Harmless writes a drum review and finds closure

[harmless]

I've been drinking, so I can't say much coherently. But I think it's to do with Jeff's very ornate "walking" bassline. It's more technical than most of what we've got from him recently, so it accentuates all of the funk in the drums (and even adds more, where Matt's playing is simpler). Matt and Jeff have clearly thought about how they're interacting with one another to underpin the song for everyone else. I'm pretty convinced Ed's delivery is so good here (and on MFS) because the rhythm section is so tight.

[Tj]

I've been drinking, so I can't say much coherently. But I think it's to do with Jeff's very ornate "walking" bassline. It's more technical than most of what we've got from him recently, so it accentuates all of the funk in the drums. Matt and Jeff have clearly thought about how they're interacting with one another to underpin the song for everyone else. I'm pretty convinced Ed's delivery is so good here (and on MFS) because the rhythm section is so tight.

I think you are right on about Ed in the two songs mentioned. MFS is really a band hitting it on all cylinders.

[Tj]

I've been drinking, so I can't say much coherently. But I think it's to do with Jeff's very ornate "walking" bassline. It's more technical than most of what we've got from him recently, so it accentuates all of the funk in the drums (and even adds more, where Matt's playing is simpler). Matt and Jeff have clearly thought about how they're interacting with one another to underpin the song for everyone else. I'm pretty convinced Ed's delivery is so good here (and on MFS) because the rhythm section is so tight.

[harmless]

This kind of locked-in interaction was what Dave A. and Jeff were so good at. They seemed to have even been friends, where I'm not sure Jeff and Matt really are. A good relationship between drummer and bassist usually means fireworks.

[Tj]

I always like Matt, but Dave A made me want to be a drummer. I picked up a guitar instead.

[Jorge]

I'm pretty convinced Ed's delivery is so good here (and on MFS) because the rhythm section is so tight.

Good observation

[harmless]

I'm playing the drums now (actually I haven't for a few years) because of Dave A.

[Tj]

When Matt gets taken to breakfast by Stone. I vote for Harmless to be#6

[Birds in Hell]

This kind of locked-in interaction was what Dave A. and Jeff were so good at. They seemed to have even been friends, where I'm not sure Jeff and Matt really are. A good relationship between drummer and bassist usually means fireworks.

Matt plays on bits of Jeff's recent solo album, I think they get along just fine.

It was Jeff, along with Ed, who wanted Dave fired.

[harmless]

This kind of locked-in interaction was what Dave A. and Jeff were so good at. They seemed to have even been friends, where I'm not sure Jeff and Matt really are. A good relationship between drummer and bassist usually means fireworks.

Matt plays on bits of Jeff's recent solo album, I think they get along just fine.

It was Jeff, along with Ed, who wanted Dave fired.

OK, correction taken. So maybe the rapport and chemistry was purely stylistic, at least for a time.

[diaglo]

I wish that Matt would play for Pearl Jam like he did for Wellwater Conspiracy: playful, adventurous, interesting. Listen to Hal McBlaine, Teen Lambchop or Felicity's Surprise. Or even the McCready/Ament/Cornell/Cameron cover of Hendrix's Land of the New Rising Sun. Matt's INCREDIBLE on those songs. Ghost notes and cymbal fun all around. He's clearly into it. Granted, those songs are more adventurous than the 4:4 straightforward nature of most PJ songs, but still. It's like he doesn't know what to do with a 4:4 song to spice it up.

Matt is one of my favorite drummers ever, but his recent playing with PJ has me scratching my head sometimes. Often times, it's fantastic (GSMF, Grievance, Gods' Dice .. hell, most of Binaural) but a lot of times its just serviceable. Like he's playing it safe on the last three records.


More on topic: Can't wait to read more.

[harmless]

I wish that Matt would play for Pearl Jam like he did for Wellwater Conspiracy: playful, adventurous, interesting. Listen to Hal McBlaine, Teen Lambchop or Felicity's Surprise. Or even the McCready/Ament/Cornell/Cameron cover of Hendrix's Land of the New Rising Sun. Matt's INCREDIBLE on those songs. Ghost notes and cymbal fun all around. He's clearly into it. Granted, those songs are more adventurous than the 4:4 straightforward nature of most PJ songs, but still. It's like he doesn't know what to do with a 4:4 song to spice it up.

