Yes, he does have a midi port for synchronization on the back of his neck.

January 17, 2007 7:25 PM

Man has become machine.
posted by bigmusic (63 comments total)

Here's a how-to. And I mean "how to" the loosest possible sense.
posted by bigmusic at 7:25 PM on January 17, 2007

Whoa. Nice.

As long as we are talking about insane drummers:

Chris Pennie solo at a drum clinic - he's the drummer for the Dillinger Escape Plan. It took me a bit to really "get" the rhythm he is doing, but it really kicks in around 4 minute mark.

Here's another Pennie clip, doing his part for the song Panasonic Youth.
posted by rsanheim at 7:33 PM on January 17, 2007

Jesus. I was all ready to jump on the "wha, youtube on a poorly described link, wtf?!" bandwagon but damn that was good.
posted by mathowie at 7:37 PM on January 17, 2007

I sure love me some drum 'n bass. That was fun.
posted by mullingitover at 7:40 PM on January 17, 2007

That reminded me of this, which was linked on MeFi at some point. Truly, the intersection of techno and live performance is the future of music.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 7:42 PM on January 17, 2007

One more - jojo
posted by rsanheim at 7:43 PM on January 17, 2007

man is better than machine
posted by brevator at 7:44 PM on January 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

His lymphatic glands must produce pure expresso.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:47 PM on January 17, 2007

that...i'm...wow. no idea this stuff existed.

thanks!
posted by Stynxno at 7:51 PM on January 17, 2007

Aww. And here I was hoping for a Best-of-Kraftwerk FPP.
posted by mykescipark at 7:54 PM on January 17, 2007

Sorry to be the first hater, as I do admire their focus and expression, but some instruments, such as the harpsichord, the Reba McEntire, and the drum kit, make my ears beg for mercy.
posted by peeedro at 7:57 PM on January 17, 2007

Was this an LTJ Bukem cover?

It makes me sad kids choose this over DeLlilo.
posted by four panels at 7:59 PM on January 17, 2007

No, this was cool. But it needed more swing.
posted by geekhorde at 8:02 PM on January 17, 2007

Great stuff... sort of dispels the image of a techno musician hitting the MIDI "start" button and then kicking back to wait for payday.
posted by zek at 8:06 PM on January 17, 2007

I'm pretty sure that the sampler is a Roland SP-808, but I think he could have sequenced it better so that he could have done a lot more than hi-hat taps and crashes to accompany the preformed factory beats. But maybe the manual filter sweeps and pad punching is part of the charm. The boy does keep good time.
posted by isopraxis at 8:13 PM on January 17, 2007

I saw him perform at Phoenixfest a couple of years ago. He can keep that up for hours.
posted by Mars Saxman at 8:16 PM on January 17, 2007

It's the liveness that makes his performance rawk. Sure his little button-pushing looping device is adding to the complexity, but as the village elders say, "It Takes Fast Hands To Keep Up With The Machines."
posted by Milkman Dan at 8:18 PM on January 17, 2007

Amen!
posted by carsonb at 8:26 PM on January 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

i'll still take bonham any day
posted by tsarfan at 8:33 PM on January 17, 2007

Meh. He was just reading it off that piece of paper.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:40 PM on January 17, 2007

What's amazing to me about live D&B is that they're playing music that was never intended to be played by people. It's an incredible technical feat.

I absolutely love, love, love the new technology coming out for music making and I can't get enough of watching people use it in new ways. We're really in an amazing musical era and most people don't recognize it, yet.
posted by empath at 8:48 PM on January 17, 2007

He's even more amazing here.
posted by SteelyDuran at 8:54 PM on January 17, 2007

But he really needs a bass player.
posted by geekhorde at 9:06 PM on January 17, 2007

Oh man, I want to see the guy live... I could dance for hours.
posted by Kattullus at 9:07 PM on January 17, 2007

Needs more cowbell.
posted by paulsc at 9:28 PM on January 17, 2007

That was pretty impressive.

While I was watching it I couldn't help but think that it'd make a good drum track for high speed baroque music. I wonder if anyone can play a fugue that fast...
posted by benign at 9:50 PM on January 17, 2007

At first I was all "Well, he's not THAT great a drummer." Then I realized that, well, he's not just a drummer, he's a performer. He's definitely a good drummer, but that's not the whole story. Although I question his taste in music (bland cardboard techno/DnB *snore*), he's definitely fun. Thanks for a nifty link!
posted by eparchos at 9:52 PM on January 17, 2007

That shirt gives him power.
posted by hototogisu at 9:58 PM on January 17, 2007

empath: I absolutely love, love, love the new technology coming out for music making and I can't get enough of watching people use it in new ways. We're really in an amazing musical era and most people don't recognize it, yet.


Amen to that!
posted by LooseFilter at 10:18 PM on January 17, 2007

If you're going to drum like a drum machine just use a drum machine and be done with it.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:48 PM on January 17, 2007

machine is better than man

Aww. And here I was hoping for a Best-of-Kraftwerk FPP.
posted by mykescipark at 7:54 PM PST on January 17 [+]
[!]


word.
posted by dminor at 10:50 PM on January 17, 2007

buddy rich just contacted me from the afterlife, and said that that cocksucker couldn't keep a beat if his life depended on it, and that he was clammin' all over this joint. also, he stated that he had played with the greatest fucking musicians in the world.
posted by Hat Maui at 10:58 PM on January 17, 2007

then he said that if this guy picks up a drumstick one more time to trigger a midi sequence that makes it seem like its him hitting the snare.. ooh.. then he is really going to get angry and play some swingin ass shit.
posted by dminor at 11:11 PM on January 17, 2007

Amen Break to that!
posted by anthill at 11:19 PM on January 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

masturbation.

