Thud!! Grok drum good!! (Re: HW: Bedouin album - Ginger)

[cannibal at CUTEY.COM]

At 17:52 18.12.97 -0500, Steve Swann wrote:

>ROFL!!!
>
>That's exactly the way I described his drumming, when I was attempting
>to explain why it took me so long to warm to _Xenon Codex_.  It's that
>god damned monotonous "thud thud thud" of Thompson's drumming that
>wrecks it for me.  It didn't help that I bought Xenon about 2 weeks
>after getting seriously turned on to Hawkwind via _Levitation_...

I remeber Xenon Codex being one of my earliest HW CDs when it had just
come out and I had NO clue (even after owning about 3-4 HW CDs) what the
hell it was gonna sound like - hit me right away, I thought it was great and
still do (the second half in particular, most of the first side bores me a
bit) - XC is very much a link between the 80's HM and 90's ambient
incarnation
(I thought Space Bandits was a big letdown). ANYWAY, I agree, it was the first
time I noticed the drumming stuck out like a sore thumb but the drive of so
much stuff (and the industrial flavor) made up for it. Hell, the first HW I
bought was CotBS and it *almost* turned me off from HW because of the sheer
HM cheezyness - but then I got XiSoS and QS&C... my mind had melted!!! What
was going on?? Huh?? All I could do was buy more, more, more... sort of like
stabbing your third eye out with your wallet!!


>To see what Baker brought to Hawkwind, compare the version of
>"Motorway City" on _Live 79_ to the version on _Levitation_.  The
>version on _Levitation_ *moves* because of that rolling beat that
>Baker uses.  The one on _Live 79_ plods leadenly along with a
>heavy handed thump-thump-thump (who the hell was drumming on that
>album?).  Not that I'm putting down Live 79, or whoever was
>the drummer on it, I quite like the album.  But that one song
>sounded like shite just because of the uninspired drumming; and
>Ginger Baker turned it into a positively wonderful tune just
>by fixing that awful static beat.

The drummer on Live 79 was ol' Simon "of course I like 'em diet pills" King!
I don't understand all this praise of Richards - IMO he sounds like a really
good drum machine! It just sounds kinda processed... like there are too many
little superflous sounds attached to his "perfect" beats or something...

Anyway, this drummer talk got me digging out the early Sisters Of Mercy stuff!
You think Danny Thompson goes "thud" in the night?? Andrew Eldritch sounds
like
the alternate reality where Thompson drummed in Def Leppard and severed his
arm
*and* both his legs *and* stuck it out! It's so bad he replaced himself with
a cheap drum machine (dr. Avalanche!). the track "The Damage Done" is just
this
one arm going on one drum "thuddy thuddy thud" and then with the other,
"crahycrashycrash!" - over and over! No variation for the full 3 minutes!!
Awfully mixed/recorded - the crap drums are totally upfront and dominant!
Troglyodite rock'n'roll of the lowest order - gotta love it! (speaking of:
of course I love Raw Power in any form, shape or fashion!)

look out honey cos I'm using technology,
Christian