The Best In Drums Los Angeles Regional Finals

As many of you know, I performed at Sam Ash's Best In Drums Los Angeles Regional Finals last Wednesday.  It was one of the best drum competitions I've ever experienced.  I actually ended up playing last, which was cool but also nerve-wracking.  The drummers were outstanding and it was rewarding but also humbling to compete against drummers at this level.  California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas were all represented and it was really awesome to see that so many incredibly good drummers were also very cool people.  Here's me playing "Smash," the heavy song featured in the contest:

The play-along tracks for the competition are still available for download on the Best In Drums web site.  I highly recommend checking the tunes out and jamming along with them or any other play-along track in your musical style.  It gives you the chance to be both creative and musical as a drummer.  I will not be continuing on to the national finals (this time), but I will be heading to Las Vegas with Cobra Venom during that same week.  More on that later...

UPDATE: This Week In Drums (8.22.11)

Many thanks to everyone that made it out to the Sam Ash Best In Drums Contest and the Gunt video shoot at Cascade.  Good times.

Today's Cobra Venom show at Veteran's Park unfortunately got cancelled.  Not good times.  The good news is that we have several shows coming up in September in LA and Las Vegas!  Here's the flyer for our next gig on Thursday Sept 8th in Echo Park.

Have a great weekend!

This Week In Drums (8.22.11)

I'm in for an awesome week behind the kit and it just so happens that every gig I'm doing is all ages and FREE to attend!  If you're in and around LA and Orange County, here's where you can catch me doing my thing:

Wed 8/24 - Best In Drums Regionals - Sam Ash (12651 Artesia Boulevard, Cerritos CA 90703) - 7 PM

Thu 8/25 - Gunt Video Shoot w/ Tap This and Panteradactyl - Cascade Studios (6611 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood CA 90038) - 8 PM

Fri 8/26 - Cobra Venom with Redfield - Veterans Park (22400 Moneta Ave, Carson CA 90745) - 6 PM

See ya there!

My Life With Cobra Venom

One year ago today, I went to the Viper Room to see Cobra Venom for the first time (and I'm just now realizing the irony – snakes, why’d it have to be snakes!?).  During CV's awesome set I thought “if this band ever needs another drummer, I’m there!”  Three months later, their drummer left and I got the  audition call.  Shortly afterward we created some merch, went on tour, performed live on a popular college station and played at least 2 shows per month around LA while constantly writing new music.  We recently finished our first full-length album and most importantly, we have a really great time just being in the band together.

This situation didn't happen quickly, though.  I met CV frontman Chris La Rocca four years ago while promoting a band called The Cauterized to Chris’ radio show on KXLU called Metal Storm.  This was actually a project for a class I was taking at Musicians Institute with Bobby Borg.  Bobby’s radio promotion tips helped me get onto Chris’ radar and Chris ended up liking The Cauterized, so he played them on Metal Storm.  I wanted to thank Chris in person so I went to see his band Eyes In The Fog play a show.  They were great and Chris was cool, so we kept in touch every couple of weeks for a few years.  Then one day I got a text from Chris about his "other" band doing a show at the Viper Room and you know the rest.

My point here is that it’s not just a good idea but also NECESSARY to immerse yourself in your local music scene.  Find mentors and make friends - not just "connections."  A college is a great place to start looking but if you’re not in college or don’t know someone that is, talk to people in your scene that are gigging or doing some other work in music.  Great things can and do happen.  They've certainly happened for me!

More news about the Cobra Venom album to come.  In the meantime, check out "Life On Land" below and visit our YouTube channel for more videos.

Sam Ash's "Best In Drums"

On Wednesday August 10th, I became one of the store champs for Sam Ash's national drum competition called The Best In Drums Contest.  It was overwhelming and completely surreal.  I've done several drum competitions in my music career and although I've usually done well, I'm a New Yorker and I've been in LA for five years now so I'm used to competing with the hungriest groups of drummers in America.  I've seen GREAT drummers lose and I've seen drummers win who really made me scratch my head and wonder what the judges wanted.  In any event, they don't call 'em competitions for nothing - it's COMPETITIVE out there!  It felt great but also humbling to know that I'd convinced the judges (all of which were long-time, well known pros) that I was the right choice to go up against the best in the Golden State.

As for the actual competition, Best In Drums is a little different from what I've done in the past.  Usually the words "drum contest" mean that it's a drum SOLO competition in the style of arena rock drum solos, where the drummer plays the kit without being accompanied by other musicians.  This particular competition requires the drummers to download some pre-recorded drumless tracks from the Sam Ash web site.  Each drummer then prepares to play along with the tracks live in front of a crowd.  The music is run through a PA system and the drummers get a set of headphones and two channels - one for the music and one for a click track.  The drummer can hear the click but the crowd only hears the music and of course, whatever the drummer plays on the kit.  Although the drummer is playing with accompanying music, he or she is the only one actually on the stage, performing for the audience. The challenge is that the drummer only gets one shot to play the thing right - no stopping, additional takes or do-overs. 

