Grade School Music and Mr. Killam

In addition to my small but growing record collection there was a musical outlet at school and that was Mr. Killam's music classes.  In elementary school we had 1 period of music class... was it everyday?  Or just a few times a week...?  At any rate we would march ourselves up to the music room and Mr. Killam would teach us how to sing songs and eventually we would sing for the Christmas concert or some such school event.  Band hadn't started yet for us; we would be able to join in 6th Grade.  I was very much into the drums although my kiddie drum set was long gone and a distant memory.  I had rhythm, I had music who could ask for anything more?

At one point Mr. Killam had a song that required hand percussion with many different parts.  I believe I volunteered for the bongos but then he demonstrated what the clave (pronounced klah-vay) was doing and I switched.  I do remember some classmates looking at me like I was crazy, as in "You're crazy to give up the bongo part!  Drums!" but the clave rhythm was much hipper and fun to my ears.  Plus you can't leave an important part like the clave to just anybody!  Who's gonna play it?  Donna Smith?  Rene LaPierre?  Hell no.

Music class was fun, maybe more fun than lunch and recess.  I was into it and Mr. Killam knew I was into it.  I think that's why he consistently selected me to play instruments when required.  I liked singing all the corny songs and I loved the fact that we got up in front of an audience and performed.  When it was over they clapped no matter how good or awful it was. I liked the applause.

So eventually we arrive at 5th grade.  Other highlights from 3rd-5th grade include playing "Crispy Critters" by C.W. McCall for the class on Mrs. Vachon's record player which almost cause a riot (3rd grade); learning how to sing "Silent Night" in German for a Christmas pageant in 4th grade; and getting a part in a class play in 5th grade only to throw my neck out of whack on the playground and missing my chance to act.  It's O.K. though.  I've met many actors in my life and they are all psychotic.

Then one day they brought us all down to the gym to hear the High School Band play.  We thought it was just a free day since it was close to the end of school.  Sitting on the bleachers with my buds I was transfixed by the drums.  Oh I had heard the band before but I realized this semi-private show was a little more important so I was a little more focused.  Ms. Divers was the director, a manly woman, but a good person.  She explained that in the next few weeks we would have a chance to try out instruments so that we could participate in the band program.  I already knew what I wanted to do.  I think the band played a few pieces but the one that caught my ear was "The Mickey Mouse March" and the drums had a chance to do the famous roll off, like the one you hear at the beginning of a 20th Century Fox movie.  I was hooked.  I knew some of the high school kids vaguely from hanging around the Colebrook Country Club pool (please... its not that kind of country club) where I also discovered Cheap Trick.  "Live At Budokan" had been released one summer and it was the soundtrack for the entire summer.  

John Panozzo and Rockin' The Paradise

John Panozzo

So when you're a kid learning to play drums like I did in Northern NH there are not a lot of teachers.  I found myself digesting the snare drum workbook I had in school and turning to records - ANY records that grabbed my ear and had, what I thought at the time, a cool drum lick.  Enter John Panozzo and STYX.  One tune in particular that I remember to this day is from the Paradise Theater album released in 1981.  Not a particularly notable record in my collection although there were some hits "The Best Of Times" (a staple at the local bowling alley) and the Tommy Shaw penned "Too Much Time On My Hands" and "Snowblind" which apparently contained "secret, backward messages" according to Tipper Gore and subsequently banned by the PMRC.

But I digress - the reason I believe it was an important record to my young drumming career was I had only been playing drums for a short time and had a Sears & Roebuck 3-piece kit from Christmas and a $20 splurge on a VERY Frankenstein drum set purchased from one of the older kids in town who was also a drummer.  I heard the song "Rockin' The Paradise" and John Panozzo has a 1 measure  drum fill: 4-16ths on the snare, 4-16ths on the tom and repeat.  Simple, but for a young drummer of 11 years old it was very effective!  I played the song over and over and practiced the lick.  Eventually I transferred it around the drums.  In the long run it taught me speed, dexterity and musicality.  It's the simplest of "fast" drum solos but it was cemented in my small but growing arsenal of drum fills.

