yOya

Well, this is just the week that all the bands I used to play with are coming into Boise! So, my last post was about the band King Washington. Coincidentally, I was playing with both them and yOya around the same time, the week that I moved to Boise they were embarking on a tour together, and this week they are separately touring through Boise. Good times!

I remember that the first time I saw them was when they were sharing the stage with King Washington (whom I'd just started playing with, at the time). In fact, Alex (from yOya) ended up producing KW's album The Overload. The point there is that music is incestuous.

But anyway, the cool thing about playing for these guys was that they were 100% synthetic percussion. No drummer, but a lot of drum stuff happening. When I first started working with them, Alex sent me song files with the drums and percussion bits all exploded so I could figure out what the hell was going on in the tracks. Over a couple of weeks we reconstructed it all to figure out what I would be playing on acoustic drums, on sampling pads, and what would remain in the box to be played via tracks. It was a lot of fun going through that process. 

Playing live was a great challenge. Mostly for the simple fact that, when you're hardwired to tracks, you can't stray one iota from the metronome, otherwise things sound out of time and messy- like the percussive version of being badly out of tune. I had been used to doing that with some of the past bands I'd worked with, but never on such an intense and inflexible scale. It made for a ton of fun to really make the beats come alive, without feeling too sterile and robotic.

Anyway, the guys are rolling through Boise on Thursday the 5th at Neurolux, and they just released a great single, totally worth checking out. Here's the original write-up on the single via Consequence of Sound. 

King Washington

A few years ago I got to do a really cool album with this band King Washington. I've been buddies with George, Tyson, and Billy all for quite awhile. Tyson and I had become friends when I was in one of my first bands in LA. I actually dated Billy's sister many years ago, and she as well as George were band members in my group RACES. So we had all been friends and musically respected each other for awhile before they invited me to come with them to Milwaukee to track what became The Overload.

I ended up not joining as a permanent member of the band because I was still active and busy with RACES, but I played several shows with them after the album, including the album release show for The Overload. It really was a great time making the album and playing with those guys!

Right now the guys are on a really cool tour opening for Collective Soul (remember them?!), and will be coming through Boise next week. Check out the album above, or consider making it out to the show to support them. They're a great bunch of guys and man, they nail those three-part harmonies like bands used to before auto-tune!

The Art of Juggling

Two things I love. Drums and juggling. Now, although I meant to discuss how one relates to the other, I felt like I had to mention an old inspiration of mine who happens to do both at the same time.

Years ago, living in Phoenix AZ, I used to go to this jazz/blues hangout spot called Char's, and every so often this blues band from Tucson called the Bad News Blues Band would come in and rock the house. Now, I don't think he plays with them at this point, but at the time (this was maybe fifteen years ago) the drummer was this guy Chip Ritter. Chip is a really cool guy. Very exuberant personality, great performer, great hands, and on top of all that, he had this trick under his belt- he could juggle three sticks and play! It was always a trip to see him bust that out. In fact, a few years down the road from that time he managed to show it off on the Late Show:
 

Anyway, I felt like I had to throw that in, because seriously, how can you talk about juggling and drumming and not mention Chip Ritter? But I'll leave the advanced stick tricks to Mr. Ritter and discuss my initial thoughts that motivated the blog. 

Last week I was teaching a younger student of mine who is working through a very common challenge musicians face, which is keeping attention on peripheral facets of playing while directly focusing on one particular aspect. Specifically this student was focusing on correctly playing what he's reading while keeping time and maintaining proper technique. This student in particular finds it more challenging to keep track of maintaining one without a significant sacrifice to the other two. We tried out a little 'attention exercise' where, through the repetition of a single phrase we bounced our attention from each object to the other at some different intervals. It was a good introspection for him to see how bouncing his object of focus changed the way things were being played. At the end of the lesson, I handed him a set of juggling balls and told him to start learning to juggle. I'm probably just being eccentric, but that was my intuitive decision about how to help him move forward outside of the practice routine.

Musicians must develop a strong 'peripheral view' of the multiple elements we have to keep track of. Time is especially important for drummers since if we lose time, every other musician in a group would be forced to shift tempo along with us. Yet, it's relatively easy to lose track of when you are singularly focused on some other aspect of playing. Technique is similar for a beginner until they develop it to a point of clockwork automation. And naturally, the material we are playing tends to take up the majority of our focus most of the time. So in this way, I imagine those three objects to be like three juggling pins being thrown hand to hand.