Give me some music that has drums that I want to listen to.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 12:09 AM on January 18, 2007

Meh. Let us now praise Mr. Art Blakey
posted by aladfar at 12:19 AM on January 18, 2007

Nice!

Immediately I thought of AB Didgeridoo Oblivion from Byron Bay, Australia. Sadly, I can't find any videos of his incredible performances. He performs with a didge on a stand right up to his lips with a pickup and effects on it. For his hands he has a dumbek or an electric hand drum synth (an old, rare, Korg Wavedrum), cymbals and other drumpads, a synth of some kind, and a kick pedal. Really amazing stuff.

Also, I believe, from Byron Bay is Wild Marmalade. Two drummers and a guy on a didgeridoo. Absolutely great live.
posted by redteam at 12:51 AM on January 18, 2007

I'm so old I remember Buddy Rich.

I'll figure out the HTML thingy one of these days, but for the cut&paste-enabled:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk6smBERb_U&mode=related&search=
posted by Clave at 1:21 AM on January 18, 2007

yeah, well, i saw this clip once from the 50's on late night pbs a few years ago where this kid played a set on the drums that puts this guy to shame...and by kid i mean 8-year-old. (it was pretty cute...wish i could find it on the you tubes) he was like buddy rich good...

and peedro, gotta agree (except for the harpsichord...i dig that groovy aadams family sound) ...actually got dragged to a reba concert once in baton rouge. it was unsane. she had on a stack of like ten dresses, one for each number (the first was this gawd-awful wedding dress monstrosity attached to a wall that she broke out of like the incredible hulk) when she ran out of dresses she asked the audience "hey, who here likes TV?!"...thank god i was high.
posted by sexyrobot at 2:44 AM on January 18, 2007

Meh... It ended too soon :-P
posted by Goofyy at 2:50 AM on January 18, 2007

Awesome stuff. I'll tell you, I much prefer listening to D&B when I know there's a real human who has real talent and spent real time practicing to perform it.

And Clave, excellent link. That roll at the end was... amazing. I didn't know you could get it so quiet.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:52 AM on January 18, 2007

To be able to play along with a tight, fast, pre-recorded beat that seamlessly shows excellent technical skill (at keeping time). So what, the guy can't swing, and the beat is mechanical by nature... maybe he would be terrible in an improv situation with other musicians. But he's damn good at what he does.
posted by rxrfrx at 4:02 AM on January 18, 2007

he's the absolute greatest!


...or so i thought until i bought a metronome.
posted by jcterminal at 5:32 AM on January 18, 2007

Buddy Rich loved his work. You can see it in his face.
posted by ardgedee at 5:35 AM on January 18, 2007

Well, it's not exactly Cozy Powell live, is it?
(Not the point, I suppose...)
posted by Jody Tresidder at 5:50 AM on January 18, 2007

See also: Dosh. (and on YouTube, too)
posted by ScottUltra at 6:21 AM on January 18, 2007

Awesome. Thanks!
posted by Floach at 6:27 AM on January 18, 2007

I guess you'd have to be a D&B fan to enjoy that clip, much less learn anything from it. Although I guess I DID learn something from it, since before today I thought the term "D&B" was referring to Dave & Busters Food & Fun restaruant / game-room.
posted by matty at 6:49 AM on January 18, 2007

Huh, that's the radio station run out of my old highschool.
posted by piratebowling at 7:05 AM on January 18, 2007

I love DnB, and I loved that clip. I don't have a link, but Rahzel has done some crazy d-n-b beatboxing with Roni Size, well worth a listen.
posted by everichon at 8:03 AM on January 18, 2007

He's good but he really needs to team up with someone to give him a fuller sound. I couldn't really hear anything new going on after about halfway thru. It also sounded like he had some kind of hi-hat sample running on the quarter notes or so to keep time. Not to beat on what he was doing cause it sounded great. Definitely could have used some squeltchy low throbbin bass though.

Team that guy up with one of those crazy ass French hip hop sampling DJs that build songs up from scratch and you'd have quite the show.
posted by daHIFI at 9:27 AM on January 18, 2007

Who needs a sampler?

Street DnB.
posted by Espoo2 at 9:43 AM on January 18, 2007

Animal (the muppet) vs. Buddy Rich
taken from Spanish-dubbed Muppet Show
posted by LionIndex at 9:47 AM on January 18, 2007

I was hoping this would be about music. Oh well...
posted by cccorlew at 10:22 AM on January 18, 2007

billy cobham not even mentioned? retarded.
posted by phaedon at 11:12 AM on January 18, 2007

i agree that any great jazz drummer blows this guy away, and in my opinion any drummer from any other genre, but it is still pretty cool. sort of reminds me of the Bad Plus drummer covering Aphex Twin's Flim (not a good clip), without the aid of triggers or a sampler. not that triggers or samplers are bad, in fact this is my favorite blog after the blue.
posted by crawfishpopsicle at 11:31 AM on January 18, 2007

Brilliant. Thanks for this post!!
posted by basicchannel at 11:32 AM on January 18, 2007

I cannot say enough positive things about this guy.
posted by sveskemus at 12:23 PM on January 18, 2007

Hey cccorlew, go away.
posted by hellphish at 1:29 PM on January 18, 2007

That's a bit of fun, but a dire tune. Not one we are going to be humming (or tapping) around the old joanna when we are in the home.
posted by asok at 2:33 PM on January 18, 2007

Woah.

(Ok, wtf?)
posted by Luddite at 4:41 PM on January 18, 2007

all the haters who said it's mostly samples should watch the second link. Much better than the radio spot.

And, last commentor, nice handle. =]
posted by TechnoLustLuddite at 5:39 PM on January 18, 2007

When jazz fans are competing with techno kids.... techno wins.
posted by eparchos at 5:07 PM on January 19, 2007