2012: The Year Of The Wurster
Jan06

2012: The Year Of The Wurster

Since the world did not end a few days ago, anyone who writes about music and popular culture will now have to review the past year and tell us all who’s best. In the world of The Best Drummer In The World , it would be hard to find a better wrap up for the year than declaring Jon Wurster Drummer Of The Year 2012. Factually, this title could have been bestowed upon Jon for any of the past 20 years as he has played great drums on great records and toured with great bands for the bulk of these past 2 decades. Through the heyday of indie rock Jon recorded and  toured relentlessly as the drummer of Superchunk to the point where even I refer to him as “Jon Wurster of Superchunk” But this title has become too narrow a moniker for Jon. As of 2012 Jon Wurster of Superchunk is also (very much in no particular order) Jon Wurster of The Mountain Goats, Jon Wurster of Bob Mould band, Jon Wurster the comedy writer, Jon Wurster playing with Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar, Jon Wurster recording with Spl:t S:ngle with Jason Narducy and Brit Daniel (Spoon, Divine Fits). Giving Jon 35 “days off” in 2012. I spoke with Jon a couple of weeks after seeing my first Mountain Goats show at the Fillmore in San Francisco. The Best Drummer In The World: With so many projects, was there a point where you decided to become “The indie rock go-to drummer”? Jon Wurster:  “It just kind of happened. After Superchunk kind of ‘went on hiatus’ in 2002 I played in a couple of bands that were very different than Superchunk…more like ‘roots rock,’ which is the kind of stuff I played before I joined Superchunk. In Jan of ’86 I was living and playing in bands near Philadelphia. My brother was in college in Winston Salem, NC and I auditioned for and got a gig with this band from there called The Right Profile (named for the Clash song of the same name) who were a sort of cross between The Band and Exile-era Stones. I liked that kind of music when I was younger but by 1985-86 I was really into Husker Du, Replacements, Minutemen, R.E.M., that kind of stuff. I was 19 and within 3 months of moving down there and joining the band we were signed to Arista by Clive Davis. In the summer of 1987 we started making a record with Jim Dickinson and that kind of went south halfway into it. It just wasn’t sounding the way we, or JIm, for that matter,...

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