i remember the first time i saw carter beauford play (9.1.92 at Trax in charlottesville, va, where the DMB hails from and i still reside). i was just flat-out blown away by his limb independence and the smoothness in which he moved around the kit. i said to my friend, "this is the first guy i've ever seen that comes close to being as good as peart". peart's always been my biggest influence, so that was "big words" coming from me at the time.
shortly thereafter, i started doing a lot of crew work at Trax (and for the DMB in particular) and got the opportunity to hang out with and talk a lot of shop with carter. it really helped re-invigorate me into playing drums, and i've tried to apply some of the things he "taught" me into my everyday playing. namely, you don't have to kill the damn things--speed and quickness and evenness of stroke are the the true keys. use bigger sticks if you want a fatter tone--and let the sticks do the work for you instead of your arms and wrists (and fingers). and proper drum tuning is crucial (but i knew that to begin with). his main snare was a brass piccolo, which i always found intriguing considering just about every one of his snare hits was a rimshot (something i've always done, which surprised me to see him doing it too).
if you've ever heard any of those Trax tapes, they didn't have a lot of outboard processing gear in that house (mostly reverbs and a couple comps), and carter was playing on a pretty crappy Pearl kit in those days (with a crown PZM mic sitting on the pillow in the kick!). he would leave his better pearl kit at home, b/c he didn't want it getting beat up gigging. he only had mounted toms (no floor toms) so the sounds he got out of those drums was nothing short of amazing considering. i was there when he got his first kit of yamahas, too, at the UVA Ampitheater show in Sept 94 right when UTTAD came out. His comment was "wow, i've never had a floor tom before!".
i've got the yamaha-badged batter head off that snare. shame i didn't think to have him sign it!
FWIW, the DMB's soundman (Jeff Thomas--we called him Baggby) is one of the guys who taught me how to run sound (along with Ben Fulsom, who was Trax's house soundman in those days). i remember New Years 94 i was running taper security at the board at the Richmond Marriott, and right before the clock struck midnight, Baggby turns to me and says "i've gotta go take care of some 'business'--handle the board for me....and tweak anything that needs to be tweaked" and ran off backstage just as the band was coming out. Dave sees me standing behind this HUGE console with this "deer in the headlights" look on my face, and points at me and laughs (the fucker LAUGHED at me!
) and then they drop into #36. needless to say, i didn't have to touch a thing--baggby always dialed in a room quite well. although, i'm still obviously scarred by dave's pointing and laughing.....
anyway, carter was always one of the nicest guys i've ever had the pleasure to know (as were the rest of the guys in that band), and his drumming skills are just phenomenal. i'm very glad to have had the opportunity to learn some stuff from him first-hand. so yeah, he's a bit of an influence, even though i don't care for the commercial-pop route the DMB's gone down since they "made it big". they're all spectacular musicians and IMO, the true magic was made in that little room known as Trax (RIP).
wade
