I was producing this song. I was going to get two drummers, one who was kind of Jim Keltner like. You know, rock solid, perfect Rhythm, and groove for years. The ultimate rock and roll guy. The other guy sounds like Animal from the Muppets after he learned about multi-rhythmic polyphony, and had spent about a decade listening to nothing but John Cage. The guy came up with new parts you would never have thought of, but he could not maintain a steady beat. Speed up, slow down, and speed up. My plain had been to get the basics with my Jim Keltner wanna be, and then let Animal overdub something wild and cacophonous.
So guess which one couldn't make it at the last minute. THE ONE WITH THE GROOVE. We spent six hours trying to get ONE good take. The guitar player I had hired could not play with Animal at all. I had to play the guitar parts myself, and just told the bass player to listen to me, and ignore the drummer.
We finally got ONE good take, after about three hours of this (and it was good. Something happened between the three of us, and it just HIT. We were locked together, and having fun, and we were being improvisational. It was great). THE ENGINEER DID NOT RECORD THE TAKE. BASTARD.
After that the drummer just kept getting more frustrated, and his time got worse and worse and worse. Even I couldn't ignore him anymore (and I take the guitar players art of ignoring everyone else to a high art
). The whole session was ruined, and I had to do the whole thing over again, at great expense.
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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