I drum .

- Cos Neil Peart is a brilliant musician and Rush are plainly amazing.

Actually scrub that crap attempt at irony, doubt anyone would give much of a stuff about Rush if it wasn't for Peart so yes, Mr Gabriel appears to be totally correct.

Ringo?

So then, discuss, were the better band (Jesus and Mary Chain, I refer to) with him on drums or a drum machine on drums. I have a horrid feeling Mr G may have been signing his own transfer note away from the drumstool.

The Rolling Stones - Charlie Watts

Led Zeppelin - John Bonham

The Band - Levon Helm

Little Feat - Richie Hayward

Great bands all, great drummers all. But a drummer needn't be a technical wizard to be good; Ringo Starr and Nick Mason are proof of that. Both perfectly suited to their respective bands.

Ringo Starr

They've never been the same without Paul Hester. Probably not the most technically capable drummer, but brilliant in terms of feel and I think that he defined the bands sound more than he gets credit for.

It's a long established fact that anything that comes out of that idiot's mouth has already been said a hundred times better by someone in Love/MC5/Stooges/whoever he thinks is cool this week.

I can't be accurate but I'm reasonably sure Mark Knopfler said it of Pick Withers around the time of Making Movies. Something along the lines of him being asked 'What does a band need to be successful?'

'Make sure you've a half decent drummer or you're screwed. We've got one so we're alright'

Or something.

Were never the same after Keith Moon died. Whether this was directly correlated or it was just that they'd had their best days is open to argument. But there can be no dispute that he was integral to their sound.

The E Street Band are the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world, but Max Weinberg, mighty though he undoubtedly is, isn't quite the world's greatest drummer. (That's Jim Keltner, obviously.)

, mighty tho' Jim Keltner undoubtedly is, that it's Dave Mattacks who fills that seat.
Drummers may enjoy his website too.
http://www.dmattacks.co.uk/

that a great drummer can make even a hopeless band sound pretty decent, whereas a fantastic band with a lumpy drummer will always sound poor. It's all about getting that basic bottom layer groove right for everything else to sit on.

No single member of the band has as much effect on the quality of the overall sound as the drummer. A great rhythm section backing a wonky guitarist, or a singer who'd fall foul of the Trades Description Act will still make the overall music sound good. Even a bad bass player can get by if he's got a groove-monster building sheds next to him. But if your drummer hasn't got it, the wheels are going to come off.

Not sure about twattishness of Gillespie, though he may have been indoctrinated by NME type post-mentality's approved cool influences. Yet he has previously expressed admiration for variety of sources - Faces, Stones, George Clinton, dance and dub of course plus did note for CD of Can's Tago Mago. Could be capable of astute comment about bands and drummers.

I think point about drummers is, regardless of talent of them, usually changing them uspets equilibrium more than if was other member. Which supports the original assertion. Oasis did best work with Tony Carroll as his limitations and basic technique suited their style, in similar way to Mo Tucker being right for Velvet Underground. So often it seems that where band is successful and acclaimed, drummer loss sees start of decline.

...that plays in a style appropriate to the music. Ringo was a technically ok drummer, nothing more, but he was the right drummer for the Fabs.

My old drum teacher would have correctly pointed out that Bonham was, in strict technical terms, pretty good (but nothing special) but he was SO suited to Led Zeppelin and their music.

I love playing in a Simon Phillips, Terry Bozzio, Billy Cobham stylee - full on jazz fusion - when I'm at home, but it's SO not the style for the pub rock band in which I play.

Think of picking a drummer like choosing a weapon. First consider the target and the environment, then select a weapon that will achieve the desired effect.

Remember... effective and appropriate are the key terms.

at a couple of music agencies in the 70s, we used to get some venues ringing up and asking for three musicians and a drummer.

Out of all the bands I have played with in the past 15 years, the best are those driven by an intuitive, incredible drummer. If you haven't got the groove, the rest immediately falls down irrespective of the technical ability, imagery and coolness of other band members.

Bill Berry.
Never been the same.

of The Doors has to be the most under-rated and overlooked drummer of all time. I'm no drummer but I can't think of anyone whose work is simply more attuned and appropriate to the songs he playing. Fabulous drummer.

