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Post by Kensterberg on Dec 9, 2006 16:16:12 GMT -5
Well, lots of people like to call Ringo a mediocre drummer (I disagree, but others have certainly said it) and lots of Beatles songs certainly qualify as great. Similarly, nobody could accuse Buddy Holly and the Crickets of being virtuosos, but Peggy Sue and That'll be the Day certainly both qualify.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Dec 9, 2006 16:21:45 GMT -5
Ok, dudes. download.yousendit.com/3C3EB6C52542F8F4 See if this works Yours truly rocking out the skins. The band was called Bella at that point but now we are Skiesfalling because we lost two members. Justin Sweatt (me)-Drums Blake Hunter-Guitar Alan Schaeffer-Guitar (now in The Black, who are amazing) Jason Daniels-Bass (now in Moonlight Towers, who are good as well) |
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Dec 9, 2006 16:24:22 GMT -5
You can be a very mediocre playing in terms of technical ability, Phil.
Mo Tucker of Velvet Underground isn't that good of player but it's cool the way she sounds.
I feel that way about Meg White, The Cure, hell several songwriters like Kris Kristopherson are not guitar gods, but man can they write a song.
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Post by phil on Dec 9, 2006 16:24:49 GMT -5
Ringo was anything but a mediocre drummer ... !
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Post by Kensterberg on Dec 9, 2006 16:26:29 GMT -5
I've got a splitting headache right now, but I'll d/l your drumming later, Skvor.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Dec 9, 2006 16:27:26 GMT -5
Ringo Starr got the job done just fine as far as I'm concerned. Very Underrated. The drums to "Tomorrow Never Knows" are awesome just as an example.
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Post by rockysigman on Dec 9, 2006 16:35:39 GMT -5
But yeah, like Ken I subscribe to the "play what the song needs" school of drumming. Bonham was a good drummer though. I like guys who hit the skins hard. But I'd rather have someone who doesn't play enough than one who plays too much. I agree with the "play what the song needs" philosophy in principle, but I think that too many times it's used to defend mediocre players. Like, you know, Meg White... I would never call Meg White a good drummer, but I also think that no other drummer would work for that band. She has a specific role to fill, and she is the perfect one to do it. The tuba on Lou Reed's "Transmission" album is pretty fucking amazing as far as I'm concerned.  ?? |
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Post by rockysigman on Dec 9, 2006 16:37:15 GMT -5
Ringo Starr got the job done just fine as far as I'm concerned. Very Underrated. The drums to "Tomorrow Never Knows" are awesome just as an example. Indeed. Ringo didn't go all fancy too often, but he was perfectly capable of it when the song called for it. The biggest strike that Ringo has against him is that he shared the stage with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Motherfucking Lennon. Anyone who has to be the fourth guy in that band is automatically going to look like a weaker musician in comparison. And no, they probably should have never let him sing. But his drumming was tight. |
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Post by Galactus on Dec 9, 2006 16:38:26 GMT -5
Speaking of The Band, Levon Helm is just an incredible underrated drummer.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Dec 9, 2006 16:41:06 GMT -5
There is tuba all over that Lou Reed record. "Goodnight Ladies".
The deal with Ringo is actually like his voice and if you listen to the early Beatles stuff him, he is just as much a bad ass as Moon. In fact, at that time in Liverpool when they had Best, Ringo was THE drummer of that scene. True story.
However, Lennon to me, much as I love him, is no where the musician that McCartney or Harrison were.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Dec 9, 2006 16:42:15 GMT -5
Levon Helm was a WEIRD drummer. The fact that he could do all of that weird shit and sing is just unbelievable. I also think Don Henly is quite an underrated drummer. Some of the Eagles stuff has some great grooves. Also, no matter how you feel about his solo stuff, Phil Collins is an unhumanly awesome drummer.
