pat patrillo clinic report
it was great. i arrived in the pouring rain at the London center of contemporary music at about 5:00 and sat around waiting for Pat to come. i let him in (the LCCM front door is tricky) and immediately he was the warm friendly guy you might expect having watched his DVD. Soon we were upstairs setting up the clinic kit and putting new heads on the drums. it was cool to watch him tune up and then warm up. i saw amazing feel and dexterity up close. what an experience. i was glad i could be his roady for the evening. i helped de-buzz a tomtom and did some adjustments on the recalcitrant hardware. His cymbals are really cool. he is particularly happy with his gorgeuos 21'' prototype zildjian ride. it is unlathed and covered with a mixture of the biggest hammer marks (about the size of a baby's fist) and tiny hammer dimples. it has an enormous clear bell great projection and almost no wash. i have recently switched to pinstripes on mytoms and was pleased to see that Pat likes them too.
i felt really foolish when i whipped out my wife's D200 camera only to find it had no battery. Doh! Pat gave me his camera and so at least we had a few shots of the show, but really you have to be there to see it.
At around seven the room filled up (about 30 of us - nice and cosy) and pat started. first up was a warm up solo that was tasteful and choppy with lots of rudiment orchestration and blinding singles. then pat played along to a selection of tracks including a beatles song and one of those really tough half swung tunes. He handed out experpts from his book and talked us through each one with application and avice on learning them. As you can imagine the evening was about HANDS (we saw some great pad work on Pat's new three stepped pad [which i tried out BTW and it was superb], GROOVES (probably the most useful part of the clinic - Pat talked us through developing a drum part from the obvious choice of groove when first hearing a bass line to displacing notes, adding ghosts etc and so eventually to change the obvious to the unique and yet still appropriate [he calls it groove-alution]) and FILLS (i really love pat's fills - he takes one idea at a time and really creatively applies it all over the kit and within grooves)
pat also spent some time talking about how he broke into the industry and gave us a view of the modern industry and how intolerant it is of things such as being late, drunk or drugged.
after most people had left (about 8:30) a few stayed behind to talk to pat and we had an exclusive look at his bass drum technique which was yet another eye opener.
all in all, if you ever get the chance to see pat in clinic - GO! you will be glad you did. even if the opportuniy doesn't come up, get his book (no2 on the modern drummer poll) and start putting a bit of patrilloness in your playing.
j
ps: thanks pat for everything