But Robert Wyatt draws much the same conclusions in Unshod (or was it Slomo, I can never tell) this month, citing how very few drummers can be inter-genre, with most of the examples mentioned above (well, he name checks White (Alan), Bonham, Mitchell and Baker) being exemplared as right for their style.
His quote, which I like, is that:"rock musicians tend to make clunky and old-fashioned jazz drummers, and jazz drummers tend to make effete and precious rock drummers"
P.S. On Matching Moles Little Red Record, purchased last week, I can confirm he manages to be neither clunky, old-fashioned, effete or precious. but you all knew that anyway, didn't you?

his work on 'making plans for nigel' and much of 'drums and wires' was superb. They never got a replacement, just session guys..couldn't be replaced

A good drummer works with the rest of the band. Sounds obvious, but even the most lauded kit players sometimes fall at the first fence. Keith Moon played virtually the same exuberant, noisy but technically limited drum patterns on just about everything and considered that enough.
In contrast Mike Shrieve managed to complement Santana's lengthy guitar solos with exquisite fills (arguably without which they'd have become unbearable) while at the same time blending perfectly with the timbale and conga rhythms. Less flash, more music. Moon constrained the Who, Shrieve enabled Santana..

The best drummers are rarely have a high public profile and often go relatively uncelebrated in studio backing bands - Muscle Shoals, Tamla, etc. Interestingly rock session drummers - Jim Keltner for example- usually outshine those in permanent line-ups, because they don't get the chance to be complacent.

By the logic of the quote which began this thread Tony Allen brings greatness to any band he gigs with.

Like the songs, like the voice, but the drummer was sooooooooooooo boring.

Not sure if this supports the contention or not, but can I mention a drummer who does very little at all to very good effect? I speak, of course, of the mighty Phil Rudd; AC/DC certainly lost their mojo when he wasn't on the stool I reckon.

I think. The former sounded like cardboard boxes, the latter like he was on autopilot.

The Clash went from a just better than average punk outfit with attitude to a brilliant band with attitude when Topper came in, and lost an enormous amount when his heroin problems meant he got kicked out. A soulful rock drummer that basically made the band slow down and play properly.

Perhaps not the general view of The Clash, but I don't think their success and development can really be separated from the performance of their drummer.

...that lend credence to the statement from Bobby (or whoever):

* Jim White (Dirty Three)
* Bryan Devendorf (The National)
* Orri Páll Dýrason (Sigur Ros)
* Chris Hrasky (Explosions in the Sky)
* Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Quasi, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks)

Maybe a personal bias, but even the more rock-friendly entries here are possessed of a sense of space so few drummers seem to have nowadays.

And would Like A Rolling Stone be so powerful without Bobby Gregg's opening shot? Methinks not.

The key question for me is whether a drummer has a style you can recognise instantly - and very few do. Among these, I'd include the aforementioned Ringo, Keith Moon and Robert Wyatt, but I would also add original King Crimson drummer Michael Giles and the Nits' never knowingly oversung Rob Kloet. (He's Dutch, so the British music press are excused coverage). In a career now lasting over 30 years and around 20 albums, I've never heard Rob settle for the obvious. What's more, he has a delicacy and inventiveness that make all those dumb drummer jokes sound ridiculous.

Sort of a follow on from the aposite and well observed comment about Keith Moons one size fits all style. My favourite drummers, apart from Dave Mattacks, tend to be the busy hit all the frying pans at once school, like Clement Burke and Pete Thomas. I think their fills, especially in early Blondie and early Attractions are fabuloosly all over the place, probably because their freneticism works with the agitated music. Q. Are they any good, whatever good means? And if the answer is yes, how about the fella out of Eddie and the Hotrods, who seemed to have the rapid rollandrollandrollagain to a T, at the end of every stanza, ahead of it's universal adoption by all, as punk entered the arena.
P.S. In talking drummers, I am forbidden not to mention the late B.J. Thomas of Procul Harum.

in "Westway To The World", Joe Strummer proclaimed that a rock and roll band is only as good as its drummer. He may not have been the first person to spot this, but he's more likely to have originated it than Bobby G, who is a splendid synthesist as opposed to an originator from raw.

Without Meg White and her splashing drums The White Stripes wouldn´t be, literally, half the band they are. It´s so simple and effective you can´t argue against it. Listen to Doorbell which is 80 % percussion.