Bad Brains - Bad Brains

To say that Bad Brains were one of the fastest punk bands for their time would be stupid, they are probably the fastest punk band period. Punk music was never really about being a good musician, it was more about the power and the attitude, but Bad Brains took things a little further.

With a background rooted in Jazz and Reggae* they took all of the skills they had acquired to be able to play intricate, technical parts as fast as they fucking could. Every drummer worth a damn today has given some respect to Earl Hudson of Bad Brains, the machine behind it all. Dave Grohl, Questlove, Josh Freese, Chad Smith, Jimmy Chamberlain, hell I bet even Phil Collins listens to Bad Brains.

When you hear songs like Pay to Cum or Don't Need It for the first time, it can be hard to discern what the hell is going on, but if you listen to Earl's drumming, you'll notice that he is on top of everything. Every chord change, every melody, every scream has Earl behind it with a snare roll or a cymbal shot or a high hat smash or something. The end of Don't Need It is an insane tom/snare pattern, and it's probably the most raw, powerful drums I've ever heard.

I seem to remember a road trip from some time back where we only had two cassettes in the car and I'm pretty sure one was Springsteen and the other was Bad Brains live at CBGB's. I would say that for every time we heard Born to Run we heard the entire Bad Brains show three times.

Sorry Boss, but Weinberg ain't got shit on Earl Hudson.

* I am aware that part of this album is made up of Reggae music, but here's the thing. I don't like Reggae music. I also don't know how to write about it without sounding like a dick. I understand it's importance and it's impact, but I haven't been able to get over the fact that it spawned all this rich suburban white boy funk bullshit. I understand that Bad Brains had a whole lot of influence in that realm as well, but until someone apologizes for 311 I probably won't give it another chance.

Post #100 - BDK Anniversary

Tomorrow will mark an entire year since my first post upon the creation of this blog. This is also my 100th post (including a few news/update posts) which makes it really easy for me to do the math and say I average a post roughly every 3.65 days or so. I'm happy with that. I never really had much intentions for this other than to practice writing in a forum that was comfortable and familiar, and sort of give a little justification and reasoning behind why I love certain records. You see, I have a tendency to lose interest in things. Lack of self discipline along with laziness and a short attention span don't really pave the way for a lasting relationship with writing an online blog. But I didn't think anyone would actually read it either. Sometimes I get to the point where I haven't really heard anything that I found interesting enough to write about, or I'm getting tired of trying to explain the same things in as many different ways as possible. I get frustrated. I get tired. And I'll leave it for a week or so and go onto other things. Then I'll get a little e-mail or Facebook message from someone (sometimes I know them, sometimes I don't), or someone will come up to me at a show and say "hey man, I like your reviews. good stuff."

That's all it takes. My neurons kick into gear and music sounds the way it's supposed to and I can hear the little things I like to hear again. Soon enough there is a few more posts walking out the front door and onto the front page, on their way towards the archive like a cowboy in a sunset.

My point is that it's you guys that decide how much time I put into this, and so far, you've all kept me above water. Good job. In one year I've managed to write pages and pages of reviews, some good, some bad. I interviewed someone I genuinely respect and listen to often. I guest-wrote for another local blog. I had a pretty good year. I did a few things that were out of my comfort zone, and it didn't go so bad.

Now, you might be wondering how much traffic I actually get. According to my counter I have 2645 hits. That counts actual hits to the main page and, I think, people who read it in an RSS feeds (I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet). Now, that's not a whole lot. but what I do know is that it took roughly 8 months to get 1000 hits, which means the next 1645 came in the last four months. That's progress.

The truth is, I have no legitimate way to gauge how many people actually read this. Facebook hits don't get counted, and I know I get some readership there but whenever I see a hit from anywhere overseas I just imagine it's one of those bots that combs through thousands of websites a day searching for e-mails to send spam to. So I need your help.

For this next year, I would like to get a greater understanding of my readership, however little it may be. Is it only drummers who find this interesting? Do you want more interviews or should I stick to albums? Should I pack it up and call it a day?

Any interest at all is motivating to me which will in turn breed content, so without trying to self promote too much, but also not really giving a shit, I have created a Bloody Drum Knuckles Facebook Page for those interested enough to join. This will be used more for having an easy way to interact with everyone, and not so much for sending out mass messages and status updates. I'll probably update it every time there is a new post, or anytime something newsworthy pertaining to the subject matter comes up. I'll try not be too bothersome.

