Early Access - Catching Up With Forrest Rice + Clyde Stubblefield Funk Beats

In 2016, I had no business being welcomed into the West Coast drum family with open arms. I had a tiny YouTube channel, and didn’t even play all that well.

But that didn’t stop Forrest Rice from inviting me over to shed, and letting me hang with him and friends at that year’s NAMM convention.

Forrest first came to prominence after playing in grand finals for the Guitar Center Drumoff, may it rest in peace, in 2014. He’s played drums for Covet and Wolfy, and currently plays with saxophonist Ian Roller. But most importantly, he’s a deep thinker about the drums and music in general.

In this conversation I ask Forrest about why he told me to learn the Tony Williams ride cymbal technique in 2016, the differences between jazz and math-rock, east-coast versus west-coast drum styles, “with the grain” versus “against the grain” practice, and more.

And he also tells a ten-minute story with a “behind the scenes” look at the Drum-Off, then joins me in a round of ridiculous speculation about how one might resurrect the Drum-Off, without many of the downsides.

I know you’ll enjoy this one.

And if you haven’t caught this week’s youtube video, about a 5-step way to learn Clyde Stubblefield/Nate Smith funk beats, you can catch that below.

And here’s the free download to accompany that lesson.

Enjoy!

List Exclusive - Complete University of Montana Clinic

If you haven’t caught my clinic from West Coast Drum Shop, I’ll link that below.

Finally, if you’re interested in the entire process of booking and delivering the clinic tour, my vlog on that is below:

Early Access - Greg Hutchinson on...Well, Everything

Greg and I have had a few conversations over the years. I took a lesson from him way back in the early 20-teens. We spoke most recently this past February, when internet connectivity unfortunately interfered.

But Greg graciously agreed to come back for another chat, and this time the quality came out great.

If you know Hutch at all, you know him as the outspoken, funny, larger-than-life presence he is, and look no further than his instagram to see him weighing in and not holding back on…well pretty much whatever crosses his mind.

And if you’re an OG fan, you probably remember that he was one of a small group of musicians who - practically on their own - rekindled acoustic/”straight ahead” jazz, after it had been “left for dead” after 2 decades of fusion. The Marsalis brothers and Jeff “Tain” Watts arguably started the trend, but it grew to encompass artists like Josh Redman, Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, and drummers like Brian Blade and Greg.

If you listen to Greg’s playing on any early-2000s recording, it sounds fresh and retro at the same time. One of a number of “new benchmarks” for drummers learning the art, who wanted avatars of contemporary players interpreting the past greats. Drummers like me.

The punchline is that though Hutch can be fiery and iconoclastic in his opinions, at his core he’s a very warm and generous human, and it doesn’t take much conversation to uncover how much he cares about mentoring the next generation of musicians.

I know you’ll enjoy this multifaceted chat with the one and only Hutch.

And if you haven’t caught this week’s youtube video, about how I put together, sold out, played, and broke even on a drum clinic tour, you can catch that below.

Enjoy!

Early Access - JP Bouvet + Nate's WCDS Clinic

I’ve been meaning to catch up with JP Bouvet since I first saw his clinic videos around 2015. At the time I was gearing up to do my own first clinics, and I had no idea what to do or say.

JP had been on my radar, of course, since the Guitar Center Drumoff, and the Berklee Chops video.

But recently, he’s been putting out some really thoughtful content about improvising on the drums. Of course that caught my attention, because it’s something I’m super focussed on as well.

And, as you’ll hear, he and I arrived at a lot of the same conclusions after examining the landscape of drum instruction. In the years since the Drumoff, JP has thought more deeply about how to play interesting things on the drums, what’s going on in his own head as he improvises, and how to communicate that to students, than practically anybody else I’ve spoken to.

JP and I also get into bandleading, learning songs quickly, and whether or not you should sing what you want to play - a bit of seeming disagreement. (But was it really? ;)

Hope you enjoy this conversation with JP.

And if you haven’t caught my full clinic from West Coast Drum Shop, you can watch that below.

Enjoy!