Z / Shampoohorn - Jesus Clone ...not bad...heh-heh...
Introducing Zappa again! But it's not him we would imagine. This time his sons Dweezil Zappa and Ahmet Zappa. The group name is "Z" and the album name is "Shampoohorn". If you look closely at the logo Z, you can see that the initial letters of their names, "A" and "D", are hidden here. An easter egg type thing!
In this album, Dweezil is on guitar, and the "interesting hat" Mike Keneally is on keyboard, guitar, and the arrangement of harmony. Lots of drummers are joining: Terry Bozzio, Tal Bergman, Joe Travers, Morgan Ågren, Toss Panos, and etc. Terry Bozzio plays on the songs Rubberband, Bellybutton, and Them. As there isn't much information on the Internet actually and I don't have the CD with me, I am relying on my memory of reading the lyrics card (liner notes) more than 20 years ago when I was listening to it very often.
This time, let me check the song Jesus Clone, which includes heavy twin bass drums and odd meters always come with Zappa. I could not find who the drummer is...
(0:00-)
The beginning goes with a twin bass drums slash beat pattern. I think it's a little unusual since 4/4 and 9/8 come in turns. The cymbal notes with a mark like "A" on the 2nd-4th bars are muted (choked) right after hitting the cymbal. The cymbal notes with a circle on the 5th bar are by china cymbal, trash cymbal, or like.
(0:37)
The progression of the meter from the 10th bar is somewhat unusual as well. 1 bar in 4/4 and 3 bars in 5/4. That's pretty strange! Each measure, except for the accent on the cymbals on the 1st and 2nd beats, is cooked in lower tones with floor tom and kick. Sometimes there are linear phrases with cymbal, tom, and kick. Drum notes move very freely around the kit. I would get lost in those odd meters.
I would feel relieved as 4/4 continues from 18th bar. And you hear quite a heavy pattern. This is an example of heavy metal drums in quarter notes open high-hat. The right and left hands keep the big quarter notes while the kick fills busily the spaces, creating a loose and heavy metal groove. And from 26th bar, bad luck, it goes back to the strange progression...
The songs in this album are based on the vocabulary of metal music. On the other hand a lot of highlights worthy of listening to, such as a song with beautiful choir harmony (Doomed To Be Together, etc.) are included. I also recommend this album to you who love Progressive rock or inhering odd meters. The album has the songs that have more highly intense odd meters than Jesus Clone (for example Kidz Cereal and Shampoohorn). Listen to the odd songs and enjoy making yourself puzzled hard.
Thanks,
Farewell to Steve Vai - Kill The Guy With The Ball
"Kill The Guy With The Ball" where the Deen Castronovo's high-speed technical drum play shines from the Steve Vai's mini-album "Alien Love Secrets" in a row. Steve seemed to be playing well with his own weinie when he was little (†). Let's look at the part in the middle of the song this time.
(†) What do I mean by playing with a weinie?!
See the story in "When i was a little boy" recorded in Alien Love Secrets. http://www.vai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9673
(0:55-1:10)
What I would like to pay attention to is the triplet on the 3rd beat in the 6th bar. The history dates back more than 20 years ago. When Alien Love Secrets was released, I was very impressed with this part listening to it on a music listening system in Tower Records in Tokyo. At that time I told my friend "The tempo changes only around here!" and "It is amazing to play this in a band without difficulty!" but he had completely no idea what I was saying. Beyond time and space, hope my thought makes sense to you here and now...
The tempo seems to be changed, because the 1.5 quarter note phrase of the guitar starting from the 5th bar changes its rhythm to a triplet of the 3rd beat in the 6th bar without changing the melodic line. I wondered if I became old and too insensitive to be impressed. I think it is a bit typical listening again now...
(1:10-1:22)
Right after that, the "DaDa DaDad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Da" part and the drum solo of the next bar. The 32nd notes on 10th bar are very similar to the 32nd note phrase in intro part. We can see it has the 6 + 4 sequences (see the previous article). He had to play the same phrase, maybe because the tempo is very fast. But still the difficulty level is high even just filling it with 32nd notes.
The phrase with the sextuplets in the 12th bar is a bit hard to see, but if you look closely, 4 notes R-L-R-K are repeated. When you try to fill the space of such an 1 bar break with sextuplets, you may instantly roll toms with just your hands. It demonstrates that he is a superb drummer for placing the linear phrase incorporates kicks here.
Other parts of this song that I did not pick up here also have some interesting challenges in terms of rhythm. If you are not sure a certain part is ad-lib or not, I recommend to refer to another recording in the album Sound Theories. Most of the rhythmic challenges are written and intended.
Thanks,
Pistol on one hand, Steve Vai - Kill The Guy With The Ball in the heart
Steve Vai the guitarist of my respect is back. Introducing from the mini-album "Alien Love Secrets", which has fewer songs than full albums. I do not know what he thought when he decided to cover himself in silver powder, but his having such idea is also where I respect.
Speaking of Alien Love Secrets, of course, we should keep our ears on the song Kill The Guy With The Ball which includes the amazing high-speed technical play by the drummer Deen Castronovo. (The song title of Japanese release is like "The Ball of Slaughter".) Analyze the high-speed play at the beginning of the song and give it a try!
Also check the past Steve Vai related article:
(00:00-)
The song starts from the fill with snare and toms. In the 2nd bar I initially thought it is a fill with flams, but once I hear it in slow playback speed, I found it is with 32nd notes instead of flams.
From the 3rd bar, a strange guitar play sounds as if a man is speaking begins. At the same time, the drum part starts with a revolutionary triplet pattern the world never heard. He achieved the low-pitched and seamless high-speed triplets using the three: right-hand floor tom -> right-kick -> left-kick. While he continues these triplets, he changes the position of snare backbeats and occasionally strews cymbals and toms with the left hand. Also note that accent marks are attached to all the snare notes since the low-pitched triplets look too massive in the score to visibly see snare notes.
My eyes are getting tired because of the score with a lot of triplets. When you play it on a drum kit, your right hand and your both feet may soon approach your limit. However, we came only 25 seconds so far. The strange guitar play gets more excited from here, and just before the riff, the intro part reaches the climax with the blazing fast 32nd notes!
The length of the song so far is 36 seconds. My score transcription time per second (of a song) records the highest level ever. No, it really doesn't matter. The problem is the 32nd notes fill in 17th/18th bars. If you look closely, you see he did not play at random. The position of snare notes is the clue. Looking at the first part of the 32nd notes, we can see that 6 + 4 is repeated twice. Also, in the first 6 notes, the same sequence is repeated. That is, snare + high tom + floor tom + floor tom + kick + kick. The difficulty level is high because the stroke speed is simply fast, but I believe you can play it once you understand the 6 + 4 sequence.
I checked out the information about the super drummer Deen Castronovo, it seems that he is a good singer as well. Furthermore, the topic reffering to a sort of an arrest by assault comes out in search results in higher search relevance. It is unfortunate that Assault and Battery is the word used to represent drums part in a band. We came down to a bad end but see you soon.
Thanks,
