Due to High Expectations… The Flaming Lips Are Providing Needles for Your Balloons
by John Holbo on January 5, 2011
Man, I haven’t heard this
for a long time. Amazon has it for $1.99. A bargain for the Lips completist in your house, or even just in your cranium. Sort of got a Syd Barrett does Brian Wilson in the Midwest vibe, with real low, low feedback-y production values. In short, it sounds a lot like the Flaming Lips. I like “Ice Drummer”. Can’t even link to it anywhere. Not a YouTube video or anything. Goes kinda BAH-duh-duh-BUH-Bah-duh-duh-BUH-BAH-duh-duh-BUH-BUH-DAH. With this little twickle-twickle-TWICK guitar on top. If you can imagine it. There are lots of good songs about drummers, if you think about it. Please provide examples in comments, to prove yourself.
{ 45 comments }
JRQ 01.05.11 at 6:47 am
I’ll go first:
Wilco — Heavy Metal Drummer
John Holbo 01.05.11 at 7:35 am
You win the thread! That was my first pick as well. I also like:
Coconut Records, “Drummer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d5DwD1MsXE
And Silver Jews, “Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer”
And there is a small place in my heart for Trip Shakespeare, “Drummer Like Me”
Others?
John Holbo 01.05.11 at 7:41 am
Unless I can think of more I withdraw my allegation that there are ‘lots’. I just thought of Wilco and Coconut and Silver Jews and Trip Shakespeare instantly, so I figured I could come up with more but I’m stuck. I could pretend I like Steeleye Span, “Female Drummer”, or Ungdomskulen, “Modern Drummer”. But I don’t. That’s it for iTunes and me. Except for versions of famous x-mas carols.
IO 01.05.11 at 8:54 am
Sonic Youth – “My Friend Goo” (“She can play the drum set too! And the boys say ‘Hey Goo what’s new?'”) and “Tunic (Song for Karen ),” another SY song about Karen Carpenter (“Hey mom, look, I’m up here, I finally made it. I’m playing the drums again, too.”)
studentee 01.05.11 at 9:01 am
little drummer boy
Shelly 01.05.11 at 11:59 am
You can listen to the whole EP at grooveshark.com. “Ice Drummer” is here:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Ice+Drummer/rDC6
rea 01.05.11 at 12:42 pm
Neil Young–Cinnamon Girl
Ten silver saxes
A bass with a bow
The drummer relaxes
And waits between shows
For his Cinnamon Girl . . .
Tim Wilkinson 01.05.11 at 1:39 pm
Funky Drummer, of course
JP Stormcrow 01.05.11 at 2:06 pm
I’m possibly polluting the clarity of one of John’s categories again, but Rundgren’s “Bang the Drum All Day”.
Louigi 01.05.11 at 2:18 pm
Tom Waits — Cold Water.
I kid.
J. Fisher 01.05.11 at 2:56 pm
DJ Shadow: “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt”
“I’m a student of the drums . . . and I’m also a teacher of the drums too.”
And then there’s that nasty drum beat looped over and over again.
P.S. The breakbeats that start around 3:12 are pretty sweet, too.
roac 01.05.11 at 2:58 pm
Twelve Days of Christmas.
Fats Durston 01.05.11 at 3:07 pm
A song that should be entitled “Drummer Some,” by Amy Rigby.
Gil 01.05.11 at 3:14 pm
Jimmy Buffett’s “When Salome Plays the Drum”
Treilhard 01.05.11 at 4:04 pm
Ghostface, Meth, & Trife: “I Don’t Want the Drummer”.
Treilhard 01.05.11 at 4:05 pm
Actually, it’s just “Drummer”.
Substance McGravitas 01.05.11 at 4:15 pm
The Osmonds were heavy.
Western Dave 01.05.11 at 4:37 pm
Sly and the Family Stone, Dance to the Music has a shout out to drummers of course. The irony here is that Holbo and his crowd’s elitist tastes are showing. (Trip Shakespeare? Where you a cool kid in Minneapolis in the 80s or something?) How can you miss Vickie Sue Robinson, Turn the Beat Around or even it’s pretty cool Miami Sound Machine/Gloria Estefan cover. But everybody knows CTers don’t dance.
Vicki Sue Robinson introduced by a very campy Paul Williams on Midnight Special.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZfPWp-VGKY&feature=related
Gloria Estefan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hVbE8wJ-U0
Now get your butts on the dance floor.
KriShan 01.05.11 at 4:42 pm
“Tiger Bomb”, The Presidents of the United States of America:
[…]Ooo, she plays the drums like a queen
Got the prettiest high-hat cymbal I’ve ever seen
I could fix a broken bass drum beater
If I had the courage to go up to her and meet her […]
k-sky 01.05.11 at 4:44 pm
Look around! around!
The second drummer drowned
His telephone is found
Pavement, Cut Your Hair
Mary 01.05.11 at 6:11 pm
She Bangs the Drums by the Stone Roses. Great song!
AntiAlias 01.05.11 at 6:42 pm
Goes kinda BAH-duh-duh-BUH-Bah-duh-duh-BUH-BAH-duh-duh-BUH-BUH-DAH. With this little twickle-twickle-TWICK guitar on top. If you can imagine it.
