Drummercise » Blog

In a Band

Raymond — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:07:40 +0000

About time to, my friend Touf has asked me to play drums for him. Currently its just myself and him, but its me playing drums again in a band!! Whoop.

We’re looking for another guitarist lead and bass. I hope that we can find some people soon. it will be wicked to start giging again and entertaining friends. Now I’ll get to play alot of the things I’ve been practicing.

The show must go on! To hear Toufs music click here

Glastonbury, return day +2

Raymond — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:21:57 +0000

What a great time I had! Seeing so much music in a concentrated area was an overload. The four days was just enough time to see many of the offerings the festival has and meeting people that have the same music interests. I could write loads about it, but you just have to go.

The highs: seeing the legend Billy Cobham playing on the jazz stage (Latin) and Tony Royster playing in Jay-Z band.

The lows, standing in wellies for to long (massive leg ache) and the smell from the toilets.

I would love to do it again next year, perhaps even get a press pass for the site just to interview the un-sung heroes of music the drummers. Overall the experience have left me on a positive note, get there and back was trouble free and cost of the whole thing was around £300, but off set the many acts you see, you come to the result that a bargain is what you’ve just bought.

Glastonbury!

Raymond — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:49:02 +0000

Well drum fans, I should have posted about this when I got my ticket. I’m off to the Glastonbury Festival! It will be my first time and I’m looking forward to having some time away from London.

Alot of friends are going so hopefully I’ll be able to meet up with them?? I’ve started a list of bands and acts’ that I want to see – I’m debating if I want to see Jay-Z or not? I’ve got the feeling to see alot of the dance groups and acts rather than the guitar bands, I’ll have to toss a coin or something. Time to sort out my wellies and transport.

The next event that is happening will be the London International Music Show, DrummerLive has joined forces with The London Guitar, SRT and Unplugged shows to bring some of the worlds new and coolest products on the planet! Check out http://www.londoninternationalmusicshow.com/ for more info.

Funk ON!

Recent gig, audience member

Raymond — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:09:53 +0000

A few nights ago I went to see a band called ‘Cage the Elephant’, my best description would be, an American version of the Arctic Monkeys, these guys are from Bowling Green, Kentucky, front man and the guitarist were burning brightly, I really enjoyed what I heard. The style was a mix of Rock, Punk and Funk!

There were bands before them, and the first was Bleached Wale, these guys had a bass player that I instantly got in-tune with, great vibe and musicianship, but they were a shouty band from the north that made negative comments about ‘London’ to London crowd, (fellers have a talk with your Marketing dept)

The second band weren’t anything that I choose to go buy, see, listen to (I think that covers it) my guess is they were fodder, but way they ended was the most memorable thing! They had a Japanese band sound, cant put it better than that.

The lead guitarist, whom didn’t say a thing through-out the 35-40 min set, screamed to a closing while the drums and bass finished up… sharing the pain.

Out of place… Yes, painful… Yes, making people turn their heads and hold that focus… Definitely!

I went to the Cage the Elephant webpage and hearing the songs back over my small speakers, its a hard to hear what makes these guys enjoyable, (maybe the lyrics, music, style??) seeing them on stage of course is the best, the motions of the singer and the guitarist, are what give the band more energy, a vibe, leading to a desire to hear more from them! Great performance, will be waiting for the album and next gig.

Find them on MyspaceMusic.com

See you at DrummerLive

Congratulations!

Raymond — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:02:22 +0000

Two of my friends are getting married, this has nothing to do with drums, this is my blog bit. Anyway, Congrats to Natasha and Peter!

Wishing you a joyful life together!

Finally working! Update on Korg Padkontrol

Raymond — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:36:32 +0000

A little while ago I posted about a piece of hardware called “PadKontrol” (made by Korg), I had some troubles setting it up on the computer. I did manage to get it working, but it wasn’t performing at its best .

At last I’ve set it up on my Roland TD8 electronic kit brain, and its working out to be much better than the previous arrangement.

The problem before, that with the padkontrol connected to the computer, the speed of the controller (the pad itself) is determined but how fast your computer is, e.g. slow computer, slower response. This was a major fault with trying to play live, fine for recording beats and rhythms in Reason software, but to slow.

So now the pad is directly connected to the TD8 brain and the response is instantaneous.

I would stick by my evalutation before in that if you play and make alot of music on a computer, using lots of midi equipment along with that, then the Padkontrol could be a great addition, but for someone in my situation -not making music and not having other pieces’ of hardware – a drum machine would probably be the better opition to mess around on.

I think that I’m fortunate to have had the TD8 before buying this and now connecting it this way is a fruitful arrangment. Happy days, now its spending the time in training up my fingers to play the same stuff that I can do with my hands and feets!

Check this video

Dont forget the DrummerLive show on the 12th-15th of June, catch some amazing drummers at this show!

http://drummercise.co.uk/08/drummerlive2008/