I Was A Teenage John Bonham
The above photo is taken from the 1984 Riverside High School yearbook in sunny WIndsor Ontario Canada. My home town. The kid with the shit eating grin with John Bonham beside his photo is yours truly. The full story is this. You know when they do yearbook photos in school? They herd all the kids down to the gym or auditorium where they’ve got the local photographer set up to take the photos. So our class gets called down and my mind starts plotting a little harmless scam. I already knew that to drink alcohol you had to be 19 or have a fake ID. So the concept of a fake ID was already known and here it seemed was an opportunity to get a real fake ID. So we waited in line and when I got to the front the administrator asked my name. I blurted out “John Bohnam” and the game was on. She didn’t even bat an eye. The guy took the picture and that was that. Except 2 weeks later after the company processed our student ID cards, I was sitting in homeroom waiting for Mr Cousineau (a former pro football player) to bust me for impersonating a drum god. He read through the cards that had been sent to him one by one. Since they were sorted alphabetically, I started sweating when almost instantly (Since Bonham starts with B) he looked up at me after after a few seconds and said something like “Ian it seems like somethings wrong with your card” I instantly ran up to the front of the class and basically snatched it out of his hand and said something like “oh, ok sir, I’ll make sure it gets fixed” making sure I got the card in the process. I acted like I was curious when I looked at it. I said something like ” Weird” as I starred at the most awesome piece of contraband I had ever seen : A student ID card with my picture and John Bonham written beside it. I knew I was about to be a legend. At least in my own mind. At lunch time, I went to hang out with all my stoner friends and waited until they had all shown and laughed at each other’s pictures when I unleashed my prize. I was a teenage John Bonham and I had the ID to prove it. This was met with awe. Or maybe we were all very high. But the story doesn’t end there. 2 other chapters would unfold over the next 2 years. The end of the year came and I wasn’t...
Guided By The Mountain Goats
Alright, here’s a confession. Or 2. I saw Guided By Voices on the side stage of Lollapalloza in Chicago on the Bee Thousand tour. Thats not the confession. I was in awe and somewhat confused. I thought, “Who are these older than me guys in striped spandex rocking out like TheWho?” Next day I ran out and bought their latest at the time album, Bee Thousand and listened to it once. Thats part of the confession. Once. The confession is, I was so in my own box that I listened to it once. I thought “I think these songs are good, but the production sucks”. Now, that’s a confession. I didn’t like what came to be my favorite band because the “drum sound” wasn’t to my liking? I suck. Later, when the production value of GBV improved to my satisfaction on Mag Earwhig, my guitar player was playing it on our way to practice and I asked “Who is this?” “New Guided By Voices was his reply. I ran out the next day and bought it and listened to nothing but Mag Earwhig for at least 3 months. At least 3 times a day all the way through. No exaggeration. Obsessed. I turned my best friend onto it and we would call each other and talk about what song we were obsessing over that afternoon. It was insane. And awesome. They were coming through Metro on tour and we went to see them. We were so pumped to be seeing them on this tour. Couldn’t wait to hear every song that we knew by heart by now. Then the unthinkable happened. We went to the show. 3 hours long. Probably 50 songs. All awesome. Not a single song from Mag Earwhig until the first encore. (It was “I Am A Tree”, in case you’re wondering) You have to understand what a shock it is to hear a 3 hour show filled with the greatest songs you’ve never heard. Sensory overload. Which became the name of the Guided By Voices game for years to come. Ran out the next day and bought literally all the GBV albums in the slot at the record store (A record store is a place where you used to be able to go and….) Alien Lanes, Under The Bushes Under The Stars, The Grand Hour, and of course Bee Thousand were all they had. Dove in and listened to NOTHING else for the next 18 months (year and a half of complete emersion in all things GBV to the complete exclusion of any other music except the bands I was playing in at the time)...
A Review Of Reviewing Drums And Drummer
Ok, I hate to paint myself into a corner with a generality. For example, I don’t really like a double bass pedal. Or double bass. This is a generality. I love Slayer. I love Metallica. I love all kinds of metal. There’s lots of double bass in metal. See A generality closes the doors on observation and experience. A generality is an easy way to set something aside and not confront it. It is the end of logic and communication. I am guilty as the next guy of holding onto my generalities. I like what I like and I like drummers. I’ve heard it said that the drummer is the most important part of the band. Led Zeppelin hung it up after John Bonham passed away, knowing that it would never be the same with another drummer. THe WHo on the other hand tried to replace Keith Moon with Kenny Jones. Kenny is a great drummer for the Small Faces and Faces. But he is not Keith Moon. More importantly, The Who were not The Who without Keith Moon. That is not to say that they didn’t still write good songs or that Pete didn’t have something to say or that they should have hung it up. It’s their life and they have the right to do whatever they feel is right for them. So I want to simply point out that I have some basic rules for myself when writing reviews. And I have my own rules that govern the music I like and the music I listen to. And one of the reasons I want to start reviewing records is to challenge those rules within myself. One of my self imposed rules is that I don’t like to tear people down or criticize other people. Especially artists and musicians. If I don’t like something I probably won’t review it. This is because I believe it takes more guts to put your art out there than any thing in life, and I wouldn’t want to have someone second guess my art. I do my own art to express myself and thats reason enough. So to this degree, most of the reviews on this site will be positive. I plan on finding like minded people to write reviews, but will probably want only positive reviews because of my philosophy that art should be supported, even if it’s not my bag. I admit, I’m jaded. I’m guilty of saying to people “the music business is dead” And I’m willing to admit that I could be totally wrong about that. I hope I am. In fact I’m sure I am wrong....
Update On The Updates
Now that I’ve imported all my busking/street drumming posts from the other site all the interviews have been bumped down. So, to see sweet and graphically satisfying (meaning the type is inside the lines and stuff) interviews of Band of Horses , El Ten Eleven, The New Pornograhers, Buke and Gass, Sloan, Local H, Nada Surf, Broken Social Scene, Cheap Trick, Why?, Bear In Heaven, Sonny And The Sunsets, St Vincent, White Mystery, Delta Spirit, The Golden Dogs, Bazan & Band Click on these here links or just go to the Interviews link thing above. Thanks to all the great drummers who’ve participated in these interviews. Coming in the next couple of days, the lost interviews of Dinosaur Jr and Fang Island. Onward!...
Street Drumming Project
So, I’ve been busking for the past several months. Since my web skills were lacking, I just started a new blog to document all the action on the streets. Now that my web skills are dialed, I’m going to import all that content into here. Most of the articles are tagged in the Street Drumming Project or the Life and Living sections. Plan to interview some street drummers and stuff too....