dbychowski wrote:http://www.labproductions.com/news/Stories/2003/01/09/10421699931.shtml

LAB: What model did you use? I remember reading all the old tour diaries and you always referred to Roland in third person, as a member of the band.

SA: Well, in the earliest days it was a Roland TR-606, then later on it was an EMU systems Drumulator.

OK, ya got me. But didn't they still use the drum machine live 'till the end? (I remember hearing a story that Riley smashed it during a show at CBGB).

-AND-

I personally like drum machines over live drummers, which I have found to be temperamental and nearly impossible to direct (this, of course is untrue in instances where one plays with a drummer who actually listens to what's going on... but those, I have found, are far and few between).

Ah... The perennial drum machine versus human argument. The thing about drum-machines and indeed samplers is that they need to be abused before they can be seen of as useful. These days you'd be hard pressed to find anybody outside of the cruise-ship entertainment arena using a drum machine with its pre-programmed sounds (non-ironically, of course). If you're going to sequence drums, get as close as you can to sampling the real thing and loop or dice up hits and then stop thinking about anything other than what makes your drums interesting.
We shouldn't be looking at drum machines as replacement drummers, but as another instrument entirely. They're another addition to the sonic soup we call music.