THE B

LACK

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OCTOBER 2008

WORKING DRUMMER’S

BOOTCAMPTHE BLACK PAGEOctober 2008

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Sean Mitchell PublisherJill Schettler Editor in ChiefJayson Brinkworth WriterRyan Carver Writer

Feature Interviews:Alan White & Carmine Appice

Success = Balanceby Jayson Brinkworth

?by Sean Mitchell

Groove School Part IVby Ryan Carver

The Final Word

Featuring chris sutherland

Designed to get every drum-mer in shape to face any freelancing challenge, the Bootcamp is a complete run through of almost anything you might encounter in the music business: live skills, studio skills, networking skills and getting every pos-sible aspect of your drum-ming ready for anything. It’s a tough business, learn how a pro stays impossibly busy.

Kim Mitchell, Squeek, Deric Ruttan, Saga, Doc Walker, Amanda Falk

Click on the image aboveto visit chris on the web

mEARTH FRIENDLY

No Paper, No Ink, No Waste

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W hat can I say? I thoroughly en-joyed the next six interviews you will be reading over the

next few months. Who wouldn’t? Talking to six players who have not only proven themselves to be inno-vators in music, but who were pres-ent when history was made on many occasions.

The Black Page is very proud to present the first of five editions called “Legends Edition: Godfathers of Drumming.” A real up-close and personal look at six virtuosos who have deservedly become icons in the music world. Enjoy!

A lan White can no doubt be considered one of a rare few. The soft spoken White

is a true giant among his peers. Known primarily for his work with prog-rock pioneers Yes, White has been a master of many genres, playing with the likes of Joe Cocker, Ginger Baker and John Lennon.

Alan’s true brilliance is not hard to hear as you go deeper into his accomplished body of work, and his story is the stuff legends are made of. If ever a musician epit-omized the true English gentle-man, it would be Alan White.

Alan, what have been your favorite Yes tunes to play over the years?

My favorite Yes tunes, wow. There’s so many of them. I enjoy playing some of the stuff from Relayer. “Gates of Delirium” is very challenging. “Heart of the Sunrise” and “Close to the Edge”.

You learned the entire Yes set in 3 days?!

Yeah, they asked me to join the band on Friday or Thursday evening, something like that. I said, “Well, look, let’s give each other like three days and see if I like playing with the band.” And they said, “Yeah, but we’ve only got time for one quick rehearsal and we’re playing a show on Monday.” So I had to kind of jump in the deep end.

You must enjoy the learning process and being un-der pressure.

I had my own band that had been working on odd time signatures, and we’d been playing jazz and rock ‘n’ roll odd time signatures, so I was kind of schooled a little bit in that whole area for the two years before Yes.

This being your 40th year with no break-ups or ma-jor hiatuses, what is the secret to Yes’ longevity?

Don’t talk to each other pretty much, most of the time. (laughs) I don’t know. I think it’s the original idea of the band. It is a band that kinda sees a little bit into the future and tries to create new things all the time. And then if you do that, I think the music becomes a little bit timeless. A lot of people listen to Yes’ music and model themselves on it. It’s not easy to play a lot of the tunes. You don’t find many Yes clone bands. It’s just a challenging band to play with, but it pays its rewards because it feels so good when you see all those people standing on their feet having a wonderful time.

You did quite a bit of work with John Lennon. What was your initial impression of John upon meeting him?

I guess he kind of took a liking to me. He enjoyed me being around. He was always very nice to me, very warm, and he said, “Whatever you’re playing,

Alan, keep playing. It’s wonderful.” (laughing) That’s what he used to say to me. I think he took me under his wing a little bit, kind of like he was really glad he had this young drummer playing with him. I was only twenty years old.

Tell me about your first gig with Lennon at Live Peace in Toronto, 1969.

You know, we never really played together before. John kind of picked songs. Some of them were clas-sics that I’d heard but not played, and some of them I had played before with different bands. That part was easy, to a degree. But we just kind of busked it at the end. It was kind of like an okay, heads down, see you after the show kind of thing.

For interest’s sake, where does someone like Alan White keep his Grammy?

It’s actually in my studio in a cupboard. I’ve got a funny story about the Grammy because when Yes got a Grammy for Cinema, they only gave us one. And they said, “We’re going to mail the rest to you guys.” So they mailed the Grammy to me, and it was like a building set. I had to build my own Grammy at home.