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Post by phil on Dec 9, 2006 16:57:29 GMT -5
Kenny Arnoff -- "I consider him one of the greatest innovators of rock drumming and believe that he has been one of the greatest influences on rock drumming today... Ringo has influenced drummers more than they will ever realize or admit. Ringo laid down the fundamental rock beat that drummers are playing today and they probably don't even realize it. (Modern Drummer,Oct. 1987) . . Ringo always approached the song more like a songwriter than a drummer. He always served the music." (Modern Drummer, Dec. 1987)
Martin Torgoff -- "If I could think of a single passage in which Ringo's quintessential style as a drummer is most identifiable, it could well be something as, say, the drumming behind George's guitar solo in Paul's "Let It Be" after the organ trails off. There, in simple 4-4 time, Ringo comes in with a trademark thump of his base drum, clear tattering snare, and his insistent smashing of the high hat, unvarying, unyielding, yet distinctively Ringo, and you can't help but smile not for its banality but because it is so perfectly adequate and because one can readily envision Ringo behind his kit as he plays, his beringed fingers clutching his sticks, swaying beatifically from side to side as he gets on with his work, blinking those astonishingly saturnine blue eyes." (The Compleat Beatles, 1985)
Max Weinberg -- "D. J. Fontana had introduced me to the power of the big beat. Ringo convinced me just how powerful that rhythm could be. Ringo's beat was heard around the world and he drew the spotlight toward rock and roll drummer. From ;his matched grip style to his pioneering use of staggered tom tom fills, his influence in rock drumming was as important and wide spread as Gene Krupa's had been in jazz." (The Big Beat, 1984)
Phil Collins, drummer for Genesis -- "I think he's vastly underrated. The drum fills on A Day In The Life are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, 'I want it like that.' They wouldn't know what to do." (interview for The Making of Sgt. Pepper, 1992)
D. J. Fontana -- "I was playing maracas or something behind him, just listening to him. I swear he never varied the tempo. He played that back beat and never got off it. Man, you couldn't have moved him with a crane. It was amazing. He played a hell of a back beat, Man, and that's where it's at." (interview for The Big Beat by Max Weinberg)
Don Was -- "As a drummer, he influenced three generations of rock drummers. It's not very flashy playing, but it's very musical. Instead of just counting the bars, he's playing the song, and he puts fills in unusual places that are directed by the vocal." (The St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1992)
Mike Finkelstein -- "If you have ever been in a band where you had to recreate Beatle songs, you would have realized that Ringo Starr was no slouch. Those drum parts were very tricky and subtle. He did have a special ability to create interesting rhythmic structures within the music. This gave the Beatles a unique sound without loosing that distinctive drive in rock and roll. ... Ringo moved smoothly from verse to chorus without loosing the groove by subtly changing a texture in the rhythm. Ringo is an important drummer to study well." (Teach Yourself Rock Drumming, 1979)
George Martin -- "Ringo always got and still gets a unique sound out of his drums, as sound as distinctive as his voice. ... Ringo gets a looser deeper sound out of his drums that is unique. ...This detailed attention to the tone of his drums is one of the reasons for Ringo's brilliance. Another is that although Ringo does not keep time with a metronome accuracy, he has unrivaled feel for a song. If his timing fluctuates, it invariably does so in the right place at the right time, keep the right atmosphere going on the track and give it a rock solid foundation. This held true for every single Beatles number Richie played ... Ringo also was a great tom tom player." ( Summer of Love, 1994)
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Post by phil on Dec 9, 2006 17:00:13 GMT -5
The deal with Ringo is actually like his voice and if you listen to the early Beatles stuff him, he is just as much a bad ass as Moon. In fact, at that time in Liverpool when they had Best, Ringo was THE drummer of that scene. True story.
Rory Storm -- "During the four or five years Ringo was with us, he really played the drums. He drove them. He sweated and swung and sung. Ringo sang about five numbers a night. He even had his own spot. It was called 'Ringo Starrtime.' " (Beatles Companion by Ted Greenwald)
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Post by phil on Dec 9, 2006 17:17:26 GMT -5
"Lennon got into abstract lyrics and his acid rock guitar style, McCartney expanded and refined his pop-writing craft, and Harrison got very involved in authentic Indian music and Indian instruments. Ringo, meanwhile, had the challenge of adapting to everyone's style. He always played what was called for. If he had been a rigid drummer, set in his ways, The Beatles would have been in trouble. He played the songwriter's version of the song, not his, like an egoless drummer. ... He always had a gift for being very musical with The Beatles music." -- Kenny Aronoff in Modern Drummer magazine
"I think Ringo star was a lot more than adequate and he was the unsung hero of The Beatles. He was one of the best. ... He was a straight-four player, a four-four player, and a very solid drummer. It must have been very hard for the Beatles to play with all those kids screaming, there weren't good monitors in those days, and Ringo held those concerts together. They were following him, he wasn't following them." -- Richard Thompson in Speaking Words of Wisdom by Spencer Leigh (1991).
AMEN !
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Post by maarts on Dec 9, 2006 17:23:33 GMT -5
The deal with Ringo is that it's hard to imagine any other drummer or drum technique used in those songs because all those songs are great as it is and are so imprinted in our psyche that you wouldn't have a clue how else they could sound if they were played by another drummer.
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