This Post:

• Is about music
• Is about drummers, in particular
• Acknowledges jazz and other genres I like, but is really only about one genre
• Links to a page full of YouTube videos

I've been reading about drummers lately.

It started about a week ago, when I started on Keith Richards's memoirs, Life. Every page that mentions Charlie Watts glows. Richards calls him "the bed I lie on" and makes it clear that the drums drive the Rolling Stones. Charlie Watts came out of the jazz world, and Life spends a few pages explaining how he hesitates before hitting the high-hats, then crediting the subsequent swing for laying the essential groundwork for the band's overall sound. Later in the book, Richards praises Steve Jordan, who played in the David Letterman band and then with Richards in Hail Hail Rock and Roll and the X-Pensive Winos.

I took a break from reading Life to read a short essay on another British Keith in the New Yorker. James Wood's insights into Keith Moon double as insights into the rock and roll attitude. He goes into mild technical detail discussing how every space around Moon's place on stage was occupied by a drum. He says the drums are the most direct instrument, because you simply hit them--there are no keys, no frets, just pedals and sticks and skins. Wood calls Moon's drumming enjambment, because he just has to fill every musical space with drums. He fits it all in, often at the same time.

Wood also goes beyond the Who. In crediting Moon for driving the Who's sound, he points out that had Moon been stolen away for Led Zeppelin in the late 60s, the band would have sounded completely different. In fact, the Who sounded different after Moon died. The energy wasn't as apparent. Wood breaks down drumming to a formula. Drummers perform fills at the end of musical phrases. Moon's enjambment means he ignores those phrases, which many drummers are reluctant to do. Wood compares the fills on  the Beatles' original "Carry That Weight" and Phil Collins's cover to illustrate his point about drummers defining the sound. Ringo Star, he says, is more modest than Collins, and it shows in the fills. Starr hits an eight-note pattern and Collins tours the set, hitting toms, the snare and everything in between (literally).

But I think Ringo is a good drummer. He is modest, but he's also tasteful. I've never heard a Beatles record and thought "that's some outrageous drumming!" I suppose that's too bad for Starr, since other instruments stand out, but if you follow the premise that the drums define the group, then Starr's restraint makes sense. Think about what drummers have brought to various groups. Where would the Ramones be without that persistent snare/bass combo, which feels slightly slower than the guitars? What about how Rush sounds big and overblown because the drums are big and overblown? John Bonham's drums were big, technically accurate and not at all modest, just like Zeppelin. The uptight drums on the early (read: good) REM records are among the best in new wave. And then there are the jazz drummers who were stars unto themselves, and whom jazzheads can pick out of any combo after hearing a few measures. That's definition.

I could spend another few paragraphs praising drummers that are either dead or unemployed (kudos to Charlie Watts for being the oldest, most steadfast and most alive drummer mentioned), but it doesn't mean much anymore. As Wood points out in his profile, you can find hundreds of videos on YouTube of people playing with the energy and proficiency of anyone I've named. You can also find faster runners now than you could decades ago. Does that mean people now are better than people before? No. And that's my point. Music is more than technical proficiency. There are thousands of insanely talented players out there. There are unsigned musicians who are better than even the most critically-acclaimed stars. There probably always have been (though there are probably more now because of technology, lower instrument costs, social acceptance of rock, access, blah blah blah). You could say it's songwriting that drives great rock acts, but some truly wonderful and genius songs aren't really that great (Maxwell's Silver Hammer). There are also some great songs that are not well-produced (Guided By Voices). I'm not trying to dissect what makes a great rock song or a great rock act. Like with all music, it's relative to the listener and it's undefinable. 

Now, this is all a bit scattered and bizarre. First there's this talk about drummers defining bands, then all this rambling nonsense about the intangible qualities of great rock music. That may be true. But go listen to these isolated tracks for Gimme Shelter and tell me I'm wrong.