I'm a big Stewart Copeland fan. His little "fills" are always creative, and his tempo changes and slightly off-beat hits are terrific. Also, I love the tight "attack" sound he gets -- he hits pretty hard and clean for an underhand drummer. Sting must love good drummers, because he's also played with Omar Hakim and Kenwood Dennard (who
I'm not a huge metal fan, but John Dolmayan of System of a Down is phenomenal. I see he is #98 on the big list above (mis-spelled), which is really atrocious. Nothing personal, but that whole list is atrocious, actually.
I'm also a big fan of Topper Headon. I don't think the Clash are half as interesting without his reggae-inspired beats. If you listen to their very early stuff without him, it doesn't have even half the soul as what they did with Topper.
Finally, Vinnie Colaiuta needs more props. I love this story, which is incredible if you know anything about what it took to drum for Zappa -- his auditions were legendary. (By the way, Vinnie wound up playing with Sting for a long time, too - among many other impressive musicians)
My favorite Vinnie Colaiuta story (told by Steve Vai):
"I'll tell you a really great Vinnie story. He's one of the most amazing sight-readers that ever existed on the instrument. One day we were in a Frank rehearsal, this was early '80s, and Frank brought in this piece of music called "Mo 'N Herb's Vacation." Just unbelievably complex. All the drums were written out, just like "The Black Page" except even more complex. There were these runs of like 17 over 3 and every drumhead is notated differently. And there were a whole bunch of people there, I think Bozzio was there."
"Vinnie had this piece of music on the stand to his right. To his left he had another music stand with a plate of sushi on it, okay? Now the tempo of the piece was very slow, like "The Black Page." And then the first riff came in, [mimics bizarre Zappa-esque drum rhythm patterns] with all these choking of cymbals, and hi-hat, ruffs, spinning of rototoms and all this crazy stuff. And I saw Vinnie reading this thing. Now, Vinnie has this habit of pushing his glasses up with the middle finger of his right hand. Well I saw him look at this one bar of music, it was the last bar of music on the page. He started to play it as he was turning the page with one hand, and then once the page was turned he continued playing the riff with his right hand, as he reached over with his left hand, grabbed a piece of sushi and put it in his mouth, continued the riff with his left hand and feet, pushed his glasses up, and then played the remaining part of the bar."
"It was the sickest thing I have ever seen. Frank threw his music up in the air. Bozzio turned around and walked away. I just started laughing."
And from Wikipedia: "Colaiuta has won a total of 18 Drummer of the Year awards from Modern Drummer Magazine's annual reader polls. These include 10 awards in the "Best Overall" category. Colaiuta was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1996. The publication also cited Colaiuta as being the most important drummer of our time."
I'm not a huge metal fan, but John Dolmayan of System of a Down is phenomenal. I see he is #98 on the big list above (mis-spelled), which is really atrocious. Nothing personal, but that whole list is atrocious, actually.
I'm also a big fan of Topper Headon. I don't think the Clash are half as interesting without his reggae-inspired beats. If you listen to their very early stuff without him, it doesn't have even half the soul as what they did with Topper.
Finally, Vinnie Colaiuta needs more props. I love this story, which is incredible if you know anything about what it took to drum for Zappa -- his auditions were legendary. (By the way, Vinnie wound up playing with Sting for a long time, too - among many other impressive musicians)
My favorite Vinnie Colaiuta story (told by Steve Vai):
"I'll tell you a really great Vinnie story. He's one of the most amazing sight-readers that ever existed on the instrument. One day we were in a Frank rehearsal, this was early '80s, and Frank brought in this piece of music called "Mo 'N Herb's Vacation." Just unbelievably complex. All the drums were written out, just like "The Black Page" except even more complex. There were these runs of like 17 over 3 and every drumhead is notated differently. And there were a whole bunch of people there, I think Bozzio was there."
"Vinnie had this piece of music on the stand to his right. To his left he had another music stand with a plate of sushi on it, okay? Now the tempo of the piece was very slow, like "The Black Page." And then the first riff came in, [mimics bizarre Zappa-esque drum rhythm patterns] with all these choking of cymbals, and hi-hat, ruffs, spinning of rototoms and all this crazy stuff. And I saw Vinnie reading this thing. Now, Vinnie has this habit of pushing his glasses up with the middle finger of his right hand. Well I saw him look at this one bar of music, it was the last bar of music on the page. He started to play it as he was turning the page with one hand, and then once the page was turned he continued playing the riff with his right hand, as he reached over with his left hand, grabbed a piece of sushi and put it in his mouth, continued the riff with his left hand and feet, pushed his glasses up, and then played the remaining part of the bar."
"It was the sickest thing I have ever seen. Frank threw his music up in the air. Bozzio turned around and walked away. I just started laughing."
And from Wikipedia: "Colaiuta has won a total of 18 Drummer of the Year awards from Modern Drummer Magazine's annual reader polls. These include 10 awards in the "Best Overall" category. Colaiuta was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1996. The publication also cited Colaiuta as being the most important drummer of our time."