If you have any experience with juggling, then you will know that in general it's useful to avoid any singular focus of your attention. There may be a trick that involves an increased attention to one of the objects, but to lose sight of any other object increases the likelihood that we miss a catch or throw something wildly. In other words, the juggling is the object of focus. The greater coordinated act itself becomes a thing. I think this is a perfect analogy for what has to be done by a drummer when we are playing, or for performance in general.

On stage, I feel that I rarely am thinking about technique, but there are other elements that come into focus. Of course, there is the material at hand. There is time. There is the listening and watching of the other musicians- looking for improvisational cues, mistakes I might have to follow, or just general dynamics to make sure I'm not playing too loud in a small room. There can even be attention on how I'm performing. All these things have to happen simultaneously and consistently. If I focus too much on what I'm playing, maybe my time suffers and I drift. If I'm too externally focused on another player or something happening on stage, maybe I miss a change or hit. If I'm digging too deep into the feel of the music, then maybe I close my eyes and get all trancy vibed-out and completely miss the singer signaling me to cut the next musical section because he just broke a string. It could be nearly anything.

The last aspect I think I'd like to touch on here is how important it is to have that wide peripheral attention, but also a relaxed clarity and focus. You could perhaps refer to it as mindfulness. There are so many potential distractions that a performer can face. Some of the worst ones are purely psychologically manufactured (ie. stage anxiety), but most of the time though it's something like an equipment malfunction, audio feedback or a bad monitor mix, a crowd distraction, or even the distraction of getting stuck on the mistake I just made. It's a mark of skill when one can continue on unabated in the face of technical difficulties, or handle a show-stopping problem with grace. In a way, I think perhaps the pinnacle of being able to juggle the various aspects of performing is the ability to remain focused in the face of severe distraction. One of the raddest things I love is when I see a performer smash straight through some chaos on stage without losing their performance mindset.

On Steve Ferrone

Amongst today's drummers, I think that Steve Ferrone is an underappreciated player. He’s been on more hits and grooves that you know than you’d realize. To me, he’s one of those great musicians that really bridges rock and soul music. Put simply, he’s a guy that can rock, but really makes it feel great. The reason I'm writing about him today is because I was recently riding in the car with the lady and the kids, listening to Tom Petty’s album “Wildflowers” and just couldn’t get enough of Ferrone’s grooves. I realized I’d never really dug into his playing, and had missed a shining gem of a drummer for all these years.

Soul music is really where Ferrone’s works began getting recorded. After several records with the Average White Band, he was Chaka Khan’s backbone for many years and more than just a handful of albums. Both groups were very funky, and Chaka Khan is a truly killer soul singer. Though most of her stuff is that heavy stylized 80’s sound, I first fell in love with her when I heard the old school tune “Sweet Thing”, which was Rufus feat. Chaka Khan (Ferrone is not on that track, but you should dig it anyway). When she split from Rufus to do her own thing, Ferrone was there from the beginning, laying it down.

In addition to Tom Petty, Ferrone has played with rock songwriters such as Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and Christine McVie (Fleetwood Mac). These are really some of the greatest names in rock songwriting, and emphasizes what a worthwhile listen Ferrone’s drumming is.
So when you take a general cross-section of Ferrone’s musical works, you see that he’s a guy that really knows how to bridge the gap between several styles of music, and can really play at the top of his class. This is what I heard when I was listening to Wildflowers. The beauty of the drumming on that album really lies in its simplicity. Most of the grooves are beats that beginners could understand and learn, but it takes a real master to play them with the style that Ferrone brings to the table.

One of my favorite tracks on the Wildflowers is the tune “You Wreck Me”. It’s a real upbeat and straightforward tune, and there’s no enigma to the rock’n’roll happening there. The drums drive straight down the middle of the song like a fastball pitch. What I felt when I dug into this beat is that it’s machined like the engine of a top notch muscle car. There isn’t a single hesitation, question mark, or fluffed stroke through the whole track. It’s sheer precision. Every stroke is deliberate and in the pocket. But it’s not sterile, like a drum machine. To be a machine like Ferrone is on the track is not to sound like a machine. You can play with flawless execution, but the feeling and human soul that pumps life into the song is what makes it great! It’s fun, it’s confident, it’s in the pocket, and there’s really nothing more you can do to deliver a better beat for a straight-forward tune. Every drummer on earth could play that beat, but few could deliver it the way Ferrone does. That’s what makes it such a great groove to listen to. I really recommend listening to that exact same beat played by different drummers on different songs- it is amazing to hear how differently it comes across with different feels. It’s a subtlety of major importance to our art.

