Monday, December 17, 2012

drummage #2

Okay, bit of an odd one, this - I really really like the drums on this here David Essex  smash "Gonna Make You A Star" - Number One for three weeks in the winter of 1974.


They chug along in this amiably pounding way - producer Jeff Wayne's got a big, fat drum sound -- nice reverb on the rolls, terrific thwacky clap-smashes at the back of the chorus -- but the thing I listen for, and it only happens three, maybe four times, in the whole song, is when the drummer (Barry de Souza, RIP) does this micro-second pause before swinging in hard again with the beat.  What do you call that, then?  I don't have the technical lingo, the drummer's parlance at my command (I looked up what a flam was a few years ago,  I've forgotten) but is that a dropped beat? The effect is  like catching your breath. Or a lurch, a stride just barely broken. At any rate, it's a very simple thing, I expect..  barely even a trick... but it's my favorite bit in a song that's got loads of lovable features: one of Essex's best-ever charm-edging-into-smarm vocals, the delicious gloopy Moog refrain, the wistful trickles of guitar, the whistling at the start and the "I don't think so"....