We’ve all got our “bucket list” of amazing artists we’d drop everything and give notice at our jobs to play with if they called. The Police, Soundgarden, Tigran, etc.
And this isn’t as far-fetched situation as you might think, especially for elite drummers like J.P. Bouvet, who cataloged his subbing with Periphery in his vlog, nor session/tour go-tos like Josh Freese, Steve Jordan, or Dave Elitch.
But it is a little far-fetched for us.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t indulge in the fantasy. We’ve just finished dinner. We’re settling down to watch an episode of Game of Thrones (a timely reference again ;), and suddenly the phone rings, and it’s…
Well, this week, for the inaugural installment of “Could You Do The Gig”, it’s Erykah.
And that’s no coincidence, because Erykah, particularly VH1 Soul/Chris Dave-era Erykah, is probably my number-one dream gig. Which doesn’t mean it would be easy.
Erykah is also a good first artist to feature on the 80/20 channel, because the thing that make her music difficult are the “pro skills” - the less than obvious stuff I detailed in my “5 ways pros can tell if a drummer’s legit” video. Stuff like learning songs quickly, locking up with the rest of the rhythm section, following non-verbal cues (and verbal ones), not tensing up onstage, etc.
Plus the whole “parking space” thing, for which I want to give credit to my friend Ian Allison’s friend Steve Goold. (I’m planning to do a whole video on the parking space soon and hopefully Steve will let me interview him.)
But yea - the parking space. On slow songs like Other Side of The Game and Tyrone, that parking space is hella-wide, and Erykah’s drummers - in particular Charles “Poogie” Bell on the live versions - parked that backbeat right in the center on every beat. That’s tough.
For this installment, I chose 3 iconic Erykah songs - two from the Live album with Poogie, one from the VH1 Soul show with Chris Dave.
How did I do? Think I could do the gig? And how would you do? Could you do the gig?
Check out the video to find out.
Enjoy!