The big hit track off the album “You Don’t Know How It Feels” is similar, in that the beauty is in the simplicity (really, the whole album has that approach to it. Tom Petty isn’t exactly a flashy guy, and that’s one of the reasons I love his songs). One of my favorite things about the groove is how well Ferrone masks the sixteenth note on the hi-hat. You really feel it, but you hardly hear it. It’s a great subtlety that he lets pop out a little bit in the bridge/solo section (listen for those little open hat emphasises). Another great detail is how crash cymbals are mostly absent from the song in places that drummers almost always drop them. There is very little percussive punctuation to the song, so while Petty is talking about rolling things, the beat makes the whole song feel like it’s rolling right along because of that nuance.
 

As I’ve gotten older, listened to and played more music, these subtleties are the things I’ve come to cherish the most in music. I am still awed by great technical feats, inventive and unique approaches to playing, and all the cool flashy things that drummers can do. But to me it is truly the mark of a professional to sit behind a great songwriter and make them sound like they are a legend. I think that Ferrone’s drumming was the backdrop for Petty’s greatness on this album, and that is first and foremost what makes him a great drummer, in my humble opinion.

Links:

Steve Ferrone’s Wiki page (including Discography)

Steve Ferrone on the “I’d Hit That podcast” 

Reference Tunes:

“Pick Up the Pieces” - Average White Band “AWB” (1974)

“Love Has Fallen On Me” - Chaka Khan “Chaka” (1978)

“Notorious” - Duran Duran “Notorious” (1986)

“Pretending” - Eric Clapton “Journeyman” (1989)

“You Don’t Know How It Feels” - Tom Petty “Wildflowers” (1994)

“Give Me One Reason” - Tracy Chapman “New Beginning” (1995)

Tad Wagner - Free Enough

It always makes me excited when I can announce that an album I've been a part of has been released. I worked with Tad on his album awhile ago and have been looking forward to hearing the finished product. That's the funny thing about recording an album as a musician for hire- sometimes you'll lay down all of your parts and then not hear the album for awhile, as other instruments are being tracked, the mixing and mastering process then have to happen, and then who knows, maybe the release is held back for one reason or another... So it's always a little adventure to listen back to something you recorded. Sometimes you fool yourself and don't remember playing something a certain way, so you spend the next few minutes wondering if they replaced your drum parts when you weren't looking!

Anyway, now that I'm done with my tangent (it's 5am and I woke up way too early), I'm pleased to announce that Tad Wagner's album "Free Enough" is out. If it were not inferentially obvious by now, I played drums on it. My friend Raymond Richards produced the album and got me on the album in the first place. I have to say, he did a stellar job putting it together. He was one of my favorite guys to work with in LA, and is a fantastic producer/engineer.

You can check out Tad Wagner's "Free Enough" via his Bandcamp page.

Boise ID

Welcome to my website!
I'm excited to finally have a representation of myself as a drummer on the internet. There have been many bands I've been a part of that have included my reflection as a part of the whole, but never something I've had that was just to represent myself individually. Similarly, I've often kept a web presence and blogs of different sorts in the past, but never something dedicated solely to my life as a drummer.

That being said, here is my obligatory first post.

I moved to Boise just recently, in October of 2014. I had been living in Los Angeles for the past twelve years as a professional musician (although some of those years were certainly more professional than others). Though I have always been playing in bands, I gradually shifted from being a teacher in LA to being a session player and touring drummer. For the past several years, my life was dedicated to being on the road touring.
My move here to Boise was a big change not just in leaving LA, but also in starting a new family. With that responsibility entering my life, touring doesn't make as much sense as it used to. So, that was a big reason for getting this website going- I decided to re-focus on teaching, as well as playing sessions.
Already my start out here has been a good one. I've been lucky to get some really great gigs with Magic Sword, Steve Fulton, and Jonathan Warren and the Billygoats. Some other cool gigs are coming together for summer and fall, too. And the first students I've signed up are absolutely ideal. They're excited about the instrument, do their homework, have very supportive parents, and are a real pleasure to teach!

All in all, it's a great start. I'm grateful to be in such a beautiful city. I still remember the first time I toured through Idaho, I never could have imagined I would end up living here! It just goes to show, you never can know where you're going to end up in life.

Thanks for taking a look at my website, and I hope to see you soon.

~Lucas