After watching a few of this guy’s videos on Youtube, I decided to order his book. I received it last week and immediately began working out of it. I mainly got it to hopefully move past my long-standing problem of playing fills only with my hands and needing to get more of my feet in the game.

If you have the problem of needing a good set of exercises to incorporate your feet into fills in a tasteful way, this book may just do the trick. It’s laid out in a fairly simple format, and I found the exercises easy to follow, and with enough repetition, fairly easy to progress through moving through at least 2-4 progressions in one practice session (and I’m a VERY slow learner).

My ONLY complaint, at least for the parts I have completed so far (the first 10 or so pages), is that the exercises only modulate to a certain point — ending with one hand on the floor tom and the other on the snare. Simply moving these hands around to different drums/cymbals takes the exercises even further (maybe the rest of the book goes into this). Heck, I even got some crazy ostinato patterns going just by moving my hands and feet around the kit on the first few pages of exercises. In other words, I took the patterns even further, beyond what was written, and a whole new world of possibilities opened up. But the patterns themselves are a fantastic starting point and begin rather simply to progress into using all limbs.

In short: a very cool book. I began throwing the kick into fills at a show on Saturday, although very simply, in ways I hadn’t experimented with before, so a little bit of practice with the book has paid off.

Here’s a quick vid of me doing one of the exercises around the kit.

I just got back from teaching lessons for the night, and this is why I love the kids who love Joey Jordison (like myself): It’s an excellent opportunity to explain why the basics are necessary before you get to go crazy. Turns out one of Joey’s solos has this:

RL RF LF starting from snare to tom 1 to about tom 6 or 7.

So it’s a cool grouping in probably 6 or 7. Sped up it sounds like a monkey on meth (or Joey Jordison, same difference).

Guess what we spent half the lesson going over?

RL RFRF (snare over bass).

You should seen the light bulbs light up around the kid’s head after I pointed out this week’s lesson was essentially to be Joey Jordison REALLY slow and on no more than four drums (please).

A great show last night at the Bartley Ranch Hawkins Ampitheater in Reno. Opening band Crooked Fingers were a little loose, especially for a band that claimed to have been around for 17 years. The drummer, however, had a great groove, played most of the time with mallets and had a unique style that probably only drummers would appreciate. His snare was tuned loooow. A 5-incher tuned so low that it didn’t cut very well in my ears.

Neko Case was hilarious, providing a nice contrast to her sad, sad songs. Onstage banter was very funny. Lots of jokes about Reno/Nevada culture (i.e., the pole dancing culture of Vegas). Surprisingly, the band appeared a little loose, lack of set lists may be to blame, but it seemed they were at the beginning of a tour, perhaps. Backing vocals by Kelley Hogan were astounding. She could easily have been fronting.

Case’s drummer was very solid with a great sounding four-piece, white-marble wrapped kit. The kit was booming and present but well mixed. No hole on the res. head (an internal mic?). He played primarily with brushes, mostly with a ballad, swing (or 6/8) feel and grooved exceedingly well with the stand-up bassist, who was also solid as a rock. Excellent left-foot work on the hi-hat pedal augmenting the swing rhythms. (I need to work more on that.) A+ for the drummer.

Overall, it was a great show. Definitely a sit-down-and-relax event–mostly older folks in attendance–but well worth the money and time (~2.5 hours total, in bed by 11 p.m.). It was my first show at Bartley Ranch (also where my wife and I got married) and look forward to seeing more in the future, provided the acts coming are of interest, which mostly they have not been over the years.

I’ll be listening to the New Pornographers today to wake up.

PS Case quote of the night: “I’m such a dick.”

Just saw the police last night outside Sacramento. Stewart Copeland was fantastic–all that could be expected. The band as a whole didn’t appear to psychologically gel, even though they were tight musically. Nevertheless, Stewart played great, his kit sounded amazing. It was true to his sound, yet modern. His snare popped nicely, though lower volume hits didn’t seem to cut through the mix as well. I noticed he was actually playing his blue signature cymbal–it sounded great, especially the bell sound.

I got to see Stewart with Stanley Clark and Animal Logic in ’89. Horrible band, excellent musicians. I was standing about 10 ft. away from the side of the stage in a way-too packed club. My jaw was on the floor while watching, especially when they did a drum and bass solo.

I highly recommend checking out The Police on this tour if you haven’t already. Don’t expect the same edge of their younger years, but you are guaranteed great, updated versions of classic songs with, of course, superb drumming and a couple doses of tasty percussion (the video image of Stewart shot from below and through his gong bass comes to mind).

Pro: Hooch carts in various, strategic locations
Con: Food quality (and price)

Pro: Impromptu drum jams
Con: Impromptu solo drum jams

Pro: Tempus drums
Con: Not enough Tempus drums

Pro: Pearl Power Piccolo Snare
Pro: Black Swamp Snares

Pro: Free earplugs from H.E.A.R.

Pro: Tons of drum celebrities
Con: Not knowing who most of the celebrities were
Pro: Getting to shake Steve Smith’s hand

Pro: WorldMax Drums and products

Pro: Drum vendors willing to talk about their product (Hansenfutz, Dunnett, etc.)
Con: Drum vendor personnel who knew little about their product

Con: Drum vendors who didn’t bother to keep their drums in tune

Con: The Ludwig drum selection

Con: Kits displayed in such a way I couldn’t play them
Pro:  Kits displayed in such a way that others couldn’t play them

Pro: Price points and sound quality of most mid-range kits
Con: Price of pro-line kits that don’t match the sound quality

Pro: Getting PR pitches from various vendors
Con: Not getting a single PR pitch from a drum vendor

Pro: Odd drum products (bucket drums, square drums, metal drumsticks)
Con: Reality of actually buying odd drum products

Con: Sore feet
Pro: Carvin booth (a place to sit)