...you should.

http://www.saladrecords.com/bonhamfiles.htm

I dunno, some British d00d. Broke Bill Ward's kit, drank a lot of beers. What a tosser.

Oh yeah, i have these somewhere on a hard drive still. Meant to mess with them, still haven't.

There's one of Fool In The Rain that's just incredible. That one definitely has potential if anyone wants to rap battle over it.

Also: drumjam.

Yeah, Bonham was a favorite drummer of mine when i was a young'n, but my admiration of his skillz really went up a lot on hearing these clips back in the day.

It is kind of like the isolated Charlie Watts tracks from Gimme Shelter in a way, in that, he is all over the place with the pushing and pulling on the beat. Add the instruments back in and holyshit, some crazy ass groovethang emerges.

Also similar, come to think of it, to hearing Van Halen rhythm guitar tracks isolated from the rest of the band. That is a band that would have just been another bad hair metal band were it not for Eddie, obviously, but IMO, it is not for his lead playing that i would say that. He was one swinging-ass rhythm guitarist, and THAT is what propelled the songs. The lead playing was just icing.

fucking THIS. and again this. This is very true, yo.

I was never into Van Halen, but credit where it's due re: his rhythm playing. And dudes who know what's really up with that band know that's what's up. Not totally unappreciated by any stretch, but not the obvious thing to acknowledge either.

And re: drumming, people always talk about the drummer laying back behind the beat and grooving, but pushing it is a totally underappreciated (admittedly not as useful) skill. But for some things it works. Old-school punk and hard rock/metal wouldn't be the same without it. (Even chopsy stuff; Rush and Maiden spring immediately to mind...)

I learned that pretty early, trying to figure out VH tunes by ear. The parts were simple enough, but it was actually kind of very difficult to play along with them. It was like "oh he plays it late there" "oh and there it is early with a pause in the middle" "oh, i don't even know what the fuck he changed there, but what i played didn't fit".




Shit is awesome.



We should compile things that exhibit this sort of rad out-of-time but in-grooveness.



For instance, on a smaller (and less classic or well-known) scale, i have always enjoyed the loose interplay of the two guitars leading into the solo of this one:



(If you don't want to listen straight through, try from like 1:30 on i think?)

For pushing drums, a huge influence for me, with his toobusyfastfills, has always been Stewart Fucking Copeland.

He was sonically hopped up something fierce on the early recordings. Shit just sounds jittery and excitable. Much of that is him being in some spots, a huge amount ahead of the beat, or rushing some part of a fill to try to match up correctly on re-entry and just barely making it(or sometimes beating the rest of the band back, and having to pause for an instant to let them catch up!).

When I was younger I had drummer friends tell me Stewart Copeland is overrated. I think they were wrong.

For sure, i think he was swell. He played some strange ass shit, and a lot of it seemed to stem from an incomplete grasp of things that influenced him(like reggae beats). The way he fucked stuff up was his signature, and it helped to develop a signature sound and vibe for the Police as well, and i don't think some drummers get that.

Lots of folks just hear the meter swaying in and out and think, "shit the dood is no drummer, he just thinks he's one". I would not be surprised to learn if perhaps Mr. Copeland might have been unable to play along to a metronome or click back in the day. It would actually make sense to me, as the way those recordings come across strike me as capturing a band that feeds off of eachother in the room well.

I don't actually know how they tracked those records, but i could imagine that it might have been difficult to overdub bass and perhaps guitar to it if Copeland had just tracked the drums by himself.

In fact, i wonder how much of the drum style he had, might have influenced/inspired the more laid back guitar style that Andy Summer utilized so often. It could very well have been a defense against getting caught out by a drummer who might not... be exactly on the beat? I dunno.

Wow, I didn't realize how dope rapping over Fool In The Rain would be until it was just mentioned.