John's birthday was September 20.  He passed away in 1996 after a battle with cancer.  Thanks John for being a part of my drumming life in a small but powerful way.

The Neanderthal as Musician

I had an interesting conversation on Saturday with my friend/fellow drummer John "Good Time" Smith.  He was pointing out the finer points of drumming in the case of yours truly and discussing "playing musically" versus the "neanderthal" type of drumming.  His point was that he considered himself a pounder and that I brought a very musical element to the music.  I said that all drumming has that neanderthal component in it - it boils down to our basic need to pound the crap out of something.  However our goal should be to make a sound that is pleasing to our ears, correct for the style of music we are playing and above all - sound musical.
  
The idea of playing loud elicits a primal feeling in our souls.  I remember setting up for a gig at the St. Arnold's Brewery in Houston, TX.  We were playing in a very large second story room.  I say "room" but it was a very large beer hall with concrete floors, walls, and huge glass windows.  The ceiling was probably 15-18 feet high and you can just imagine the acoustics in that space.  After barely tapping the drums I had to cut loose.  I have borrowed a drum lick from the Black Sabbath album "Live Evil" (Vinny Appice on drums) as a warm up around the kit and I decided to whip out that particular fill to test the volume of the drums versus the room.  It was so loud I think that the overtones from the toms are STILL floating around through the brewery to this day.  


What's the point?  The point is that it felt GOOD to play that loud and hear the drums resonate so prominently.  Did I play that way for the gig?  Of course not.  It was so live in the room I eventually whittled my playing to brushes and Blasticks because that's what the room dictated.


Playing loud is just one facet of music.  Even metal bands have songs that require a certain touch, dynamics, and musicality.  I have been making it a point to be more conscious of my playing on the verses of songs (mid-volume), the choruses (maybe a little louder) and solos (louder, but still musical).  We are humans and we will get emotional when we play; keeping that emotion in check is important so we will not over play and cover up an important lyric or solo lick being played by the guitar, keyboard, sax, etc...


Music has a natural ebb and flow and being conscious of the movement of the song is so important.  Drummers need to listen with what I call "elephant ears" - always listening to everything around them and reacting accordingly to what the music dictates.  To sum up John's point - yes we are pounders at our basic instinct but developing "that touch" will separate us from the neanderthals.  The music lies in not how fast or how loud you can play but in how you interpret the music and how you react. 

I AM THE 1%

I am the 1%.  I did not get an iPod until Christmas of 2006 and even then it was a gift.  I still have it.  The middle button does not work too well but it will do for now.  In fact I will probably use it until it self-destructs or just will not work anymore.

I am the 1%.  I received my first iPhone the first month they came out.  Liz bought it for my birthday during Hurricane Ike in Houston.  We had to wait outside in the parking lot until they called our number to come in the store.  Due to limited power they were only letting a few people in the store at one time.  Hurricane Ike was in 2008.  I still have the same iPhone.

I am the 1%.  I received gift money and paid the balance on a MacBook Pro last Christmas.  I use the computer for my interview projects.  It runs great, it is very easy to use, and it is very portable.  I do not see the need to buy another Mac for a very very very long time.

I am the the 1% who will not run out and buy the latest Apple product the day it comes out.  Those people that are the Mac/Apple fanatics are the 99%.  99% stupid and wasteful.

Time to work

Where does time go?  I turned 42 years old last month and it seems like it was yesterday.  Like literally yesterday.  Time is moving to fast for this guy.  We are in October fer Chrissakes so what happened to September?!  Almost everyone I know is going 100 miles an hour, most of it is self-induced.  Why do we feel compelled to run and run and run and fill every waking hour with an event or activity?  We need to relearn to relax.

Maybe we need a national "Put Up Your Feet, Pour A Drink, and Relax Day" thereby giving everyone in the country a chance to catch their respective breaths.  For me I am guessing it is due to getting up at 6:30 AM every morning and finishing my first set of breakfast chores at 10:30 and then heading off to do even more work until 6:00 PM.  That's the culprit!  All this dang ol' WORK!  Especially when you LIVE where you work.  Crazy!