Join up and tell me, what would you like to see over the next year?

Come, sit with me,

let's talk.

MGMT - Congratulations

It seems every summer of my adult years has an album that sort of encapsulates the whole season. It makes its way into every party and onto every iPod playlist with infectious songs that cause everyone to go "Who is this? Why don't I know about this?". In 2007, that album for me was MGMT's Oracular Spectacular (and if you want to keep track St Elsewhere was Summer 2006, 2008 was Daft Punk's Alive 2007, and this past summer was Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix which I wrote about previously, here). I could get specific about Oracular Spectacular, but let's just say it's an album that makes you feel nice.

2010's early onset of warm weather has also brought the new album of the season, and it seems that MGMT have regained their summer throne (which I assume looks a lot like a lifeguard high chair). I like it when bands realize that the best follow-up albums sound nothing like the first. This record definitely has more of a live feel than Oracular, and a big part of that is the drums. I will argue this until my death, but raw sounding drums that are well played will always make a record sound better than cool parts loaded with tons of effects. they worked for The Flaming Lips, they made In Utero sound awesome and they helped Wilco gain respect. Raw drums played well. Remember that.

When MGMT recorded their first album, it was basically the brainchild of two people, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden (which, to me, sound like fake names I would give interrogators if I was drunk and British). For Congratulations, they brought their live band into the studio with them, drummer Will Berman shared percussion duties with VanWyngarden, which seems to have been a fantastic idea. What I hear in Congratulations, is a band who already knew their way around a studio re-discovering themselves as a live band and instead of going the route of the big budget big sound sophomore album, they stripped the songs down to their core, brought in some friends, set up in a room, snapped on the microphones and just played.

The drumming on the first album sounded like it was from the future and the drumming on this album sounds like it wasn't influenced by any record that came out after 1981. It goes from hypnotic kraut-rock beats like the last few minutes of Siberian Breaks, to garage-y psych drums on Brian Eno (which has huge snare and tom rolls scattered throughout) to sort of a southern rock sway and swagger on Congratulations. Songs that are fast enough to dance too are slow enough to walk to, which makes it perfect for walking around outside or going apeshit on someone else's coffee table. That's a fine line.

I can't wait to listen to this, sit outside, drink beer and barbecue.

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

I always found Matt Tong's playing on Silent Alarm far surpassed his actual ability at the time, and it used to piss me off. One of the first things I did after hearing this was look up videos of them playing live, hoping to see him blasting through these songs with precision and endurance. Unfortunately some of the songs on youtube were slower than on the record, and Matt seemed uncomfortable, always trying to catch up to himself. It was very hit and miss. For example, this is their first television appearance.

Matt is really tight, everything is crisp and played almost exactly as the record. He feels a little rushed at times, but the song is crazy fast, so thats understandable.

Now, this is later on, on David Letterman.

In essence, this is a much easier song to play, but it's slower than on the album and his time is all over the place. Sometimes he rushes the hits, sometimes he lags on them. I can tell by his look that he's uncomfortable, and it comes through in his playing.

Now, this used to piss me off because I used to think it was unfair to your audience, you were misrepresenting your ability. It's easy to lay down incredible drumming when you can do take after take or take a break when you get tired, it's another thing to play those songs for two hours straight and maintain your ability.

Now I have a different point of view, mostly because I myself have put things on albums I could not play live. Matt was setting a bar for himself, giving himself a challenge and a goal within his band and within his own playing. I respect that. Sometimes it's not about the crowd, it's about your own feelings towards your playing. If you don't have any way to measure your progress it starts to feel as if your at a stalemate.

Future Bloc Party releases didn't impress me nearly as much with regard to their drumming, but I think it has more to do with the direction of the songwriting than Matt himself. By the time Bloc Party came to Halifax and I got to see them, Matt played everything almost picture perfect. A few time issues, a few dropped hits, but nothing that made me think that the show wasn't worth the forty dollars I spent on it.

The drumming on this album is fast, probably faster than 90% of other rock records, and it set a bar for everyone in terms of how fast you can play pop songs and still keep them precise and coherent. I'm sure that the transition of these songs from studio to stage took a larger toll on Matt, endurance is something that takes a long time to build up, and he's a tiny dude.

This is a great album to play along to. I like seeing how far I can get before my vision starts to blur.