Vinnie Lick - The 80/20 Drummer

I first heard If I Ever Lose My Faith at the gym.

"Is this the police guy?"

Later, I was at a local drum shop, and a DVD of the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert was playing.

"Soooo many mullets" was my first thought.

"Who's this completely dominant guy who plays traditional grip?" was my second.

"Oh," said my friend. "That's Vinnie. He plays with Sting."

"If I Ever Lose My Faith guy?" I thought?

Sidebar - if we didn't know who those guys were, doesn't that sound like a line out of Westside Story? Or maybe The Untouchables?

Then Vinnie's solo album dropped. Attack of the 10-Pound Pizza. Bruce Lee. Chauncy. John's Blues.

"What the entire fuck just happened?"

But I liked it.

And not until very recently did any of it start making sense. For instance, check the John's Blues solo. Hot. Damn.

Here's the other funny thing about Vinnie..

He's the only drummer from that era who doesn't sound like...that era.

Even the guys who kept shedding - and they're few - sound like a throwback. They'll play on the sides of the snare instead of the center. They'll play a china, when everybody's moved onto the stack. Their backbeats are pre-Chris-Dave.

Not Vinnie. He still sounds scary.

As I believe I said in a Facebook post, he sounds better and fresher than 98% of the young guys coming up.

But goddamn it with that mullet and wifebeater, man. You can get a haircut. It won't hurt your drumming. I promise.

Anyway, today's lesson is a throwback. Back to my slack-jawed afternoon in that drum shop watching Vinnie play with the Buddy Rich band.

Today, I bring you part of that solo...

New Forrest Lick - The 80/20 Drummer

So Forrest's back.

And of course that means it's Jedi-lick time. But first, a story...

It's the last night of my LA trip in January. I'm sitting in a coffee shop somewhere between echo park and south beach (my west coast geography needs some work), having coffee with my business buddy neel, when my phone lights up.

It's Forrest.

Fuuuuuck, I mutter.

Forrest and I had talked a few days ago about shedding this evening, but I haven't heard from him since.

I've been assuming he forgot, or got busy.

Now I'm sitting at a taco restaurant (we got hungry), looking at my phone, and forrest's like "I'm setting it up! When can you get here."

I'm thinking 6am flight, which means I need to wake up at 4, haven't packed, don't have any food for tomorrow, and Whole Foods in downtown la closes at 10. (Cause they're SOFT;) 

But I'm also thinking something else: Fuck It.

So I hop in the rental car and hump toward Rancho Kukamunga (which I'm probably misspelling).

Burn rubber getting there, then guess how long I made Forrest wait?

The answer is negative 50 minutes, because that's how long I waited, in the lobby of a weird practice studio in the middle of nowhere - which somehow mysteriously smelled like skunk - for Forrest to show.

But show he did, and we shed...ed(?).

Then he showed me this lick...

Three Hacks to Open Your Drumming - The 80/20 Drummer

So I've got a minor bone to pick when people ask me how to play "open".

I know what they mean:

They're talking about Sput Searight...

...or Dana Hawkins...

But I think they're confusing Left Hand Lead with playing "open".

You can play open-handed, and still play right-hand lead.

There's a whole vocabulary that opens up when you commit to only playing rimshots with the right hand while playing on the hats.

First, there's the disco beat...

...then you start to leave some stuff out...

...then you rephrase some of your linear stuff.

Finally, you realize that, when your right hand isn't committed to the hats all the time, it's pretty to incorporate other surfaces.

Toms, cymbal bells, the ride, etc.

And, to my mind, that's what Sput and Dana are doing.

The Carter Beauford/Ernesto Simpson thing is bad (in the Miles Davis sense), but it's a different thing. That's left hand lead, played by lefties on a right-handed kit. But those guys put the ride cymbal on the left side.

Can you tell I'm fired up about this?

All of which is to say you don't need to uproot your whole routine and practice New Breed entirely left-hand-lead just to incorporate some Dana/Sput "open" playing into your thing.

You just have to watch this lesson. (OOOOOOooooh SNAP see what I did there?)

Enjoy it guys.

Back next week,

N

How to Shout - The 80/20 Drummer

You've been asking me for jazz lessons, and I had one all-but-recorded...

Then, I saw The Real Sticx on instagram, playing a shout groove with the right hand on the snare.

Shouts aren't something I can pretend to have a ton of experience with - they're the double-time beat in gospel and church music - but they're the root of a ton of vocabulary, including the beats in this lesson.

Check it out here.
 

I'll keep this one short, as I ramp up for the holidays and the DBK clinic.

What are you guys working on this month? Let me know!

Talk soon,

N