Didn’t know CT was streaming music now (Crookify?).
mrearl 01.05.11 at 7:06 pm
Flower Drum Song.
phosphorious 01.05.11 at 7:26 pm
Ray Barretto “Soul Drummers”
Matt McIrvin 01.05.11 at 8:44 pm
Young Fresh Fellows, “Hillbilly Drummer Girl” (I know it from the Mono Puff cover, the guitar riff from which got reused on TMBG’s “Cells” on Here Comes Science).
psh 01.05.11 at 8:57 pm
Here’s another hat tip to Trip Shakespeare and “Drummer Like Me.” So sweet, so brilliantly evocative. Matt Wilson is an undiscovered giant of a songwriter. If you’re a fan and have not heard his new project, the Twilight Hours, give it a listen. He’s taken an interesting turn, but is still churning out perfectly crafted pop songs:
http://thetwilighthours.com/
spyder 01.05.11 at 9:15 pm
Rhythm Devils Apocalypse Now Sessions soundtrack and DRUMZ versus SPACE; all percussion, all the time.
Does T-Rex Bang a Gong count?
ben w 01.05.11 at 9:35 pm
Ab Baars Trio + Roswell Rudd, “The Hotel Drummer” (from the suite “The Year was 1503”).
Bratko Bibic and the Madleys, “New Jerk or How To Kill the Drummer”. (Perhaps not really a song about a drummer.)
John Holbo 01.05.11 at 11:25 pm
“Trip Shakespeare? Where you a cool kid in Minneapolis in the 80s or something?”
I caught a couple shows when they came to Chicago. Yes, it was the 80’s. They would sure get the crowd going with “Slacks”.
ben w 01.06.11 at 3:44 am
How could I have forgotten PopCanon’s “Give It Up for the Percussionist”?
Western Dave 01.06.11 at 3:58 am
L L Cool J. I need a beat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVkaN–0ld0
Tito Puente Oye Como Va probably the biggest self-promotion for drummers of all time
Western Dave 01.06.11 at 4:01 am
They would sure get the crowd going with “Slacksâ€. Oh Lord, I had an ex-girlfriend who put that on a mix tape for me early in the relationship. I should’ve known right then it was doomed to failure and spared myself 3 years of agony.
John Holbo 01.06.11 at 4:12 am
“Oh Lord, I had an ex-girlfriend who put that on a mix tape for me early in the relationship. I should’ve known right then it was doomed to failure and spared myself 3 years of agony.”
I gotcha!
Martin Bento 01.06.11 at 7:02 am
Duke Ellington’s entire, uh, jazz opera? A Drum is a Woman is about an African drummer named Joe, his goddess/muse Madame Zzaj, and their adventures in New Orleans. Duke and Orson Welles cooked up the idea. Though my mouth instinctively gapes at an Ellington/Welles collaboration, it doesn’t really come off, and the music is weak late Ellington (and I’m a late Ellington fan).
Transglobal Underground, The Drums of Navarone is about drummers, drummers around the world coming together in unison. I guess plural is stretching the rules a tad, but you won’t get much of a list without some leeway.
Since passing references seem OK, I Like to Recognize the Tune, by Rodgers and Hart, as recorded by Mel Torme, has a call out to a *specific* drummer:
A guy named Buddy
Plays the drums like thunder
But the melody
Is six feet under
I don’t know if those lyrics were part of the original tune. Seems they would be out of place in a musical, so Torme may have added them.
Martin Bento 01.06.11 at 7:17 am
Of course, a tambourine is basically a type of hand drum, so Mr. Tambourine Man, Green Tambourine, Black Tambourine, and any other tambourine songs could qualify.
John Holbo 01.06.11 at 10:10 am
I believe we can grandfather in all manner of percussion.
John Holbo 01.06.11 at 10:11 am
That gets us White Rabbits, “Percussion Gun” (which is good!) and “(Further Reflections) in the Room of Percussion”, by Kaleidoscope. Which is goofy and trippy. That’s just searching by title.
John Holbo 01.06.11 at 10:15 am
Ooh, it’s on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwX3f_5Vars
In the room of percussion
The discussion slides as you enter through the door
And the one armed bandit
Laughs aloud and disappears once more
My God, the spiders are everywhere!
(Yes, those are the lyrics.)
Treilhard 01.06.11 at 12:17 pm
“I believe we can grandfather in all manner of percussion.”
Please don’t. “Piano Man”? “Paul Revere”? This doesn’t end well.
Hidari 01.06.11 at 1:26 pm
Rock’n’Roll Will Never Die by King Missile has stuff about a drummer.
‘What are you, fucking stupid?
I’m sorry but you’re fucking high
If you think rock n’ roll will ever die
You’re cracked up out of your fucking mind
‘Cause Rock n’ Roll is here to stay!!!
It will NEVER go away!!!
Look at Def Leppard
The drummer’s got one fucking arm!!!!
Look at the Rolling Stones
They’ve been around for forty five fucking years!!!
Look at Guns and Roses
Need… I… say… more!!!
More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmania.com/rock_n_roll_will_never_die_lyrics_king_missile.html
All about King Missile: http://www.musictory.com/music/King+Missile
Kevin 01.06.11 at 2:51 pm
Obviously, ‘Beth’ is the greatest song ever written and sung BY a drummer.
Substance McGravitas 01.06.11 at 3:31 pm
Ahem. Jay Osmond co-wrote and co-sang My Drum. And drummed. Beth? NO DRUMS.
Henri Vieuxtemps 01.06.11 at 3:53 pm
Brother, can you spare a dime
Wilco 01.06.11 at 7:22 pm
Pavement’s “cut your hair” seems to be indirectly about a lot of drummers (among others) and it does directly reference one:
“Did you see the drummer’s hair?”
Matt McIrvin 01.07.11 at 1:14 pm
Of course, a tambourine is basically a type of hand drum
Unless it’s the symphonic concert variety, which has had its drum-nature removed entirely and is just a frame with jingles, though it’s still called a tambourine.
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