You have a great sense of melodic expression in your playing. Where does that come from?

When I first took up drums, I had already been play-ing piano. But I bought a violin that had one string on it, and I put a little pickup on it and played it through my tape recorder. So when you put it in record, you could hear the violin come out the speakers. I’d play along with the Beach Boys’ records and their har-monies, and just feeling out those harmonies kind of made me have a more melodic sense on playing music with Yes.

Alan, this amazes me. You are thirteen years old with three lessons under your belt, and you play your first gig!

The guy that was teaching me, I felt, was trying to make me play like him. He was playing in a dance band and all this kind of stuff, and I said “No, I’m just going to play these records. It’s better for me to do that.” And that’s what I basically did and turned it around the other way. I started playing my own individual style by myself at a very early age. I said, “No, I can do this, and I can incorporate orchestral music and jazz and everything all into one style.”

Photo: Edward Ajaj - www.edwardajajfotografie.com

C armine Appice doesn’t mince words, capish?

At sixty-one-years-young, Carmine has no need to. He has done it all, seen it all, and lived to tell the tale. But unlike many players of his stature, who are content to sit on their laurels, Car-mine shows no signs of slowing down. Quite the contrary. Between his group SLAMM!!, his tour dates and his work with Little Kids Rock, it would seem Father Time has blessed the living legend with a ton of ideas and a lot of moxy. Far be it for me to say who is a drum God, but Carmine is without a doubt in a class all his own. An ODG if you will: the Original Drum God.

How does it feel to be looked upon by your peers as a living legend?

I don’t know, man, you know. I’ve been doing this all my life. I mean, I’m sixty-one years old, and for forty of those years I’ve been doing this. This is sort of what I’m used to. I’m sort of living this rock star life. I’ve had all the stuff: I’ve had the five wives, I’ve had the houses and the fifteen cars, I’ve been all around the world, and I’ve gone places and got recognized. This is my life. I am very used to it.

What is Little Kids Rock?

That is a program which really is close to my heart. The program goes to areas that are bad areas. I got this one school that I favor in The Bronx. You go up there and it’s like right across the street from a junk yard, and you got all the gang writing everywhere. What Little Kids Rock does is it keeps the kids after school and teaches them how to play. I jam with them. I teach them how to write a song and stuff like that. It’s really inspiring. When they have events to raise money I go down and I jam with the kids live. One of their events raised $20,000. It’s a really great thing for these kids.

Tell me about SLAMM!!

SLAMM!! is great for me ‘cause I’ve been playing with Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, but, y’know, these guys are all my age and they’re whiney old men. They really are. So, my girlfriend, who’s a talk show host in New York City, asked, “If you had a chance to do something, what would you want to do?” I said, “I wanna probably do the drum show.” In 1983 I did a drum battle tour which I had a drum-off as an opening act, and then I had a drum show with four drummers. We did glow-in-the-dark stuff and drum solos, and we packed everywhere we went. So she said we should do that. Then, I started thinking about what I wanted to do. I said, “Yeah, I’d like to take the urban thing and mix it with a rap thing and come up with sort of a rock-urban show, a little different than Blue Man Group, a little different than Stomp. Have five drummers and a guitar player so we could actually play some of my hits.”

It must be surreal for you, now, years later, Led Zeppelin performing again with Jason (and hav-ing known John so well). How do you wrap your head around the fact that Bonham Sr. was influ-enced by your playing?

Now he’s become such an icon. Hard to believe he was ever a nobody. But when I met him he was a nobody; he was as known as you are. He used to tell me how he loved all my stuff with the Fudge, and he’d listen to the records and copy stuff from me. He copied a bass drum thing from me, and I said, “Dude, I never did that.” And, he said, “Yeah, you did.” Then he told me exactly where I did it on one song. I did it once, just some spontaneous thing. I did it between the hand and the feet, and he took that and developed what he had. It always blew me

away because I loved what he did, and I thought it was his.

You got Bonham his endorsement with Ludwig. How did that come about?

