John Bonham

i'll repeat myself:
forums are very revealing things guys. here in cyberspace it really is better to be quiet and let the world think you are a fool than type 500 words and prove it. over time because as an admin i have to read all posts as a duty i get to know members and a certain respect grows, not for the heavy posters, i don't even look at the number anymore, but for the folks who are humble, general, inquisitive, informative and respectful. it pays to do a search of all your posts and have a read now and then. how are you coming across to the rest of drummerworld?

as much as i truly love bonzo i hate a large portion of this thread, almost as much as the jordison and tre and portnoy threads. sheesh. celebrate the drummers.

j
 
I have had it with the "no value added" Bonzo posts from certain individuals. Broken record, enough is enough. Something I should have done weeks ago.

Here goes:

This message is hidden because Bonham to the moon is on your ignore list
 
Back on track.

IMO, it is entirely possible that Carmine Appice could have been a great Zep drummer if called to the task. He had the power, speed and chops. Some of Carmine's work I find more interesting than some of Bonzo's. Since Bonzo derived part of his style from Carmine, I think it could have worked.
carmine.jpg

Discuss.
 
i saw an instruction video years ago by carmin. he's a great guy. what i liked was that while he was demonstrating the essential rock grooves, he revealed his flamboyance by doing a great little fill at the end of each exercise and laughing at himself. when he came to the bass drum triplet thing he mentioned bonham's use of it, but in no way indicated that bonzo had learned it from him. although i suspect bonham was no snob he sponged up idea wherever he could. his earlier bands really hated that triplet figure because he used it ALL THE TIME but not always as neatly as we hear him doing it in the zep discography.
i agree that carmine would have made a fine substitute. i mean really, jimi was the man with the weird ideas that literally forced the rest of the band to flex creatively around odd and interesting riffs and time signatures. cometh the hour cometh the man. Carmine would have done just as well as bonzo. its a lucky man who gets to work with a team like led zep was. though i am sure that a lot of the arranging and rhythm ideas came from johnpaul and bonzo as well.
i must confess that, outside of that video and a couple of tracks i haven't hardly began to listen to the works of mr appice.
j
 
yes. since my last post i've gone and had a listen to vanilla fudge. while carmine had the chops he didn't really have the special sound. its boils down to a matter of taste i guess.
but most of all bonham is a communicator. the more i listen to drummers the more i hear it...some of us do the job exceptionally well and if you analysed the results with musical criteria you would judge the drumming as excellent. but then along comes drummers with sometimes even far less chops but there is an element that i hesitate to call 'magic'. something about the expression and personality that they show through their choices.
bonham was and is one of the all time untouchable drummers because of this. you get a sense from him that when he is playing, studio or live, that he is having fun...he is damn good and he knows it. he is everything i want to be as a drummer.
he has that element of drumming skill which i would argue cannot be practiced or taught or even adequately described. i would rather have this element of bonham in my drumming than all of thomas lang's chops or all of mangini's speed.
j
 
well bonham is a tough issue. For oldschool drummers that are into fat grooves Bonhams there man. But for newschool people that are pretty technical and care a whole lot about fast chops they just dont get that that wasnt what Bonham was about, even though he had pretty mad chops.
 
NUTHA JASON said:
yes. since my last post i've gone and had a listen to vanilla fudge. while carmine had the chops he didn't really have the special sound. its boils down to a matter of taste i guess.
but most of all bonham is a communicator. the more i listen to drummers the more i hear it...some of us do the job exceptionally well and if you analysed the results with musical criteria you would judge the drumming as excellent. but then along comes drummers with sometimes even far less chops but there is an element that i hesitate to call 'magic'. something about the expression and personality that they show through their choices.
bonham was and is one of the all time untouchable drummers because of this. you get a sense from him that when he is playing, studio or live, that he is having fun...he is damn good and he knows it. he is everything i want to be as a drummer.
he has that element of drumming skill which i would argue cannot be practiced or taught or even adequately described. i would rather have this element of bonham in my drumming than all of thomas lang's chops or all of mangini's speed.
j

Welll...

