October 8th – Oftentimes what you do for a living
or what you do as your main hobby can have aspects to it that leave you
completely cold; take theatre for instance.
There’s something inherently thrilling in, as Mickey Rooney
once shouted, puttin’ on a show. What
it is, I think, is the opportunity to work with committed trustworthy
individuals who have the exact same goal in mind as you, who want to get the
best out of the event for all concerned all the while knowing full-well their
involvement will go unrecorded but are willing to do in spite of this… Then, in
a lot of cases, the actors or the designers (LX, sound, set) or director walk
into the space and the Thatcher ideology about there is no such thing as community takes hold and the whole
supportive philosophy goes to the fan.
Is that too cruel? Would like to think not. Would think,
IMHO, it’s a fair assessment of how theatre-show production often works. Yes,
there are exceptions, of course, many of them, but they go largely unnoticed
because just being willing to get involved no matter what the pay-off is seen
as the norm for most stage crew. Yes, of course there’s arses in the stage crew
end of the business, met a fair number of them over the years and am here to
testify that the word, tosser was
invented for those stage crew members I’ve worked with who think that arriving
at 10.40 for a 10.00 call still pissed from last night and with vomit down your
shirt front and breath that smells like Satan’s fart is the height of social
and sartorial elegance (that’s a real incident BTW). So I know the cloth can
rough-up both ways, but those incidents are few and far between, for me at
least and yet, time and again, do you know there’s still talent in this business
who really believe that all the work done prior to them walking on stage for
their opening scene or number is all done just for them. Honest.
I liken it with bird watching (ornithology rather than
endless re-runs of Debbie Does Dallas
you understand). My kind of bird watching is bathing in the spectacle of the
surroundings, a sort of great outdoors with bird’s present kind of thing; not
saying it’s the only way, just mine. Then there’s a level of bird watching that
transcends the sensible and allows the species overtakes the event. What
happens then is like a metamorphosis of the human being into and insufferable
arse (like the drunk tech of earlier) where the chase and eventual recognition
by sight of the bird in question is reduced down to a tick in book of rarities
and how the focus teeters on the edge of not being about the bird but about how
you got to see it.
Well, that’s how I feel about drum solos.
Most of you know I did a bit with drums in my ill-spent
youth. Was never any great shakes at it but could lay down a foundation beat
that the other band guys could get off on; that was what I saw as my job; that
was what I was supposed to do. I’ve managed to see many a useful stick-meister
in my time and experiencing them in full flow with the band they were playing
in. Being part of that whole has given me some of my greatest band highs ever…I
mean drug-free cloud moments, y’know? I can go back to seeing John Bonham, John
Wilson…(are all drummers named John
you will be asking) Mitch Mitchell, Ainsley Dunbar and on to Jon Hiseman, Bill
Bruford, Simon Philips, Neil Peart…many, many more, and for most of the gig
they all were what a drummer should be first and foremost; the backbone of the
band and a one-man rhythm section…well, nearly all; Simon Philips was on the
verge of becoming a band in his own entity, so-much-so that he sort of edged
you away from the band as a whole to concentrate on just him and, for me, that
was outside his brief…but, hell of a stixman for all that, that’s for sure.
So there we have them driving the gig on…and then, at some
time in this gig, the drum solo would rear its ugly head and I would switch
off. Just didn’t enjoy the sound of drums being whacked as a solo instrument,
different, clever rhythm patterns or not. And as with yesterday’s post, now the
drum solo is no longer quite enough. That’s why nowadays and so often there has
to be gimmick to go with it; turning the drummer upside down as he/she plays
(WTF is that all about?) or having some drums in the kit that when hit sound
like an orchestral chord, that sort of thing. I know, I know, I’m a miserable
old bugger who should be stocked-up for a weekend in the town square, I
know…but I’m also right. You see, on this day in 1966, Cream’s drummer, Ginger Baker did his 20-minute drum solo (FM! 20
minutes…that’s like a freakin’ lifetime…of purgatory) in the band’s instrumental
track Toad at Sussex Uni and promptly
collapsed at its completion… See, I’m right, no good comes of it. My guess is
watching Mr. Baker fold over backwards off’f the drum riser was probably the
highlight of the whole drum solo thing. Is that too cruel? Would like to think
not. Would think, IMHO, it’s a fair assessment of how a drum solo should end.
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