They were on tour with us and they opened up for Vanilla Fudge. They were nobodies; John Bonham was as known as you are. He saw my big Ludwig kit, and said, “Man, I would love to have a kit like that.” I said “Well, y’know, I’ll call Ludwig and tell ‘em, and we’ll send them an album.” We had the same attorney and so I got Ludwig into it and the attorney finished the deal. John ordered the same exact kit as mine: add the gong, add the 12x15 small tom, and two 26x14 bass drums. I had a 22-inch bass drum on its side as a big tom, and he just got a couple 16x18’s.We toured again in ’69, six months later, and they had gotten so big that we were equal bill now. So that means that one day we would open up for them and the next day they would open up for us. But he had a double bass drum kit the exact same as my kit on the tour with him. So they put his kit up, he’d play. They’d take his kit down, put my kit up (same kit), and then I’d play. So the audience must have said, “Why did they take that kit down?”But anyway, after that tour Robert and Jimmy didn’t want him to play double bass ‘cause it was too busy, so they took one bass drum away. And guess what? That became the Led Zeppelin drum kit.

To say the least, you are a drummer who thinks way outside the box. I once read that you ran an effect pedal through your snare mic. What is it, and how does it work?

I still use it. Now I’ve developed it even more with Morley and I’m trying to actually put it on the mar-ket. It’s a snare drum wah wah, is what it is. I’ve been using it since 1973. It’s an amazing effect and people don’t know what it is. I actually operate it. I actually hit the snare and I’d “wah wah” as I hit it. It’s a really good effect.

You incorporate a lost art form in drumming: showmanship. How important is it to include just the right amount of showmanship in a per-formance?

Y’know, I’m a real believer in being a good show-man and a good technician and putting on a show no matter what you’re doing. One of my latest things in the last few years is when I went to Japan and did a disappearing drum solo where I ended up in the audience. When I describe showmanship, y’know, I think how important it is to really put on a show for the crowd, otherwise you end up being the drum-mer in the back, instead of being part of the show.

Have you had any Spinal Tap moments?

Millions of Spinal Tap moments, millions of ‘em. When Spinal Tap came out, I was living Spinal Tap with King Kobra. That thing was so real. I had one a couple months ago actually with my SLAMM!! group. We were doing this bit where we come out dressed in suit jackets and we had some T-shirts with bow ties put on ‘em. We’d come out playing ironing boards like cellos, like an orchestra. So I went to Wal-Mart to buy the T-shirts. I bought the T-shirts (and we’re always filming this stuff), so I say, “Yeah I got the T-shirts, let me take them out.” We’re gonna paint little bow ties and buttons on it. I open them up and take them out, and I had bought five boys T-shirts! I hold them up and say, “Oh my god. Spinal Tap!” It was like the small Stonehenge com-ing down (laughing)

T he word success conjures up many thoughts and images: lots of money, a big house with a pool, limousines, exotic holidays and on and

on. One thing is for sure, everybody wants and de-serves a certain amount of success in life if they work hard and persevere. This article encompasses my thoughts on the word success, keeping it in per-spective and revealing what it means to me as a musician/father/husband.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ROCK STAR

When I was a child, playing sports was a huge part of life, especially hockey, eh! If someone was to ask me how I would define success at that time in my life, the answer would have been along the lines of playing in the NHL and making a ton of money. That’s it. Well, incase you don’t know, I am not in the NHL (and will never be), nor do I make a ton of money. Does this make me unsuccessful?

When I turned 13, I started playing drums. I want-ed to play since I was 5, but you will have to ask my parents about their reasons to wait 8 years. If some-one was to ask me how I would define success at this point in my life, it would have been along the lines of playing in a band like Rush or Toto, tour-ing around the world on a private jet, having fans screaming my name and making a ton of money (Come on, you have all had similar dreams).

Well, I don’t play in Rush or Toto, but I do play music with great players and friends. I don’t travel the world in a private jet, but I have been flying com-mercial airlines a lot for my current gig. The only

people that scream my name are my kids and my wife when I get out of line, and I make a living but not a ton of money. In my eyes, I believe I am success-ful at what I do, and the biggest reason is because I have a balance in life. Don’t get me wrong, the dream I had as a 13 year old still lives on inside of me, but am I unsuccessful if it never comes true?

THE SAME but Different

One thing that I remind all of my students is that every one of us started playing drums for the same reason: to feel the power of this instrument and play our favorite songs. If you started for money, fame and the chicks, well, you will soon realize that it doesn’t work that way. I also remind my older stu-dents of why we all started drumming as they can sometimes forget the reason they love playing and get discouraged with their lack of progress.

It doesn’t matter if we make a living playing music, if we play part-time, or if we just get together with some friends every week to jam, we all love being around music and playing. One thing we also tend to forget is that the people who have not played an instrument will never experience the emotion and feeling we get when we play. It is a gift and a higher expression of emotion.

