Subricks Picks: A look At Up & Coming Drummers – Pick 4

Why hello to all of ye on this merry old website. The once and future Subrick is here bringing you another video pick from the deep dredges of the Sick Drummer Magazine website. Before that, I would like to state that not only is this Friday the 13th (and therefore most of us will either trip, get seriously injured or be stalked by Kane Hodder in a hockey mask), but today is Chuck Schuldiner’s 44th birthday. For the 2 metal fans who don’t know what I’m talking about, Chuck was the singer and guitarist for Death, the first death metal band. He was also the guitarist and founder of Control Denied, who if all goes right will see their second album finally released later this year. Ten years ago in December Chuck died from pneumonia exacerbated by chemotherapy from brain cancer. Ten years ago I was not listening to metal music. Chuck was one of the guys that pulled me into this crazy world known as heavy metal. I listened to Evil Dead from Scream Bloody Gore and was mesmerized by the speed, the brutality, the way the singer sounded, everything about it made me want to replicate it. Many listens of that album up through their discography later, I can safely say that in my opinion, Death is the greatest extreme metal group ever. If Chuck were alive today, I think he’d be pleased with bands like Obscura who are taking the sound Death created and pushing it to new levels. He truly is the greatest. Happy birthday Chuck! May you rest in peace. And if there is in fact a heaven, may you, Dio, Randy Rhodes, Peter Steele, DImebag Darrell, Kevin Dubrow, Paul Gray, Vitek, and all the other greats of heavy metal we have lost over the years have the best goddamn jam session there ever was.

 

And with all that said, onto the pick.

 

For your chance to be featured, all you have to do is post a video of you drumming to YouTube, Vimeo or whatever video site you prefer, and embed the link on this website in the SD Videos section. Nothing more, nothing less, but you do need to be a registered member of our site to post.

 

There are three categories on which I base my selections: Playing Ability, Production Value, and Kit Sound. All three are pretty straight forward, but here’s what I specifically look for with each category. 

 

Playing Ability: I look to see if a player is technically sound; timing is good, endurance and power are up to par, among other, more miniscule things. 

 

Production Value: I prefer to watch video from a good quality camera, or studio quality. By studio quality, I don’t mean the greatest production sound ever recorded. I classify studio quality as a drumming performance recorded with microphones and/or triggers. Electronic kits are very much encouraged (especially when using less conventional samples). Now, if you have sound quality that isn’t as good, that doesn’t mean you won't be included in my selection process. Everyone is eligible to be featured. 

 

Kit Sound:  One of the most important characteristics! We all have read Eyal Levi’s article about why drum performances are always sound replaced these days. For those who haven’t, the basic gist of it is because drummers don’t know how to tune their drums. Considering that many drum videos I see on YouTube involve players that have really bad sounding kits, it seems rarer and rarer that drummers actually tune their drums. Meet all three of these criteria, and you have a shot to be featured. You could be playing the most radio friendly Disney pop imaginable, but if I feel your video meets these criteria, you could make the front page.

 

This week’s pick is of Bryce Butler, drummer for the Fort Worth, Texas band “Lizard Professor”.  Bryce is a speed machine, blasting and double bassing his way to over 2000 subscribers on Youtube. Non-typical for a metal drummer (at least to my knowledge), Bryce plays a 5 piece Truth custom kit. All of his cymbals, except two, are Zildjians. They vary between A Custom, K Custom, and the lovely sounding Oriental China Trashes. Like me, Bryce is a barefoot player. This video in particular is just him and one of LP’s guitarists improvising during a practice. And he certainly comes up with some crazy shit if you ask me. On his Youtube channel, Bryce has covered songs by bands such as Veil of Maya, Whitechapel, Oceano and August Burns Red.

 

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Bryce’s links:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/BryceButler2

http://www.facebook.com/lizardprofessor

 

And go buy Lizard Professor’s EP entitled “Offthewallogy”, available now on iTunes.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/offthewallogy/id355831878?i=355831913

 

That will do it for this week’s installment of “Subrick’s Picks”. In keeping with tradition, go subscribe to my Youtube channel for regular drum covers and other insanity. In keeping with the Chuck Schuldiner’s birthday theme, the current featured upload there is my cover of Scream Bloody Gore. Also follow my Facebook and Twitter pages for random madness. Subrick out!

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Subrick

http://www.facebook.com/Subrick

http://www.twitter.com/Subrick

 

And, once again, rest in peace Chuck Schuldiner.