Speaking of work.... when I finish this post I'll go outside and paint the covered patio.  Wooo... It's my own fault really - I removed the Xmas lights and realized the patio looked like shit and with a big party next week what is a guy to do?  Pressure wash the structure, paint it, and put up new LED lights.  Oh yes my friends - 'twill look veddy cool.  Did I mention I had a gig in Houston last night as well?  4 hours sleep, breakfast service for 7, and now off to paint.  Awesome.    

Back on the blog

Can you believe it?  I'm back on the blog.  Like most things in life we get excited about the start of something new but then we lose interest, get too busy, forget... whatever it is that we do to cast aside the project, blog, friend we do not mean to leave things behind.  Maybe something else takes precedence or we say "I'll get to that later."  I've done that plenty in my life and it makes me feel like less of a person.  Maybe I should have practiced more, been nicer to that person, finished that model car... Well I'm back and I'm ready to ramble.  Welcome!

So I liked The Beatles... Now what?

Welcome back dear readers.  My mind is a little hazy today after last week's gig but I'll try to make some sense of it all.


We left off with my new found passion for The Beatles after Dad had generously purchased 2 albums for me - the double compilation record "Rock n' Roll Music" and "The Beatles - Live At The Hollywood Bowl" on cassette.  It was at this time I think I became more aware of music as something that was bigger than me, bigger than my circle of friends, maybe even bigger than all of us.  However I was still only in the 3rd grade.  I discovered the Beach Boys thanks to my older cousin's visits - they would come and raid my Dad's record collection and play "The Spirit Of America" album over and over again.  My father's record collection was varied but did not stray to far from the norm, although the Ventures 1969 album "Underground Fire" was a big hit with me since they covered Arthur Brown's "Fire" - my sister and I would play the beginning of that song and scare the crap out of ourselves.

Here's a version by the crazy Arthur Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOErZuzZpS8

So being a kid in extreme northern New Hampshire is not without it's trial and tribulations, especially when it comes to music.  I was to young too go to the bar to see bands play, there was very little culture that far north, and the "local" radio was abysmal.  By local I mean there was not a radio station for miles around.  With the exception of SHOM FM out of Montreal which we could sort of get on a clear night and WTOS out of Skowhegan, Maine which, again had spotty reception due to mountains getting in the way, the local radio stations consisted of pop country (WOKQ), easy listening (WEZF - can't spell easy without EZ) and WHOM that played actual elevator music.  Really.  Re-recorded songs without lyrics and and played very unobtrusively.  Somehow I survived, fell into KISS, and started playing air guitar with a tennis racket.

Somewhere along the line I received The Beatles "Red" album (a collection of hits from 1962-66) and my brother got the "Blue" album (1967-1970).  Despite my efforts I was a bigger fan of the earlier stuff at that time.  It was, to my young ears, more accessible and easier to understand.  The Red Album contained a lot of love songs and rockers... even "Nowhere Man" seemed less difficult to understand than some of the Blue album's songs.  (I figured it all out when I was older.)

And yes I got into KISS big time.  KISS was one of many bands influenced by The Beatles and like most kids the imagery appealed to me more than the music although I think "Destoyer" is probably their best album.  My walls were covered in KISS posters and I walked home from a Halloween party in the dark (well over a mile) to watch "KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park".  Awful.  Terrible.  But when it's 1978 and you're a 9 year old kid it was magical. 

Here is the NBC trailer... you have been warned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmy5WhWdQCE

As I grew older I was listening to more and more music although to be honest I can't remember what it was - I'm sure it was a combination of pathetic radio, recommendations from friends, and whatever my Dad my bringing home from the store.  Including disco.  This was the late 1970's after all.  Eventually all this listening of various music, however bland it may have been, is all leading up to 5th grade when I discovered that you could be in the school band.  And that is where we pick up tomorrow...