The Du-Rites from our Brooklyn Conservatory of Music “Open Stages” Festival performance last weekend: We play “Neckbones” live in a 100 degree furnace! Enjoy on YouTube and subscribe to our channel if you dig.
Big Ol’ Breakbeats dropped today!
Pretty much all the HQ isolated drums from any video I’ve posted from the last year (besides some of the covers) are on it. A preview of the whole thing is in the YouTube clip in the link. The video below is on there by popular demand, haha. Have fun!
We’re back in rehearsal for some April, May and June 2022 gigs! Hit the Live Gigs! page if you’re in NYC to check us out! We’re also playing a few as Lulu Lewis (same personnel, different genre), so drop in.
One time for my greatest influence as a drummer, Mr. “Funky” George Brown.
The Du-Rites are the rhythm section – Pablo on bass and guitar, me on drums – on this new cut from Buenos Aires’ own Mimi Maura. If obnoxious amounts of bass drum pedal squeak on a record in 2022 is your thing, look no further! That pedal died on me soon after but at least we cut this. Dig the hummingbird and a very cool tune – something to hold us over till album #7 later this year:
A brief change of pace, from music to film! I’m not even close to what you’d consider a film buff, but when it comes to small-but-loyal following ’80s flicks, count me in! I discuss my picks with Force Five Podcast host, Jason Kleeberg, and I had a blast.
No over-drummy, white whale breaks today; just me having fun grooving to an Ultimate Breaks staple and funk 45 classic from Brother Soul. Drums aside, I cut added sugar from my diet cold turkey last year and felt a big difference. My only sweet tooth was for cookies. It took awhile to find a sugar-free cookie that didn’t taste like cardboard or an aspartame sandwich, but these Aunt Gussie’s cookies I discovered are the jam. I keep a box in the house for moments like this! C is for cookie, F is for funkin’!
One time for the great Greg Webster, original drummer and last surviving founding member of the mighty Ohio Players, who passed away last week. I was fortunate to interview Greg for my RedBull Music Academy (Give the Drummer Some) column in 2016 – great spirit, great musician. Greg had a shuffling, swinging style that made the band’s early Westbound and Capitol releases groove so hard. He had a killer left hand and light touch – these things appealed to me early on and continue to inspire me and drummers everywhere till this day, whether they know his name or not. This tune (“Laid It”) has the tricky intro with the accents in free time, which Ohio Players did A LOT of early on. (Peep “Singing in the Morning”). Tempo changes, passages coming and going at a moment’s notice, trading fours in the middle of a ballad…a testament to long hours of rehearsal, dedication (I was told Sugarfoot slept in bed with his guitar) and the genius of Junie Morrison as a key composer. Woodshedding to these albums helped me when I started touring with (singer) Ben Pirani, who used a lot of sudden accents in the live show. Indebted for life to Greg for his contributions and sharing his stories. Here’s me having fun to The Players. Soulful journey, Greg.
Another one of those funk solos on my list to decode, I finally got around to learning this one piece by piece. Like most obscure funk 45s, the players on Tony Avlon & The Bel-Airs’ “Sexy Coffee Pot” I don’t know. If I had to wild guess I’d say they were from Philly, but I can’t be sure. Drummer was likely a jazz cat who played funk gigs on the side by the feel and phrasing, which was common in the late ‘60s. I first heard this on an Eric B. & Rakim album in middle school and thought it was the funkiest thing ever, then Cypress Hill, Kings of Swing, etc. and set this up also as a nod to some of those by putting other elements on top of me playing to the Tony Avlon stems.
Or the Tweet at the top of the post.