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"....
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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"....
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"....