Mostly Drums - Michael Welzl's blog

Skin Sofa at Magneten, 9 March 2012

2012-01-17T22:30:00.003+01:00

Skin Sofa plays @ Magneten (Torshov, Oslo) on 9 March!! Come alone, bring a friend or friends, bring your girlfriend or your boyfriend, your wife or your husband, a bunch or the family! Reserve the night, board the Skin Sofa flight!! :)

Two upcoming Skin Sofa gigs!

2011-11-16T23:44:00.004+01:00

Skin Sofa plays at the Battle of the Bands in John Dee, Oslo, on 27 November. The whole event starts at 18:00, and we need you to come and vote for us! :-)

On 9 December at 21:00 we'll play at the legendary Elm Street Rock Cafe in Oslo, as a support act for the release concert of Kongefamilien - this is one of the last gigs before they shut down the place!

I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

VOGS @ Cafe Kaos, Oslo, on 30 June 2010

2010-06-15T13:37:00.002+02:00

VOGS plays at Cafe Kaos
in Thorvald Meyers Gate 56, on 30 June at around 9pm.

This is a double concert, together with Heartwork

Don't miss this!

Emergenza: we made the first round!

2010-03-21T18:06:00.002+01:00

Yee-ha! Skin Sofa passed the first round of the Emergenza Festival band competition, which means that we'll get to play in John Dee, Oslo, on 15th of April. Come there and vote for us! :-)

New recordings

2010-02-22T00:19:00.003+01:00

Recently, I was in the studio with Jostein and Viktoria, to record two of her songs. Since this happened in only one morning, we ended up doing an almost live recording, with practically no fixes afterwards. The first two songs on the VOGS page ("Without a reason" and "The birds") are the result.

Also, the Skin Sofa gig in Skuret is just ahead - Wednesday 24 February, evening. Apparently Skuret streams their concerts live via their website, maybe you can see us play from your home, via your browser!

Some gigs ahead!

2010-02-08T10:45:00.003+01:00

With VOGS in Garage on 9 February, with Skin Sofa in Skuret on 24 February, and Skin Sofa again at the Emergenza Festival in the 17-20 March time period (exact day to be determined)

UiO computer science is doing great and Santa is a punkrocker, also in China!

2009-12-02T23:19:00.007+01:00

Okay, one by one. First of all, as I keep telling everyone, I'm proud and happy to be a part of the University of Oslo's computer science institute. I had the impression that things are just great there, but now it's officially confirmed: the University of Oslo reached position 65 in the worldwide "Shanghai ranking", and computer science reached position 49, next to Politecnico di Torino and TU München. Wow! :-)

Skin Sofa has updated its myspace page for Christmas! Check it out, to listen to the Christmas song that we made, Santa is a punkrocker! Listen to the whole song because there's a surprise part towards the end!

Finally, today, we received the folder for a CD that will be released in China... check it out:

We're song number two.

6 weeks later

2009-11-30T14:06:00.002+01:00

- and still relaxed :-)

Good music

2009-10-31T14:14:00.004+01:00

After telling everyone again and again how happy I am with Skin Sofa, I think that Viktoria deserves a special feature here - especially because she managed to write a song that I can't get out of my head. This is the first time that I'm playing with someone whose music I also listen to at home, just for enjoyment! That song is (and Viktoria will not be surprised) ... "Without a reason"! You can listen to it on her myspace page. This is just Viktoria alone, playing piano and singing; hopefully we can also get to record a demo soon, as a band, with bass and drums.

Before I met Viktoria, I was in a phase of listening to Regina Spektor all the time, day and night, and dreamt of having a band in this style. Thanks, Viktoria, for taking this role! (and yet your style is unique, just the rough direction is the same). It's a real honor to play with you.

Well, and now Regina plays in Oslo, on 10th of December, and I just bought a ticket, to go there with Viktoria and her husband. How fitting! I'm excited!

Oh, and speaking of good music, I also enjoy playing along with LAMB again these days, they are really great... e.g. check out this great live version of "All in your hands", and don't miss the rhythmical displacement at 2:20, I think it's quite fascinating.

Katharina's first day of life

2009-10-20T15:14:00.009+02:00

My daughter Katharina was born on Friday, 16th of October, at 22:45, healthy, quickly, and without any problems. The next morning, visitors came... so here are a few excerpts of her first day of life. These two pictures were shot at 8:40 (i.e. Katharina was approximately 10 hours old):

Here she's in her grandmother's arms:

9:42, trying to eat her hand:

12:16 - on her grandmother's shoulder, now 14 1/2 hours old:

Just got diapers changed, at 13:24:

17:12, sleeping happily, a bit more than 19 hours old:

Right now, as I'm writing this, she's spending her 6th day of life (currently sleeping). She's got quite an effect on people - one of the comments that I received in response to her pictures was: "I think I have to go home now and get pregnant straight away ;)".

