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I have long admired the economy and precision of Bun E. Carlos' work with Cheap Trick, particularly everything up to and including "Dream Police".

What am I saying? He's still really great, just like the rest of that excellent band.

mick harris' drumming on napalm death's debut "scum" is absolutely amazing. while i'll easily admit that the band quickly switched to the CRAP side of things afterwards - and while i'll also admit that the actual drum sound may be questionable - the playing is great. without it this essential record would merely be a great one.

Guided By Voices' Kevin March, Earthquake Glue

Are you talking about tone or ability?

As far as tone goes, i doubt if anyone will agree, but i havent found anything better than Texas Is The Reason's "Do You Know Yourself?" LP. The tone is just perfect, i dont know how they recorded that.

As far as abilty. Zach Hill is deffinatly amazing, he's been in Crime In Choir, Legs On Earth, and now Hella. All of those bands CDs are pretty great, Crime In Choir is deffinatly worth checking out, they have a chick singer :O

I'm a huge fan of Mike Kinsella (CapN' Jazz, et all) and Damon Atkinson (Braid). Atkinson pretty much (debatably) pionered that 4-peice indie drumming that everyone uses today. Fugazi's drummer is amazing, and if you want that falling over itself style, Still Life (i finally saw them!).

But what do i know, i play guitar :O

One of my favorite drum sounds is on early swans recordings. (I think they went through various drummers)

Fairly redundant drumming untill all the sudden theres some sort of crazy fill that sounds apocalyptic.

Or Zeni Geva's drums which almost always sound apocalyptic.

Then again I olso really like the Drums on Mission of burma's records too, Which sometimes sound totally disorganized.

-w

Okay, I'll bite.

I think there are two camps--and I know this has been covered here as well-- A) the virtuoso and B) the actual drummer that plays with and actual band.

Virtuoso--Who cares. Maybe Don Cab's guy is kinda neat to watch. This fella from Kazoo here, M. Sord, is quite, quite entertaining. I guess the guy from that record The Union of Man and Woman, he's really great.

The Band--Where it really counts, for me. The "hard hat and lunchbox drummers", as friend of mine would say.

Mike from SKWM. Numero Uno here. Just great, perfect for that band. A real pleasure to watch as well.

Todd from Shellac. The heart and soul of rock music, to me.

Andee from A Minor Forest.

Bonham. Duh.

Levon Helm. Again, equally "duh" if you ask me. Just perfect for their songs.

Matt Pence,the Centro-matic guy. Superb sound, playing, whathaveyou. He just doesn't fuck around, and that's what counts. Nothing too rock it to me sock it to me.

OH, Dianogah's drummer. Subtle.

Okay, take care all.
Ike in Kazoo

Ike wrote:Levon Helm. Again, equally "duh" if you ask me. Just perfect for their songs.

Don't forget Richard Manuel, either. When Levon would switch to mandolin, they'd put Richard on drums. Lately I've really been digging the intro to "Rag Mama Rag," which has drumming that's simple, loose, and exactly right.

Otherwise, Billy Ficca's always blown me away. Particularly on MM, and in the remastered version just released by Rhino, he really jumps out.

but still i'd argue that a great feat for any drummer would be to be an entertaining virtuoso who's neat to watch but who nonetheless manages to make all this useful for the actual songs, not merely showing off.
(i guess weasel walter would be my example of choice...)

Ike wrote:Mike from SKWM. Numero Uno here. Just great, perfect for that band. A real pleasure to watch as well.

Todd from Shellac. The heart and soul of rock music, to me.

Andee from A Minor Forest.

Bonham. Duh.

Levon Helm. Again, equally "duh" if you ask me. Just perfect for their songs.

Matt Pence,the Centro-matic guy. Superb sound, playing, whathaveyou. He just doesn't fuck around, and that's what counts. Nothing too rock it to me sock it to me.

OH, Dianogah's drummer. Subtle.

Ike, that list is spookily similar to my list of favorite drummers. The Matt Pence reference is right on the money. That gentleman can both play the drums and, as an engineer, record excellent rock music albums.