Re: Cymbals and “the lost Modern Drummer interview”

[RuBrick]

Uhh….

Nobody seems to be interested in this topic!

Well…. I have some things to add to this. I suppose I am just one of those longwinded types…

I have seen J play drums a number of times. I never went to any of the Deep Wound gigs or the GobbleHoof gigs. But J was in the jazz band in high school. I remember they played a couple of times in the cafeteria at lunch time. J seemed to go out of his way to look especially strange. Some people would sit there saying "What a freak!" Others thought he was totally cool.

He really did not seem to be into jazz too much but he did the silly ding ding da ding jazz rhythm pretty good. But then he would get to his drum solo. This is J with his head nearly shaved. He sort of held his breath or something and made the veins pop out on his forehead. He had a set of four large roto-toms in front of him. He somehow made it sound like he was doing a one stroke roll on all four drums at the same time. And roto-toms are these whimpy tunable drums so they looked like they were all about to fall all over the place and break. So there he was with he head beet red, with an intense grimace on his face, drum sticks flailing away in a blur… I don’t think words do him justice.

Then he would go back to normal and let someone do a mellow saxophone solo or something….

Everyone I knew was really impressed with J’s drumming anyway.

I also saw J play drums at a Dino Jr. concert in the late 80s. They basically switched instruments and did a hard-core song at the end of the gig. I think it was an "All White Jury" song. Pat sang (yelled really.) Lou switched to guitar and J played drums. This switching of instruments was something that Deep Wound was known for. I don’t think J has done anything like that since Lou got kicked out of Dino Jr. Maybe someone can tell us other wise.

Any way I remember J sitting there with this silly look he would get on his face sometimes. He did not play anything spectacular but he sort of looked strangely fascinated. He just sat there hitting the very edge of the ride cymbal as he played, with a look on his face like he was thinking "THIS IS COOL!" He looks like he gets totally lost in his playing when he plays guitar. But when drumming J looks like he is sitting there drinking a soda or something, thinking about what he is going to do tomorrow.

Or maybe he was just enjoying hitting the cymbal…