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Thursday, October 15, 2009

10 Great Punk Drummers

Historically speaking, music journalists haven't been known for pointing out the musicianship in punk rock. For some reason there's always been this stigma that the sound didn't really require all that much talent to perform.

Sure, a lot of the appeal punk had in the beginning was that you didn't need to be a maestro at your instrument to play it. It was a reactionary move in stark contrast to the popular progressive (Genesis, ELP, Yes) and arena rock (Crosby, Stills, and Nash, The Eagles) bands of the time.

As punk started developing, the guidelines for what the genre actually meant began to widen. Players started coming into the scene who had been playing in everything from jazz to rockabilly bands and that's when things got really exciting. Besides, why shouldn't punk rock have incredible musicians too?

IGN has put together a list of 10 great punk drummers who should get highlighted for their stellar work and influence on genre (and music in general).

Some of the guys on the list are millionaires while some still have to work day jobs to pay the rent so we've run the entire gamut. Let us know what you think…we can take it.




Bill Stevenson
The Descendents/ALL/Black Flag/Only Crime/The Lemonheads

This punk rock veteran is one of the most creative players you'll find in the genre. Being clever and gifted in his own right, Stevenson knows how to truly serve a song while always keeping things interesting. His early work with The Descendents has influenced legions of punk drummers and his more recent performances with ALL and Only Crime prove that he's always injecting his style with new flavor and techniques. These days he's been concentrating more time on producing acts like Rise Against but here's to hoping Stevenson gets back on the drum throne sooner than later.

Travis Barker
Blink-182/+44/Boxcar Racer/The Aquabats

Although he's become a reality show star and tabloid target in the last few years, that doesn't mean Travis Barker still isn't one of the greatest drummers the punk world has yet to birth. In the span of a 3-minute pop/punk song, he'll rock as hard as a death metal drummer in one section while flipping it over to a jazz styled backbeat the next. His fluidity knows no boundaries. It's no wonder he looks up to forward-thinking musicians like Stewart Copeland (The Police) for inspiration. If you really want to hear Barker let loose, seek out Blink-182's The Mark, Tom and Travis Show. On the disc it's almost like someone told the guy he had one night left to play before he died; it's that relentless.

Earl Hudson
Bad Brains

Hudson's wild playing style has been informed by reggae, go-go music, and even heavy metal but his early material is pure punk rage. On their seminal self-titled debut album he lets loose with little mercy but there's always a steadiness lurking behind it all. On songs like "Banned In D.C." and "Sailin' On," Hudson sometimes seems like the only guy in the band gluing the chaos together. The way he locks in with bassist Daryl Jenifer on the more mid-tempo sections also shows he was capable of way more than just balls-out velocity.

Tré Cool
Green Day/Foxboro Hot Tubs

Punk went multi-platinum crazy in the '90s and Green Day were one of the biggest reasons for it. Everyone knows Billy Joe Armstrong is a wonderful singer/songwriter but rarely do you see anyone talk about GD's drummer, Tré Cool. Record after record Cool lays down track after flawless track of pop/punk gold. It's his attention to detail that makes him so important to the California band. He never gets in the way of the group's gigantic hooks but he sneaks in interesting little flourishes that always make the songs better. What more can a band want?

Josh Freese
The Vandals + a lot of other bands and session work

Freese is one the most sought after session drummers in rock today. Some of his credits include Nine Inch Nails, The Offspring, and Guns N' Roses among countless others. But Freese got on the map in the first place through his work with punk jokesters The Vandals. On albums like Hitler Bad, Vandals Good he proves that even lighthearted punk rock doesn't have to feature lightweight playing. His footwork is impeccable and his metronome-like is nothing short of dazzling. Freese truly earns the big money his drumming has brought him.

Tommy Ramone
The Ramones

Where else would most of the drummers on this list be without Tommy Ramone? The Queens, NY legend pretty much wrote the blueprint that 9 out of 10 punk drummers follow to this day whether they know it or not. Ramone took the raw and loose feel of his garage-rock origins and coupled it with the speed kicked guitars of bandmate Johnny Ramone and helped invent an entire style of music. If you don't own the first three Ramones albums, your punk collection just isn't complete yet.


Jordan Burns
Strung Out

Any metalheads reading this who question whether punk drummers can throw down definitely need to check Jordan Burns out. His catalog of work with Strung Out will satisfy even the staunchest critics. His precision never wavers; even during the fastest and most frenzied moments. Where a lot of their peers slow down and simplify their material with age, Burns and Strung Out seem to do the complete opposite. On 2007's Blackhawks Over Los Angeles the band stepped further into their marriage of punk and speed-metal influenced technicality coming out with the most exciting songs of their career. They couldn't have done it without a pro like Burns keeping it all together.

Dave Wagenschutz
Lifetime/Kid Dynamite/Paint It Black/Good Riddance/Ink & Dagger

One of the hardest hitters on this list, Wagenschutz has cut his teeth with some of the most celebrated punk bands of the last 10-15 years. Everything about his style is no-nonsense. Some of his performances even border on primal. He might not be name-checked in interviews all that often but that doesn't mean his work on essential albums from Kid Dynamite and Good Riddance hasn't helped an army of Warped Tour drummers learn their trade. Maybe it's his difficult to pronounce last name or that fact that none of his bands have had a hit record, but this punk rocker deserves some respect.