The following are two examples of players I know and respect. I view them both as being successful in music and in their lives because they have per-spective and balance.

The first person is a student of mine, Mike. Mike had wanted to play drums for a long time and start-ed lessons with me about four years ago. He had a goal in mind: he wanted to be playing in a band and gigging before he was 40 (Mike was 36 at the time).

suc·cess - The achievement of some-thing desired, planned, or attempted.

success = balance

We started off learning some basics and such, and our first complete tune was “Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was a suc-cess for Mike. To cut to the chase, because of his determination, Mike is now playing in a band and has done several gigs. On the night before his 40th birthday he played a club in which there was a cov-er charge to see the band play—another goal of his. Mike also has a great job, an awesome wife and two beautiful daughters. In my mind, Mike is a suc-cessful drummer because he knew what he wanted to accomplish with his playing and made it happen.

The other person is my brother-in-law Jeff. Jeff has played music for quite awhile and is a very good drummer with not only a great knowledge of music but a strong desire for the art. He is truly inspiring. Jeff’s playing situation is very cool as he has done live gigs, but the bulk of his playing is his infamous Wednesday night jams. The core is Jeff on drums or harmonica, Chad on guitar and one or more play-ers, depending on who is available on a particular Wednesday night. They have their own material and other ideas that they play through and work out. The other cool thing is that every week they record their performance on a four-track recorder. After an hour or two of jamming, they will take these tapes and review their performance from that night. They will document parts that work and develop ideas from this for the next week—all the while not playing live, just jamming every Wednesday night. This has been going on for 10 years with over 20 “guests” attending these sessions and a countless number of cassettes in the files. I have been lucky enough to experience the jam night, and what a blast! Just like Mike from the previous example, Jeff too has a great job outside of music, an awesome wife and two great children. In my mind, Jeff is a success-ful drummer as he works on his music every week, records the performance to refine parts and plays music with so much passion and emotion.

Even though our playing situations are different from each other, both Mike and Jeff teach me a lot and inspire me to move ahead in my own musical journey. Thanks, guys.

BALANCE IS THE KEY

In life, balance is the key to everything: diet, exer-cise, family-time, work-time, etc. Balance keeps us grounded and helps us persevere through life’s chal-

lenges. In my own career, I play my best when my wife and kids are happy, and on the flip side, I am a better husband and father when the music side is working. Obviously this isn’t always the case, as life will have it, but working hard to keep this balance is very important to me. Also keeping perspective on the word success and being realistic and honest with myself is key as well.

I try my best to have a balanced, practiced rou-tine of rudiments, new exercises, and I also revisit old concepts. I try to balance out my students’ les-son material as well with rudiments, songs, exer-cises and creative ideas as well.

Take a moment to look at your own successes and balances in life. Also keep perspective on your idea of success and what it means to you in your own musical ventures—whatever they might be.

If you know which drummers played on

what Steely Dan track,

you might be a drumgeek

JAYSON BRINKWORTH IS AN ACCOMPLISHED DRUMMER, PERCUSSIONIST, VOCALIST,EDUCATOR & WRITER.

CLICK ON HIS IMAGE TO LINK TO HIS WEBSITE.

I t’s hard to put a title to something you do not yet know. As I sit here and type, I actually have no freaking clue what I want to write about (hence

my witty and somewhat ambiguous title). Obviously I feel the need to say something or else I would be in bed like everyone else at four in the morning.

In the spirit of Jeopardy and one Mr. Alex Trebek, let’s start with a game. I will pose an answer and you can come up with the question. The answer is “idiot.”

By now you are probably doing your best DeNiro impression and asking the question, “Are you talk-ing to me?” Maybe, maybe not. While “idiot” is a very simple answer (pardon the pun), the most im-portant part of the puzzle is actually missing. The

information you lack lies in the question which, at this juncture, you do not know. Yet.

Last month my friend and drummer extraordinaire Jayson Brinkworth wrote these simple yet profound words: “I have learned that if I want to know some-thing, all I have to do is ask.” Simple, yeah? But do you do it? Honestly, ask yourself this question.

Often times, those of us drawn to musical pur-suits feel too stupid to ask questions for fear of em-barrassment amongst our peers. Well, how about this? John Bonham never took a lesson in his life. Instead, as a teenager he knocked on the doors of other drummers to ask for advice.

