Music writer Simon Reynolds, on his blog, asks people to post YouTube clips of people drumming. Boring!
Drum Stuff : examples please of your favorite drummage, with YouTube clips + comments. Blog them and let me know so I can link, or email and I'll post up here.
Drum stuff defined as: drum patterns, drum breaks, drum sounds, drum flourishes, drum solos. Or, more loosely, grooves: just so long as the drummer is right in the thick of the reasons why the groove is so groovy.
Here's the part that makes us post-humans barf through our nano-receptor-lined orifices:
Sole stipulation: stick to human and hand-played. Nothing made using a drum machine, nothing sample-looped or edited together out of micro-samples. Mainly because it'd be just too huge a topic if we get into machine-rhythm (I could spend a year, easily, just on jungle*). But also because there's more philosophical integrity if we steer clear of programmed beats.** This is about the human body possessed by rhythm, but more than that, about musicians who are physically close, sharing the same space, joining together in the moment to build that mundane miracle, a groove. About presence and present-mindedness.
*in other words there are so many good examples it would annihilate the quaint old style drumming
**please tell me I didn't just read that
There's nothing quite like a dozen YouTube clips of integrity-filled moments enjoyed in shared sweaty communal space to blow away the alienation blues of sitting alone at a computer or staring intently into a mobile device. It's right up there with looking at jpegs of paintings on canvas hanging in gallery spaces as a balm for the soul. Or a video fireplace...