjoy it...
Metallica decided that they wanted to play all 50 states on the Damaged Justice Tour so they did a surprise show at the Stone Balloon, a beloved college-town club in Wilmington, Delaware. Seeing Metallica in a small club would have been amazing!
I have no idea how I figured it out in the pre-internet days but I found out about the show in advance and called the local promoters Cellar Door a few weeks in advance of the show. The guy on the phone was stunned that I heard about it and said he would reserve me tickets for the show!
Friend and sometime photographer David Rogers and Jeff Vander Clute of Metal Meltdown fanzine fame took the trip with me. We made a weekend of it - the day before I went to L'AMOUR in Brooklyn for the first time ever and caught DBC (Dead Brain Cells).
We crashed with my grandmother who lived in Jamaica. The next day we went into the city and visited some record labels (my fanzine Curious Goods was a reality at this point and Metal Meltdown was legendary in the underground so i was able to glom off of Jeff's established cred).
I remember meeting Larry Getlen, then a publicist for Roadracer (not Roadrunner yet) who gave me tons of stuff including Obituary's "Slowly We Rot" on vinyl and the first Last Crack cassette (he said of the latter project "that's really weird.")
We also visited Noise Records' NYC office and Sal Treppiedi hooked me up with a Kreator Extreme Aggression tee-shirt (when I wore it to a DC show people were in awe how I got it) as well as a shit ton of music.
Then we drove down to Delaware where a huge throng was there. My name was on the list but not to get in for free, just to get into the sold out show... And I was broke! But the guy from Cellar Door said he would trust me to mail him a check... Yay! We were going on!
But then they checked my ID. I was not 21. Entrance denied. Horrible!
In the forthcoming months I would get letters from other fanzine guys saying to me "Did you see me onstage singing 'Seek & Destroy'" and a little part of me died.
The show was bootlegged and released on vinyl (the cover of which is pictured here).
http://img.discogs.com/pLSy2faHu8-LRw6BYPTrudNkaZ8=/fit-in/600x605/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-626440-1140233939.jpeg.jpg
I never got it. The show is on YouTube if anyone wants to check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WkLm6yLO_Q
Jeff is not on Facebook but I did exchange emails with him a couple years ago when I picked up the entire series of Metal Meltdown on eBay.
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Saturday, 13 June 2020 22:55 (four years ago) link
Oh man. Oh man oh man. I died with you during that story.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 14 June 2020 00:08 (four years ago) link
yeah that would have gutted me.
course I was 9 at the time so
― Dig Dug the police (Neanderthal), Sunday, 14 June 2020 00:12 (four years ago) link