Subrick's Picks: A look At Up & Coming Drummers – Pick 5
Written by: Richard “Subrick” Lowell
When Chuck Schuldiner wrote the line “Living monstrosity, a freak for life they’ll always be”, he meant me, even though I wasn’t alive in 1990. Well, not really, but I wish he did. Either way, I am the fat one himself known as Subrick, here again on the last Friday of May to bring you another video Pick of mine for your visual, auditory, and (to some) sexual pleasures. On the subject of Chuck Schuldiner, I listened to a few tracks from the Death remasters on their official Facebook page. I gotta say that Jim Morris has solidified himself as fucking awesome. The songs still have the feel they did on the original album releases, while not sacrificing any dynamic range or submitting to the oh-so annoying Loudness War. The remastered version of Lack of Comprehension for example sounds much clearer than the original does, removing the slight muddiness in the drums and guitars. The bass is WAY higher in the mix, making it perfectly audible with the rest of the music. This is a great thing because it not only gives me another amazing record with audible bass, but because it also finally lets us hear Steve DiGiorgio’s virtuosic bass playing. The drumming is cleaned up as well, but only in terms of sound quality. All of the original drum parts played by Sean Reinert are there, and not Drumagog samples that every single record ever has these days. My favorite part of it all is that you can finally hear what Sean’s right hand is doing; something I always had a problem with on the original release was that a lot of the little subtle things Sean did were inaudible. The guitars are crisp and clean, and still as amazing now as they were when I first heard them 4 years ago. And finally, the man himself. The tower of power too sweet to be sour, funky like a mon.. oh wait, wrong guy (by the way, R.I.P. Macho Man). Chuck’s voice is as perfect as can be, cutting through everything else with breathtaking clarity. I suggest everyone reading this go buy or pre-order the Death, Control Denied, and Mantas remasters. It is definitely worth the money.
Now then, after all of that, let us proceed with the picking.
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 Diogo Pereira, drummer for Portuguese death metal band Decrepidemic. While a relatively unknown band to most, they have released one full length album entitled “The Void of Un-Existence”. Diogo himself has amassed over one million views on Youtube (although most of them come from a video of two dogs humping). Diogo has just recently become a member of the Paiste family, with a beautiful set of Alpha Brilliant crashes, hi-hats, ride, and china. He also plays with his signature model MISSOM Blastophilia drum sticks. All of these are used for this band, which hellsheadbangers.com describes as “the impious discharge of Technical Ultra Brutal Death Metal will make fans of Decrepit Birth, Deeds Of Flesh, Inveracity, Hour Of Penance, Suffocation, Disavowed etc.. minds explode!”
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Diogo’s links:
And go buy The Void of Un-Existence by Decrepidemic from hellsheadbangers.com, out now on Sevared Records!
Before we go however, I need to pimp out just one more video. Right now I am typing this at 9:45 PM on May 24th, 2011. That is the day I came across a guy that goes by the handle “nohandsdrums”. If you haven’t guessed by now, the kid has no hands. So, he just gets his sticks wrapped around his arms and plays. This kid has no hands, and he’s playing The Black Dahlia Murder and DragonForce songs. Now if that’s not inspirational, I don’t know what is. Please watch his videos, subscribe, like, comment, the whole nine yards. He deserves it above all.
Alas, this edition of Subrick’s Picks draws to a close. As always, I shall shamelessly plug my shit by telling you all to go subscribe to my Youtube channel for all my personal drum videos as well as following me on Facebook and Twitter for updates and bizarre insanity. Until June 10th (by which I will be five days from exiting high school and entering the world that you people over 18 call “the real world”), Subrick out!
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