Vanilla Fudge - Vanilla Fudge

Psychedelic drumming is a completely different concept to master, you have to be able to stretch time within time, songs have to surge like waves with quick rises and falls, and it all has to maintain this ethereal quality about it. Psych drummers have to play in a spastic and energetic way, but at half the tempos of most rock songs. Carmine Appice was the master of this.

Vanilla Fudge stripped down seven popular songs to their very core (among them, Eleanor Rigby and Ticket to Ride by the Beatles, and Keep Me Hanging On by the Supremes), rebuilding them as these massive epic masterpieces with swirling melodies and explosions of vocals. Behind it all Carmine's drums have this massive quality to them, like he is playing 30 inch kick drums and 40 inch cymbals.

Appice gets a lot of praise for his playing on Keeps Me Hanging On, but I have always preferred the last track, Eleanor Rigby. After a small intro, he begins playing these scattered 8 stroke snare rolls (mixed in stereo, swirling around the speakers). His tempo builds ever so slightly until slowly he has worked up to lightning fast rolls. it sets the tone. It just sounds so damn fierce and improvised. It very well could be, there are even a few stick clicks (hey, nobody's perfect) but he never loses focus and as the song picks up at the end he echoes those rolls with the entire kit. He really had an understanding of melody and foreshadowing. Along with everything going on with his drumming, he finds time to twirl his stick at every possible moment he can. It's like his sticks are bolted to the inside of his hand and they just spin on an axis.

Appice went on to play for all sorts of people, from Rod Stewart to Paul Stanley, and he also wrote one of Rod's biggest hits, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?. After Vanilla Fudge folded he quickly became a seasoned professional session musician. He has always maintained a smooth feel with his dynamics, and I like to think this record is where he learned how to do that.

Audio/Visual Evidence: Keep Me Hanging On