Darrell Grey

Playing around with a polyrhythm my teacher showed me that uses quarter notes on the kick and on top of that a triplet feel paradiddle on snare and accenting with toms and cymbals

Jamming on the congas in the garage. I love the freedom I have when playing the conga drums. I feel like I can’t make a mistake and anything I play on them sounds good to me. There are a lot of different techniques you can learn that add different tones and textures to the drums. A lot of my playing I just improvise and find cool tones on the drum and add different rhythms. Another thing great about conga drums, it’s only two drums without tons of hardware and gear to carry around, which makes it ideal for a street musician situation, or cafe gig

Playing a shuffle type beat on Ricks drums. I like the sound of the Bass drum on this kit. It kinda has that Bonham sound. It’s an 80’s Pearl Set . It has a great sound. I will be playing this kit for tomorrows Bittersoundfase show in Portland. I’m looking forward to it.

I missed the last time Stanton was at Rhythm Traders in Portland. I hope to make it this time around. I’ve seen him play live at the Portland Blues Festival. Very impressive performance. He specializes in New Orleans and funk grooves such as Clyde Stubblefield and is also versatile in rock and metal drumming. The time of the event is TBA on Saturday March 26th.

I checked out DC live with Terry Bozzio on DrumChannel . It was a rebroadcast of a jam and interview with Glen Sobel. I hadn’t heard of him up till now. The guy is a shredder. Unbelievable chops and he has some very innovative cymbal choke technique and lightning speed hands and feet. I like his approach and attitude about playing all styles of music . He continues to educate himself as a drummer an is also a drum clinician. He has played with Tony MacAlpine and also with Beautiful Creatures. I highly recommend looking at Glens work. I know he inspires me to want to practice more starting today.

I find that the best time for me to practice my drumming is when I’m inspired. If I’m enjoying the process, I seem to get better results. If I practice because I think I have to, I feel I don’t get as much out of the experience. A good way for me to prepare for practicing is find something new, either in a drum magazine or something on the web that really catches my interest. I will study what is presented to me and then try it on the drums slowly to get a feel for it but not try and master it all at once> I would rather give it time to breathe and allow the idea to develop on it’s own time. If I stick with it, I know eventually it will click. But most importantly If it’s fun, I will benefit from the time. If at any time I’m practicing and I feel like it’s a chore , I will stop and resume another time.

What an Awesome web resource for all drummers of all genres and instrumentation, for that matter for any musician. I spent today checking out videos with Terry Bozzio as host for a show called The Art of Drumming, on Drum Channel. Terry is a great interviewer as he takes us on a journey with his guest, first starting out with the drumming and then going through their history and how they came to where they are today. It’s a very engaging show, with humor,education and passion for drumming and music. I checked out the interview with Mike Clark New York Jazz Drummer. I learned stuff about the history of Jazz and evolution of music that I hadn’t heard before. Very inspirational and entertaining at the same time. During the show I was taking notes and looking up some of the artists and drummers he mentions in the interview, Wow Lot’s of great stuff. I’ll be busy for the next few days listening and playing along. I highly recommend drummers to go check out Drum Channel on the Internet. There are Lessons and videos for all levels of drumming available on the site. Great Stuff!

We have been rehearsing some new songs James wrote and will be playing them with our original set on Saturday. The new songs sound awesome. Its a new sound for the band. The next CD is going to Rock! come out on Saturday to experience a great show with The Shatterbrains, The Bittersoundfase and Gorden Ave. Saturday the 19th at The Carefree Bar and Grill in Portland Oregon