Ladies and gentlemen the North Missisipi Allstars at Oran Mor in Glasgow a couple of days ago:
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a Southern band re inventing the blues, i love them, not least because Luther Dickson is an amazing guitarist whose playing I hear as am intense stream of shapes, he also has a strong physical relationship to his guitar which is always interesting – that physical thing about playing, or indeed making sound effects when the physical gesture that generates the sound is key.
The North Missisippi Allstars also have a rock solid rythmn section and often make reference to marching bands of which there is an amazing military and non military tradition in the US. In this clip they have left the stage to drum through the audience. When I was still supervising music in movies I always wanted to try to put together an entire soundtrack solely from the so called “Rudiments” a language of drum patterns that evolved from the military use of the side drum/snare. I never did. Random drumming list: Rumblefish, Steve Reich, Micky hart put together a great compilation Planet Drum after leaving the Grateful Dead, he learnt to drum in marching bands, Scritti Politti once spent a week in the studio perfecting a single snare hit to then program, they made the mistake of leaving a clean hit in the final recording thus saving a lot of samplers the trouble of spending a week in the studio themselves.
Check out Rollin and Tumblin here:
— and if this is not just all too male for you then Anders Osbourne playing Echoes of my Sins is a sight to behold, testifying and wrestling meaning into being
More on drumming, physicality, Neu, Moroder, Human League, Kraftwerk and black radio in another post- ….