Coming to Innsbruck for a while

2009-10-01T17:51:00.004+02:00

Approximately 1 1/2 months, actually :-)

Up here in Oslo, things are going fine; while I'm looking forward to the Innsbruck trip for various reasons, I'll miss my two bands - Skin Sofa is really "taking off" now (to quote one of our "hits" :-) ), and playing with Viktoria (and Jostein on bass) is a lot of fun too...

Well - I guess I'll see many of you soon!

Gig announcement

2009-09-21T11:52:00.004+02:00

I'll play with my punk band "Skin Sofa" on Friday 25 September 21:00, in Konows Gate 67B (motorcycle club room, in a big grey building which was once called "den gamle postgarasjen"), Oslo. To get there with public transport, take bus 34 or 70, e.g. from Jernbanetorget, to stop "Kværner". Don't be disappointed that we only play 6 songs - there will be around 4 bands playing this evening.

... and 5 of the songs will work really well because we just recorded them for a demo this weekend, in "bark studio"! Stay tuned for an update, we'll have music on our myspace page soon!

A general update

2009-08-12T10:49:00.005+02:00

I've been a bit lazy with blog updates recently, but a lot of things happened - so I figured I'd just give a general quick update here: I moved to a new flat in Bogstadveien, Majorstuen (or -a), which is a nice but somewhat posh area. Frognerparken and Slotsparken with the royal castle are within 10 min walking distance, and it's another 10 minutes to the harbor. I spent some time with IKEA stuff, well, and also their staff, and got quite fed up with them. My living room looks like an IKEA show room now - all I need to make it perfect is one of these fake TV's. Seriously, I'm in urgent need of some contrast. Some plants and pictures maybe... Matthias (Erasmus student) helped me a lot with it all, thanks! He also showed me Sognsvann, which fascinates me - actually I think I can reach this place faster from my home here via subway than I can reach Lanser See from my home in Innsbruck (via car). As you can probably tell, I'm still extremely fond of Oslo - actually more and more, as I discover new things here all the time. And for everything I see and experience, I'm thinking about how our baby girl is going to like it all... well I'm sure she'll love it! Although she's going to see winter first, and watching "30 days of night" (on my iPod, in the subway) got me a bit scared about that :-)

There's some news on the musical front, too. I started to play with a punk rock band called "Skin Sofa", working towards a short gig on the last weekend of September (yeah, right, a gig already). That's good fun. I also jammed with Mark, which was great - I hope we can set something good up together, like a real band! and hopefully I'll get to play with Viktoria soon, too, her music sounds very interesting to me. Things are getting quite international, musically: a guy from Australia, a girl from Russia, and a truly Norwegian punk rock band (sure, I'm Norwegian too :-) but give me some more time to learn the language... btw, thanks to Matthias, I started to watch Norwegian movies with Norwegian subtitles now, and it takes me something like 2 1/2 hours to watch a 1 1/2 movie because I stop and rewind it all the time. Oh well... it's fun nevertheless).

Well, that's about it. Life's great, I'm happy, and I hope you're happy too!

Scandal! New employee poisons me!

2009-07-23T18:43:00.014+02:00

It all begins as a nice afternoon on Gressholmen island. Not knowing what is ahead of me, I am working hard...

... and enjoying the sea - just look how vivid I still am!

But destiny awaits. The evil Italian finds mussels in the sea, and offers them to me (which was, as I later found out, an old Mafia trick; in retrospective, it's easy to see that he had an evil plan on his mind! Check out the picture). And I happily accept.

Later that day, he continues his evil plan, preparing the mussels, making them look good and harmless:

Delicious, huh? Wouldn't you also have fallen for this evil scheme? Here, he even looks as if he's having second thoughts about it all...

... yet he continues, and I eat:

Accidentally, he almost eats one too, without thinking, but his girlfriend stops him, shouting "ARE YOU CRAZY? DON'T TOUCH THEM!!!"

... but for me, it's all too late.

The next day, at the University, colleagues react shocked, ask me if I'm all right... (now, this part is true!) and point me to this website, which we should have checked before picking mussels. "Spis med måte", it says... eat in moderation ... reason: "Alexandrium close to danger limit". Reading on, and on, I learned that mussels can sometimes contain toxins from a special type of algae, with possible effects: diarrhea, paralysis, and memory loss!!!

Hm, where was I? Ah, yes:

Hi everyone, I have to tell you the most exciting story. My new employee tried to poison me! It all started with an afternoon on an island, I forgot which one, and then....

