RIP Charlie Watts....

[Cypress]

Thanks! Finding a drummer that matched the group is one of the hardest things to find. Charlie was a Rolling Stone- no bout adoubt it!

There is a documentary on Netflix right now called "Count Me In" that is a good one about famous Drummers and who influenced them! Try to catch it if you can! One of the best films I've seen all summer! It even goes all the way back to the Benny Goodman era and shows some film clips of Gene Krupa- which was always one of my favorites! Yet, even that documentary couldn't even begin to scratch the surface I suppose because there just wasn't enough time to mention even Jeff Purcano of Toto and tons of others that didn't make the cut.

It seems Charlie and Ringo are/were Drummer's drummers and most everyone's favorite drummers. While Ringo only used a 4 drum set- Charlie just used a 5 drum set along with one boom- one crash- one rider- and a high hat stack his whole career! Quite simple- and straight to the point!

A great band can get away with having average guitarists if they have a high quality drummer., e.g. rolling stones, Nirvana, Beatles, etc.

I always thought Aerosmith could have gone from being a good band to being a great band if they had not tolerated the mediocre Joey Kramer on percussion.

Sid Vicious and Steve Jones could barely play guitars, but having a powerhouse drummer made the Sex Pistols sound good.

 

[David Jeffrey Spetch]

Just heard that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has died at the age of 80.

RIP to him.

80 is twice as long as most lived throughout so called evolution of our bloodlines in which these days politically etc. evolution instead is regression against the majority while the greedy, selfish ignorant, compulsive obsessive lying deceiving globalist crime organization seeks to create chaos because that is how they gain control. Perhaps Charlie just got sick of that and croaked because of the constant actions of this globalist crime organization over decades became way too much. And in the end RIP Charlie Watts

 

[ParachuteAdams]

A hunch, I’m leaning toward. It’s Hersh with his faggot cop boyfriend.

I’ll have to ask Tony Montana. See if he saw anything.

Wonder years let me show you what to do.

Feel up her t!tz and rub her bush. Ooh yeah!

 

[Nomad]

A great band can get away with having average guitarists if they have a high quality drummer., e.g. rolling stones, Nirvana, Beatles, etc.

I always thought Aerosmith could have gone from being a good band to being a great band if they had not tolerated the mediocre Joey Kramer on percussion.

Sid Vicious and Steve Jones could barely play guitars, but having a powerhouse drummer made the Sex Pistols sound good.

I think it would be more accurate to say that a great band can get away with having average musicians on any and all instruments if they have great song writing.

See John Prine for example.

I don't think the vast majority of music listeners and buyers sit and judge the technical abilities of the musicians who play their favorite songs. If the song has a catchy tune a good rhythm and words that speak to people, that is all that is really required.

All the other stuff like that which we are talking about, is the purview of we music geeks, armchair music critics and wannabe rock stars.

 

[Cypress]

I think it would be more accurate to say that a great band can get away with having average musicians on any and all instruments if they have great song writing.

See John Prine for example.

I don't think the vast majority of music listeners and buyers sit and judge the technical abilities of the musicians who play their favorite songs. If the song has a catchy tune a good rhythm and words that speak to people, that is all that is really required.

All the other stuff like that which we are talking about, is the purview of we music geeks, armchair music critics and wannabe rock stars.

I agree that it starts with great songs.

But I do not think it take an afficianado to appreciate how musicianship can really drive a song and make it sound better.

To this day, half a century after the Kinks released the original tune, the most popular and iconic version is the Van Halen rendition of You Really Got Me. Largely because the musicianship of Eddie and Alex Van Halen totally outclassed Dave Davies and the Kinks drummer. Probably David Lee Roths vocals were notable as well.

 

[Nomad]

I agree that it starts with great songs.

But I do not think it take an afficianado to appreciate how musicianship can really drive a song and make it sound better.

To this day, half a century after the Kinks released the original tune, the most popular and iconic version is the Van Halen rendition of You Really Got Me. Largely because the musicianship of Eddie and Alex Van Halen totally outclassed Dave Davies and the Kinks drummer. Probably David Lee Roths vocals were notable as well.

Well, keep in mind that instrumental wizardry, especially re: the electric guitar, increased exponentially with the arrival upon the scene of one Jimi Hendrix. After he came along, every guitar player had a new template to fashion their playing after.

Also, in the mid 60's when The Kinks first released that song, guitar and recording technology was much more primitive than it was by the late 70's when Van Halen came along. And let's not forget Eddie's "FrankenStrat" which he basically custom built himself out of a factory reject Fender Stratocaster body and neck, and modified to choke and squeeze the maximum amount of sound and playability out of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstrat

Plus there were all the new-fangled recording and amplifier sound effects that were available to him, which The Kinks did not have.

I'm just guessing here, but I would think that even when The Kinks performed that song, it sounded quite a bit better by the late 70's than when they performed it did back in the mid 60's.

And let's also keep in mind that, thanks to the kind of pioneering that bands like The Kinks, The Byrds, The Beatles, The Stones, etc, etc, etc, did during that decade, the pool of knowledge and technique had greatly increased by the time bands like Van Halen came along with all that groundwork having already been laid for them.

So basically, yes there is a difference in the level of musicianship from artist to artist that I suppose in certain cases can make a difference in the popularity and perceived quality of the musical output. Maybe Phish is a good example of that. But it doesn't always necessarily make the songs they record "better".

A lot of my favorite songs, utilize three chords on an acoustic guitar.

Once again, see: John Prine.

JMHO.

 

[Geeko Sportivo]

A great band can get away with having average guitarists if they have a high quality drummer., e.g. rolling stones, Nirvana, Beatles, etc.

I always thought Aerosmith could have gone from being a good band to being a great band if they had not tolerated the mediocre Joey Kramer on percussion.

Sid Vicious and Steve Jones could barely play guitars, but having a powerhouse drummer made the Sex Pistols sound good.

Bands do best if they don't produce themselves and leave production up to the expert engineers and producers. They have a way to give everyone in the band a little spotlight all of their own by bringing out the best in all of them as a band. And if this can be reproduced on stage live, it can make for the best performances as well. So even live performances have to be produced by someone other than the band.

I am not going to say that Aerosmith had a bad drummer, but I agree that the drummer is hardly ever mentioned. Even though Joe and Steve got most of the spotlight and credits, I think they were a pretty solid band at every instrument overall and one of America's best ever Classic Rock Bands. God! What would rock music be with out them?

Punk Music was never about great singers or musicians, but more about attitude and loud raw sporadic music- and then it started getting more melodic and ended up in the POP CHARTS and found it's place in Rock History.