My biggest musical goal these days is to play as well as I can in any particular situation.  When I made the commitment to this competition, I made preparation for it a serious part of my practice schedule.  I knew that this was not a contest for beginners right away because you had to put a lot of effort into getting the tracks, loading them into your computer/phone/iPod/whatever and of course, listening to the click track and using the song as the guide for your performance rather than just playing a collection of grooves and fills at whatever tempo is comfortable for you.  On top of that, the tracks for the competition were selected by Mike Portnoy (for those who don't know, he's one of the biggest names in drums) and the tunes were NOT straight ahead pop/rock songs.  One track was a jazzy ballad, another was a fusion rock song and the other was progressive metal.  Guess which one I picked? :)

Even though I was fortunate enough to have a track in one of my strongest styles, the music was NOT easy!  There were a lot of meter changes and the feel of the music changed quite a few times as well.   My P.I.T. training had prepared me for this situation though, so I immediately started charting the song and figuring out which parts of the track were repeating, what the musical themes were and of course, where the transitions were happening.  Once that was done, I had to make some choices about dynamics and how each drum and cymbal could accent the guitar parts and also lock in with the bass and keyboards.  Since this competition was clearly designed to encourage good musicianship as well as great drumming, I wanted to make this track sounds as much like an actual metal song as possible.  Once the song structure began to take shape, my next step was to work in some cool visuals for the performance as well.

All the work I put into it actually did pay off.  It felt great for the obvious reasons (winning anything is awesome, the prizes were cool, etc) but the thing that made me happiest was that I won this not just for me, but for all the working class drummers and ESPECIALLY metal drummers that put so much time and dedication into their music.  Unless it's a speed contest, it has become increasingly rare that metal drummers win these drum competitions.  No disrespect at all to the unbelievably talented fusion, jazz and gospel drummers that win a lot of these competitions - they all work just as hard and deserve it.  I just felt really proud to represent my genre and my "team," so to speak.

Now comes the biggest challenge yet.  The next round of the competition is just over a week away and I'll be going up against the Best In Drums finalists from all over California.  The winner of that round goes to Las Vegas for the national finals and Mike Portnoy himself is going to be the judge there.  I'm happy that I made it this far and no matter what, I'm glad I rose to the challenge.  It is an honor and a privilege to continue to the regional finals, flying the flag for metal drummers everywhere.

As for now, time to get back to practicing.  Someone cue the training music from Rocky and The Karate Kid for me....

Happy Anniversary, Jedi Drummer!

For as long as I've been a drummer, I've always thought about what kind of videos I could make of myself playing.  I'm a big fan of live performances and instructional videos but I also like behind-the-scenes stuff, shot in the studio during the production process.  I'm also a major Star Wars fan and wanted to find a way to incorporate my love for the Lucas legacy into my love for this awesome instrument.  Most importantly, I wanted to do something different and unique that would showcase my playing but also give people a taste of my personality and stage presence.

With a little (ok, A LOT of) help from my good friend and mentor, Charlie Waymire, the first Jedi Drummer video was created and unleashed on my YouTube channel at the end of July in 2010.  The immediate response from my friends and family was awesome so I decided to promote the video at the Star Wars Celebration V convention in Orlando and The 2011 NAMM Show in Anaheim as well as online through the usual channels.  I'm glad I did it because after each of those conventions my views went up considerably and I started getting comments from people that I didn't know personally.  It seemed they loved it just as much as my friends and family did and so the video began making its rounds through the inter-webs.

Many of my friends have told their friends about the video, posted links on their facebook pages, twitter feeds, etc and Jedi Drummer still gets great responses from people over and over again.  I'm lucky that John Williams gave us such an amazing and inspirational cue (and that Lucas' lawyers tend to look the other way on these kinds of things) but I'm even luckier that I was able to do my thing musically and have it be so well-received by musicians and Star Wars fans alike.  I hope you guys continue to have as much fun watching it as I did making it.  To all those who have been asking - yes, there will be another one.

May The Force Be With You!

The Starmind Record

This has been a very busy year for me.  The good news is that creatively, it has been one of the best years in a long time.  I’ve taken on several new musical endeavors as a drummer but I’m also writing more actual music.  One thing I’ve always wanted to do is score a film or TV series and luckily enough, some very talented actors and writers approached me about composing the music for one of their original productions. 

The Starmind Record is the story of two Los Angeles documentary filmmakers that encounter an extra-terrestrial intelligence.  It begins with the filmmakers discovering a strange man in the desert.  Soon afterwards, an extra-terrestrial intelligence begins to affect the world at large and people start showing up at the filmmakers’ home, looking for this intelligence.  The filmmakers have to deal with this situation and well….let’s just say things gets a little scary. 

I was really excited to work with writer/director Tennyson Stead to tell this modern sci-fi story and being a big fan of Mark Snow (X-Files) and Brad Fiedel (Terminator and T2), I wanted to go with a synthy, electronic sound for the score.  Tennyson was very open to that idea and the results have been awesome!  The series is just about wrapped now and you can watch the episodes on YouTube, vimeo and at the series’ homepage, http://www.thestarmindrecord.com.

8 Sided Films is a very creative, dedicated, talented collective of film, theater and television industry professionals.  In addition to the projects they’ve released, they’ve also built an online community for actors, writers, directors, producers and other creative types, so after you watch The Starmind Record please feel free to poke around on their web site.  Check out the 8 Sided Forum for blogs, profiles and videos of the ensemble members doing what they do best.  Let ‘em know that I sent you, too. :)

Enjoy!