Wasn't Bonzo's "special sound" also attributable to his bandmates and soundmen who helped develop it? (IE drumkit in the stairwell?)
 
true. we will never know the exact mix though. but someone in the biography said they saw bonzo sit down behind a child's drumkit and 'the sound was there, bonham all the way' from my research bonzo really did do a lot to getting his signature sound, both in terms of how he hit the drums and how he tuned them.
no doubt jimi and other producers and techs they worked with enhanced his sound. but bonzo was enough an ego man to insist on his approval of their work which in a way boils down to them all being a highly interactive team. as we all should opperate when it comes to studio work....drummer provides good raw material, techs refine it, drummer listens and gives his approval or critiscisms, further tweaking occours until all parties are happy.

j
 
NUTHA JASON said:
true. we will never know the exact mix though. but someone in the biography said they saw bonzo sit down behind a child's drumkit and 'the sound was there, bonham all the way' from my research bonzo really did do a lot to getting his signature sound, both in terms of how he hit the drums and how he tuned them.
no doubt jimi and other producers and techs they worked with enhanced his sound. but bonzo was enough an ego man to insist on his approval of their work which in a way boils down to them all being a highly interactive team. as we all should opperate when it comes to studio work....drummer provides good raw material, techs refine it, drummer listens and gives his approval or critiscisms, further tweaking occours until all parties are happy.

j
I understand the reservation. When we got used to timeless classic riffs, and sounds- we cannot picture another sound in our mind. Nothing else will do.

However, because of the genius at the core of Zeppplin as a group...I think Appice could have laid down a punishingly powerful foundation that would have served the music...albiet in a different flavor.
 
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NUTHA JASON said:
true. we will never know the exact mix though. but someone in the biography said they saw bonzo sit down behind a child's drumkit and 'the sound was there, bonham all the way' from my research bonzo really did do a lot to getting his signature sound, both in terms of how he hit the drums and how he tuned them.

It's really worth trying to actually figure out some of the hitting techniques that a few of the more identifiable drum sound "identities" (Elvin, Tony, Bonzo, etc) use to actually draw their tone from the drum. I've been having a Tony Williams month, trying to cop as many of the little tricks that Tony used in terms of sound and then apply them in other musical context (like hip-hop playing, for example). It's quite fun - some stuff works, some doesn't. But if you try playing around you can really find ways to get just pure sound out of drums that sounds like these guys.

Needless to say I can't even come close to sounding like a Tony clone, but it's good fun to try.
 
i know exactly what you mean. at drummer live i sat feet away from john blackwell and saw just how hard he swiped his cymbals occasionally and i'm doing it now and it has been like i have found a whole nuther puntuation mark. sometimes dvds and such cannot make you see the reality. you have to be there with stereo scopic vision and year own ears to see the exact technique. this is perhaps the most powerful argument for getting a teacher.
j
 
Good story about John. My late Uncle Jack who was a master Jazz Drummer was playing with Woody Herman on a gig and Led Zeppelin was playing across the street. Jack walked over and got BEHIND the stage to watch John play. Let's just say Jack could be critical of other drummers to say the least. But he was in sheer amazement of John's playing. He stated that his technique was great, and his timing perfect. Real praise coming from a Jazz player!
 
If there's one thing about Bonzo that would impress any kind of drummer, it would be his sense of time, IMO.
 
After many years of thinking that drumming was all about chops and technique I recently had an epiphany last year. I watched the Who at the Isle of Wight dvd a year ago and it was like the heavens opened up and Bonham cracked me over the head with a holy drumstick. I now see that the most important aspect of playing music is the passion that one plays with in whatever style one plays. Bonham was one of these along with Moon and Starr. Thats not to say that all the other drummers that I grew up with didnt play with passion, its just to say that for me, those 3 drummers have rekindled the fire in me to approach drumming in a way that I didnt have before... With passion. This might be a bit off topic but if it wasnt for Bonham and others from the early stages of rock then alot of use would never wake up and smell the roses. I guess that those that have posted replies where they speak of their opinions as though everyone see things they way they do drove me to post my thoughts. Those people should think more and type less.

Homegrown
 
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