Category Archives: Music

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    Cool drumming video

    Check out this video of Thomas Boulvin soloing on the drums.

    A couple of things to note.

    1. the drums are tuned very well, to specific notes in fact. They don’t sound like big flabby farts like most drummers tune their kits to. Like this
    2. .

    3. see how he doesn’t hit the drums as hard as human possible? most people when they sit behind a drumset think you have put all their weight into each hit. Like this.
    4. an “astinato” is a lengthy repeated pattern, so his feet are playing the same pattern over and over again while he’s going to town with his hands
    5. see how he holds the stick lightly and they’re balanced in his hands?
    6. see how he uses his wrists and hands? Arms just get the sticks to the right place. The wrists and hands do the drumming (well, mostly).

    Anyway, all this added together shows us that this groovy cat can really play with the best of them.

    Enjoy.

    Red Delicious

    So I’ve slowly but surely ripping all my cd’s. I still have a few hundred to go. I am sometimes quite surprised by the stuff I find. One band I found that I like that you probably haven’t heard of is Red Delicious. They sound like the band Garbage, sort of, but I like them better. More melodic and much less over produced sounding. I never really liked Garbage.

    Red Delicious is sort of a melodic Pop band, with catchy hooks and they just sound great. I have the CDs Acoustical Blur (can’t find any info on this one) and Emotional Blur. I think I bought them off of mp3.com a few years ago back when mp3.com was some sort of indie band dot bomb. I don’t think it’s the same company operating mp3.com now.

    Red Delicious has a new cd called Addictions and Scars, but I haven’t heard much off it. I’ll probably pick it up though. More info here and here. There is a video or two on red-delicious.com and I think you can listen to the tracks there too.

    B. just shouted at me from the other room, “I like this music! Where did you find out about them?” Well, there you have it. Chicks dig them.

    BTW, I’m using Windows Media Player and ripping all the cds in WMA lossless format. Through my system the cd’s sound phenomenal and having them all on my computer is worth the price of admission. My computer has a big fat RAID array on it, so in case of failure I just have to swap in a new drive. God help me if I have to re-rip all the cds someday. This happened to Omar, the poor sod.

    big head todd and the monsters

    So ya’ll might not know that I play the drums. Started when I was about 14. That means I’ve been playing for, um, a while. Turns out though that I haven’t played much in the last couple of years. Mostly I think this is because most new music these days just blows. Playing the drums is a purely right brained thing, a trip into the indescribable, and nothing has been inspiring me lately. I just gotta say that most of the music that is popular these days makes me want to yak up something disgusting, put it into a envelope and send to the music companies. One quivering pile of yak per company.

    One band I’ve really learned to respect and enjoy is Big Head Todd and the Monsters. They’re not flashy. They don’t sing about bad ass they are. And the only cap they’re busting is a comfortable ball cap. So there. What they do do is write great songs and play their own instruments very well indeed. They’re a guitar band, very blues based. Great vocals and catchy songs. They’ve been around a while and I first found out about them a few years back when I saw them open for Dave Matthews band. Check em out. “Sister Sweetly” is a good disk to start with. Give them a few listens, I guarantee they’ll grow on you. Interestingly, I could care less about DMB now, and I’m still listening to BHTM.

    Check out their web site: http://www.bigheadtodd.com/index.shtml

    Tell em’ I sent ya.