Thanks for the feedback on my little list I drunkenly posted last night. It would seem, according to some of you (cough cough Ian cough cough) that I left a bunch of names of the list. Well, yeah, obviously. I was enjoying some really good beers and I think my focus was more on highlighting and reorganizing the best names from the SPIN list than on adding new names to the list that didn’t appear in SPIN’s article. Were I to do that, I probably would have added a slew of drummers who were completely — and tragically — left off the SPIN list.
What’s more, the fact that I even responded with a cogent argument about who belonged on the list and why they belonged on the list was unnecessary. I know SPIN is irrelevant. They’re not even a print publication anymore. The only reason a website ever goes so far as to pen one of these silly, useless lists is because they know that idiots like me are going to take it seriously and a) try to defend/alter their choices or b) send massive amounts of readers to the article via incoming links mentioning how terrible it is. I fell for that trap. I’m not proud of it. I just want you all to know I’m self-aware enough to concede that I fell for it.
That said, here are five names I should have put on my list instead of…we’ll see the “bottom five” of my Top 25.
05. Sara Lund (Unwound) – Hell, I even went so far as to mention her name in my little blurb about Zach Hill. Granted, it was to say that not even the presence of Sara Lund could distract me from the fanboy crush I was exhibiting at 88 Boadrum by not taking my eyes off Hill all night. I even made my friends sit by his kit, I was so enamored of him. So I forgot to put Lund on my list, even though she totally wails, and was one of the main reasons why I think Unwound is one of the best bands of their time. To call her, and Vern and Justin a power trio would almost be a misnomer because they were so fucking powerful it was like an entirely (at least to my ears) new kind of power I’d never heard before. Spiky, sharp, whatever you want to call it. She punctuated the guitar/bass perfectly. She rules. I don’t know who she’s playing with, but she rules.
04. Alfredo Hernandez (Kyuss, QOTSA) – The first time I saw QOTSA was in 1999 and even though Josh Homme acting like a (comical) douchebag through the band’s entire set — threatening to kick heckler’s asses and making a ton of comments about fucking dudes’ girlfriends — Hernandez stole the show. [Listen to the entire first QOTSA album]
04. Emil Amos (Grails, OM) – People will argue that Chris Haikus was a better fit with OM than Amos is, and in his own right Haikus is/was an immense drummer. But I look at the music OM has recorded since the transition (after Pilgrimage) and I like where the duo has gone with their sound as much as the first few albums. Haikus had a monolithic, minimalist approach. Amos is more technically adept and has a very unique style. There’s no sense in saying that the drums on an OM composition shouldn’t…you know…contain fills. Creating a sense of space (like Haikus could) is one thing, but one could just as easily argue that a brilliant drummer expanding in said space isn’t equally important. Plus, you know, Grails. I love Grails.
03. John Lockie (Sightings) – Saw them open for Comets On Fire years ago and they sounded so god damned good that night I remember their set way more clearly than I do the Comets On Fire set. He made everything he was doing look effortless in a way I don’t often see, especially in regards to noise music. I mean, Chippendale just bashes away when he plays with Lightning Bolt, but the weirdness of Sightings and the intricacies of Lockie’s drum parts are in a sense way more infatuating than what Chippendale does. [Watch “The Loafer” live]
02. Tyler Trent (Brainiac) – I’m bummed I wasn’t cool enough as a ten-eleven-twelve year old to see Brainiac live, but…have you ever seen videos of Trent’s drumming? He fits in perfectly with that Russell Simins school of guys who look like The Animal when locked in and swinging and rocking. The guy was insane. Totally underrated, too. How many times do you hear Tyler Trent cited as a brilliant drummer? HOW MANY TIMES!? [Watch “To The Baby” live]
01. Jonathan Kane (Swans) – Again, I never got to see The Swans as a…well, as a one year old? I guess my parents just aren’t that cool. But Kane played drums on the 1982 self-titled EP, on the studio album Filth, and he appears on a few tracks from the incredible live album Body To Body, Job To Job, which I’ve heard described as the most suicidally-depressing live album ever recorded. The venerable Mark Prindle described Kane’s drumming on Filth by saying, “Man instinctively harbors an internal fondness for percussion that purposely tries to make one feel like he’s being whipped and slammed into a wall over and over again.” Once I realized he was left off the list, I knew I had to write a rebuttal to my own rebuttal because I felt like such an idiot for neglecting him. Jonathan Kane, one of the most important drummers of the past thirty years. [Listen to “Blackout”]