Matt is one of my favorite drummers ever, but his recent playing with PJ has me scratching my head sometimes. Often times, it's fantastic (GSMF, Grievance, Gods' Dice .. hell, most of Binaural) but a lot of times its just serviceable. Like he's playing it safe on the last three records.

Often, yep. I'd add Riot Act to the great Matt records, but otherwise I agree with everything here.

[Tj]

I wish that Matt would play for Pearl Jam like he did for Wellwater Conspiracy: playful, adventurous, interesting. Listen to Hal McBlaine, Teen Lambchop or Felicity's Surprise. Or even the McCready/Ament/Cornell/Cameron cover of Hendrix's Land of the New Rising Sun. Matt's INCREDIBLE on those songs. Ghost notes and cymbal fun all around. He's clearly into it. Granted, those songs are more adventurous than the 4:4 straightforward nature of most PJ songs, but still. It's like he doesn't know what to do with a 4:4 song to spice it up.

Matt is one of my favorite drummers ever, but his recent playing with PJ has me scratching my head sometimes. Often times, it's fantastic (GSMF, Grievance, Gods' Dice .. hell, most of Binaural) but a lot of times its just serviceable. Like he's playing it safe on the last three records.

Often, yep. I'd add Riot Act to the great Matt records, but otherwise I agree with everything here.

I have always felt Matt was the star of Riot Act.

[harmless]

I wish that Matt would play for Pearl Jam like he did for Wellwater Conspiracy: playful, adventurous, interesting. Listen to Hal McBlaine, Teen Lambchop or Felicity's Surprise. Or even the McCready/Ament/Cornell/Cameron cover of Hendrix's Land of the New Rising Sun. Matt's INCREDIBLE on those songs. Ghost notes and cymbal fun all around. He's clearly into it. Granted, those songs are more adventurous than the 4:4 straightforward nature of most PJ songs, but still. It's like he doesn't know what to do with a 4:4 song to spice it up.

Matt is one of my favorite drummers ever, but his recent playing with PJ has me scratching my head sometimes. Often times, it's fantastic (GSMF, Grievance, Gods' Dice .. hell, most of Binaural) but a lot of times its just serviceable. Like he's playing it safe on the last three records.

Often, yep. I'd add Riot Act to the great Matt records, but otherwise I agree with everything here.

I have always felt Matt was the star of Riot Act.

Possibly why I love it so much.

[96583UP]

I would say you should do a live drum review , but we all know that Matt plays the same spritzy overly uptempo straight beat for every single pearl jam song performed live, so it would only be one review.

[harmless]

Yup. That would be homework for me, since I'm not all that bothered about PJ live anyway, let alone Matt live

He was great on Live on 2 Legs, TB2000, Live at the Garden and Reading Festival 2006, I'll leave it there.

[evenslow]

Thanks for coming through harmless. This is fantastic.

[Sgt. Crackpot]

Thanks for coming through harmless. This is fantastic.

[harmless]

Sorry I've not done this yet today.

Placeholder.

[harmless]

Mind Your Manners

Luckily for me, the relative disappointment that this song's intro is fleeting, and that afterwards it remains a punk-metal hybrid a la Motorhead (apart from a return to the intro via an outro lead from Mike), was short-lived. Because over the weeks since we got it, my enjoyment of "Mind Your Manners" grew exponentially, especially given the fierce vocal-performance from Ed (who has clearly been thinking, since Backspacer, about how to keep the aggression in his voice without shredding it even further as he ages). But... we're here to talk about drums.

That intro: an 80's metal riff-tastic announcement, with Matt transitioning halfway from a rhythm that begins with the snare (knocking two beats off the bar), into the same funk rhythm in a standard bar-shape: ghost-notes aplenty, and some subtle hi-hat play which, on a good day, reminds me of a 50-year-old (whisper it) Dave A. Don't get me wrong; it hasn't got quite the same amount of joyous abandon, and is not accompanied by the abrasive, thrashing guitars of "Go". But it's a good start.