It would seem simple, yet the all-powerful ego of-ten steps in and disallows any growth potential. For-get ego, forget embarrassment. Knowledge is pow-er, my friend, especially in this the information age. It’s like a poker game: if you can’t spot the sucker in two minutes, guess what?

The drummer is a constant state of becoming. Write that in black permanent marker on your batter side snare head. No, seriously, go do that now! As your knowledge grows so too will your thirst for it, and your ability to ask not only smarter questions but the right questions will come as well.

Think of a combination lock. With only one num-ber of a three-digit combination, you can work as hard as you want, think as optimistically as you want, create as many game plans as you want, but that lock will stay locked until you have all the infor-mation. Period.

Are you even aware of the little things you need to know about your playing? Have you watched yourself play? As Jayson said last month, video-tape yourself and really analyze your movements. Are they fluid, or are they choppy and aggressive? As within, so be it without.

If you are an aggressive person or you find your-self in a mood, you will no doubt see it manifest behind the kit. Drumming is just energy (you) in motion, arranged in a pleasing rhythmic fashion. You have to have all three aspects of the human condition aligned, much like numbers in a combina-tion lock, to begin to understand who you are as a drummer. The big three: mind, spirit and, drum roll please, body.

As a drummer you have the responsibility to take the grey matter you have upstairs and the meat-suit you carry it around in and discover how it all works together. Find out why you can’t get this hand to

?“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate!”

by Sean Mitchell

work well with this groove. Is it in your head, or is it a physical thing? Do you even know if something is wrong? Sometimes the answer may even lie be-yond the kit in your non-musical life. Knowledge is power. You are your own vessel. It doesn’t hurt to have a good honest look at y-o-u and kick the tires once in awhile.

Now watch your tape again paying close atten-tion to your movements, and then watch someone like Dennis Chambers or Dave Langguth. Enough said. Go unlock your potential!

Clinician and Grammy award-winning drummer Mitch Dorge had this to say about knowledge during one of my lessons. Hold on, this gets heavy!

“If, on a twenty-one inch cymbal, you drew

a line with a pencil, from its middle to its outer edge, the space that that pencil lead would oc-cupy would represent what you know that you know. For example, you know that the combi-nation of letters d-o-g spells dog. You know that should you strike an object, it should make some sort of sound—although the true physi-cist always accepts the idea that even though we know it should, perhaps one day it won’t.

If, you, next to the line already drawn on your cymbal, drew a second line adjacent to the first one, that second line and the space it would oc-cupy would represent what you know that you don’t know. For example, you know that you don’t know how an MRI works, or you know that you don’t know the complexities of your own neu-ral network—which is even more baffling being that your neural network is responsible for your thinking of your neural network.

Now the rest of the space left untouched on that cymbal represents what you don’t know that you don’t know. We’ve all been in the po-

sition where someone presents a theory such as this one or interprets a piece of music in a way that never occurred to us. This is one of the many ‘things’ that rest in that space of what you don’t know that you don’t know. Of course, when it is presented, it becomes what you know that you don’t know. Should the idea, or thought, or experience take hold of you in such a way that you find yourself immersed in the es-sence of what that is, it becomes something that you know you know, which then contributes to the space that your first and second pencil line occupies.

The wonderful thing about this experience is that as your penciled areas grow, so does the untouched area, exponentially. As long as we continually leap into this untouched space or abyss (as one can define what one knows but cannot even fathom what is unknown), we will continue to grow. When we play only what we know, we lose our ability to grow, to express, to find ourselves. We lose the way of the poet: to say what cannot be said. There is, however, a ‘fragment’ dangerous and deadly, and that is getting caught up in what we think we know.

The question to my Jeopardy answer at the be-ginning of this article was: “Ostinato is derived from what word in Italian?”

You are only a question away from knowing ev-erything in this entire universe. All you have to do is ask.

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Listening to music is a key part of making music. It is important to listen to grooves from other drummers and all styles. Groove school is a collection of some great grooves from various artists. Each groove can inspire you, and open up different ideas and possibilities.

by Ryan Carver

Ryan Carver is a member of the Academy of Drums faculty, the Vic Firth education team and the Percussive Arts Society. Click either link below to visit him on the web.

www.carverdrums.com www.myspace.com/ryancarver

GROOVE SCHOOL PART IV

“You don’t want to complicate this kind of music. That’s what made it last so long.”

Earl PalmerOctober 25, 1924 - September 19, 2008