Pete Finestone
Bad Religion

Throughout the mid to late '90s the "Fat Wreck" sound was all the rage. The tag was named after the bands who recorded for the Fat Wreck Chords label, namely Lagwagon, No Use For A Name, and Strung Out. Most of the drummers in these outfits grew up on a steady diet of Bad Religion. The L.A. band fought through the '80s while most of the bands they were surrounded with were playing pop kissed hard-rock, these old-schoolers stubbornly let their punk flag fly. Bad Religion's drummer throughout the entire period was Pete Finestone. Sure, the guy was never on the cover of Modern Drummer or anything but his hypersonic playing style has been copied so many times he should be getting some kind of special royalty for it.

Nicky "Topper" Headon
The Clash

The Clash really understood the rebel spirit of punk. In true middle finger fashion, the UK troublemakers never stuck with any one sound for very long. In their short but brilliant career they would go on to help introduce brigades of disenchanted listeners to reggae, Latin-jazz, hip-hop, and whatever else songwriters Mick Jones and Joe Strummer felt like injecting into their songs. There weren't many drummers who would be up to the task of following whatever style those two songwriters threw at them. But Nicky "Topper" Headon seemed to revel in the challenge. His pedigreed influences certainly helped his confidence. When you grow up and you're favorite drummer is Billy Cobham (Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra), you're definitely on the right track. Unfortunately Headon would be kicked out of the band for his drug use in 1982 but not before he would leave a legacy of thrilling drum performances behind.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Punk Rock: An Examination


How A Youth Movement Became a Revolution




Having just come out of a time of free love and socio-political change, the youth of the late 70s felt something needed to belong to them. Having been through a stage of music where excessive skill and connections were necessary to make it anyway, the youth grew tired of seeing the same thing on stage day in and day out. Also, growing into a revolutionary time with parents from a strict age caused a severe backlash against tradition - thus, punk rock was born.

Anarchy in the UK

With anger increasing against the royal family and the rich when much of England was poor, young John Lydon and his friends had no money with which to buy instruments, nor did they know anyone with the connections to help them. After meeting Steve Jones and Paul Cook, Lydon was introduced to SEX store owner, Malcolm Maclaren. After being asked to join the band with bassist, Glen Matlock, the four took on the name the Sex Pistols (Vicious: The Art of Dying Young, 2004, Paytress, Mark, Sanctuary Publishing; London).

Never having learned how to play instruments, nor having the money to buy them, the Sex Pistols stole all of their equipment from various stores. With this in mind, they began writing and rehearsing and soon became one of the must-see acts on the London music scene.

The word "punk" was attributed to the movement as it portrayed an image of young, ingracious people behaving like inappropriately, and speaking loudly against society - punk being a derivative of the 1687 word for "worthless or inferior" and then the 1917 usage of "punk" for "young hoodlum" or "criminal's apprentice" ("punk (1) and (2)", Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010, Harper, Douglas, accessed on March 23rd, 2010).

Eventually, Glen Matlock was replaced with John Beverley - or, more famously, Sid Vicious - and became the quintessential punk rocker (Vicious: The Art of Dying Young). The style was given to the movement when Maclaren gave the boys free clothing from his shop, attaching a sexual and masochistic overtone to punk music, while keeping in form with its social, political and economic roots (Vicious: The Art of Dying Young).


Read more at Suite101: Punk Rock: An Examination: How A Youth Movement Became a Revolution http://punkskamusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/punk-rock-an-examination#ixzz0odhYM0g8

Beat on the Brat

Soon this new brand of do-it-yourself rock, which varied incredibly from the old school style of great technical skill on the instrument, took off in the USA as well. The punk group The Ramones soon became one of the best selling groups in North America.

What was so attractive, it would appear, to the youth about punk rock was that not everyone could aspire to be a Jimi Hendrix, but pretty much anyone could grow up to be a Johnny Ramone.

With a maximum of five or six chords per song, and often the same chords in every song - just listen to The Ramones: An Anthology - The Ramones inspired a generation of young musicians that they could, indeed, become famous and reach millions with the little training they had.

Punk After the Initial Wave

As punk grew in popularity, record companies jumped at the chance to sign up any and all punk bands that sprung up, causing an overflow on the market. It also caused strife amongst the musicians themselves, saying that those who signed had "sold out".

As the movement grew, musicans began to grow in skill and created the new punk rock and hardcore movements. Thus, keeping its political streak, punk became about the skill with the instruments, as well as pointed, anti-establishment lyrics ("The History of Punk", About.com, 2010, Cooper, Ryan, accessed on March 23rd, 2010).

Punk Today and Tomorrow

Now, punk has slumped into punk-pop/humour bands such as Blink-182 and Sum41 - a strange obsession with numbers occurring across names - and has also fallen into the more known, modern movement of "emo" - emotive hardcore - which keeps punk stylings, but replaces political content with sappy, angsty lyrics. Some real punk bands do still kick around, but unfortunately due to overexposure, the punk that was is not the punk that is.