And then the rest of the song is that aforementioned thrash metal / punk hybrid, recalling the Dead Kennedies (according to Mike) and other punk bands that Mike, and others on RM, could name, as well as Motorhead and possibly, if we're being very kind, early-era Metallica. I've never been a punk fan, so to that end, I'm glad that this song is a (possibly bland, if you're a purist) mashup between these two styles. If at this point I'm talking mostly about the song as a whole, rather than just the drums, it's because the drums, I'm afraid, aren't very exciting. They display most of what disappoints me about Matt. The good news is that the rest of the song more than makes up for it.

So what am I disappointed by? Firstly, let's get this out of the way: this song is, strangely, the "thinnest"-sounding song on the album. It has very little of the fullness, the roundness, the depth, that other songs on the album have (thank God). The snare isn't loud enough in the mix, the bass drum isn't quite deep enough (although it's better on the FLAC / actual CD than on the leak, harmless!). It's just all oddly tinny.

Now that's out the way, we need to talk about drum fills. Those fucking non-fills... those very simple, not-very-quick 1-2-3-4 fills, when anything else -- more flams, more thrashing around on cymbals for accent and texture (a la Dave A.), some falling triplets across the toms perhaps -- would have lifted this song into the stratosphere. Almost every fill in this song is of the simple 8-beat ilk, which I could perform myself. Matt, if you're reading this, I know you can play interesting fills: you do it all over Binaural and Riot Act. That gigantic fill you do into the second verse of "Love Boat Captain" is stupendous. Why not here?

The pauses: now, I've read a few people say they don't like the starts and stops in this song, which are less traditional punk and more contemporary pop/skate-punk. I like these stops, but I wish Matt had played some great fill-work in one or two of those too, to bridge the gaps. Like he did on Evacuation, say, or like Dave A. did on "Alive" (and Matt doesn't do on "Alive").

There is too much ride cymbal in this song! Matt, for fuck's sake, please buy three china cymbals (in the full knowledge you'll only use one of them, but at least you have three reminders to do so) and have Brendan O'Brien confiscate your ride cymbal and vow to never return it until you've met me on Boscombe High Street, Dorset, for a personal (and free) Q&A. The first questions I'd ask you: "Why is your hi-hat hardly ever open on the big climaxes (with a few exceptions: the gradually opening hi-hat on "Got Some" is one of the details lifting the song out of mediocre territory)? Why so much use of the ride cymbal?" I'd understand if Soundgarden was a jazz band and you were carrying influence over, but... look, even Thomas Haake of Meshuggah is a jazz drummer, and... never mind.

This song grows like a rash. It's infectious, with an unusually bright chorus for a punk song, but it's good. Sometimes really good. Ed is great. But "Mind Your Manners" is my least favourite drumming song on Lightning Bolt. The most frustrating thing is that if this song had been written for Binaural (and I'm happy to say that any of these three rockers are good enough for that great placement in the PJ canon), it could have been my favourite drumming song on the album. I know Matt is capable of creatively and thoughtfully colouring these fast songs, but he doesn't here.

This simplicity, this "back-to-basics" approach... it's a punk thing, right? A lot of the time, yes it is, so at least you can say Matt's drumming on "Mind Your Manners" is probably very appropriate, if not exciting. But hey, that's why I don't listen to much punk. And that's why I infuriated a lot of people when I raged about Matt's Lightning Bolt vignette (in which he drums to "Mind Your Manners" for about a minute). It was serviceable, but an ultimately bland, uninteresting waste of time if you're wanting to be blown away by some drumming skillz. It was nothing that I myself couldn't have played, and I don't know a drummer who wouldn't have found it slightly embarrassing as a drumming showcase. Was it *meant* to be a drumming showcase? No, it's just a fun teaser for fans to watch on the Internet, so all in all, it's fine and does its job. But...

Mike McCready, do you ever hang out with Travis Barker? If not, for the sake of all future pop-punk songs, you probably should start.