Just married

2009-07-12T12:54:00.001+02:00

- sorry girls! :-)

Oslo is hotter than you think!

2009-06-29T14:58:00.005+02:00

Dear visitors!
You should properly prepare for Oslo before you come. This picture shows you what happens to you if you expect this to be a cold city in summer:

(Frank and Verena from the QE group, in case you haven't recognized them :-) )

Beach days

2009-06-27T04:22:00.001+02:00

I spent a few great days with my mother, mostly relaxing and swimming at the beaches of some of the islands just opposite Oslo. Here are a few snapshots - they were all made without a flash, check out the time in the lower right corner (you may need to click on the images to be able to read it).

Getting later...

This one features my mum:

And here's a midnight shot of the two of us, taken with automatic release but without flash!

The darkest is actually 1am, not 12... and no, it doesn't really get 100% dark these days, but it gets quite dark - for half an hour or so.

This one is from yesterday; at the beach again, this time equipped with one of these Norwegian disposable grills. These are scampi on the grill in this picture, and they were really delicious.

... but not all the fish or meat that you get in Norway is so great... although I can't say that I actually tried that one yet:

If you look closely, you can see that it says "Hvalbiff" - well yeah, that's whale meat. They do eat some strange things here. I'm still shocked by Frank's Lutefisk description.

When people make it hard for you to be honest about your real academic title

2009-06-17T16:24:00.000+02:00

up to now, I thought that "professor" sounds cool....

It's hot

2009-06-14T16:01:00.001+02:00

or at least warm. And it was really warm yesterday. It's nice to be in Oslo on a sunny day!

Stay tuned for the next really exciting post... ;-)

It's cold

2009-06-11T21:30:00.000+02:00

this is like March... but our language teacher said that this is perfectly normal June weather. I'm trying to stay warm by turning on the heater (in June, damnit!) and listening to Regina Spektor, mainly the "Begin To Hope" and "Soviet Kitsch" albums (thanks Rene!). (Favorites: us, fidelity, Samson). Regina, if you read this, could you please make a short trip from Hultsfred, Sweden, to Oslo on your tour? Thanks! :-)

Buddy Rich's Secret Weapon

2009-06-10T16:26:00.001+02:00

About time to post something about drumming again:

When I was around 15, I attended a 1-week workshop where Jojo Mayer taught us all kinds of crazy things. He made a real effort to get everything across, from his unbelievable foot technique to... well, you name it, the guy can do everything. Anyway, while we all practiced a lot during that week, of course you need to put more time into it - and so at least I never managed to make the "one handed roll" work. This is one out of two common techniques for playing fast strokes with one hand, the other one involves the rim of the drum.

Recently, some 20 years later, I stumbled over it again on youtube. Jojo now (maybe also back then? I don't remember) calls it "Buddy Rich's Secret Weapon" because, apparently, this is how Buddy called it. I think it's what Buddy uses on his left hand in this video, right at the beginning. This video is quite impressive, by the way.

Now check out Jojo showing it off. This video starts with his foot technique, and he shows the one-handed roll at 1:18. At 1:34 you can see (or rather hear) the limit of how fast one hand can really go... I don't believe anybody can play faster than that (without using both ends of the stick).

So, of course this is only a gimmick - this is why I never practiced it, but now I felt like getting started, just for the fun of it. It's also one of things that you can nicely do on the side while watching TV (or, in my case, your landlady's DVDs with Norwegian subtitles :) ). I found this video of a guy who's teaching it very well, although I admit that, just because of the way he acts, my first thought was "heck, this guy is too young to teach me!" :-)

Seriously though, this guy has it all down, and teaches it very well. He calls himself "masterofmoeller" because he's can also do the Moeller technique very well - he shows this in a couple of his other videos. That's another technique that I can't really use well - just a little bit. Many years ago, I spent countless hours in front of a Jim Chapin video tape - which, as you can see here, is annoying ... so I can do it a bit, but by no means as good as the "masterofmoeller", and above all I never managed to really apply it, which he does very beautifully in this video. Check this guy's videos out if you want to learn some hand technique.

Anyway, I'm practicing this now whenever I watch a DVD, and I can already see some initial progress. It actually feels quite natural to me because half of the motion is how I play doubles anyway, so now it's just a matter of filling the missing link in the movement...

Oslo update

2009-05-24T21:23:00.000+02:00

I am writing this on the plane back from my first job trip after the move (ICCRG / Pfldnet in Tokyo). It feels strange to go back "home" from a trip, when I know that I will actually arrive in Oslo...

Not much news from there, by the way: I still like it a lot - well, okay, it would be bad if I didn't, in summer! and after not even a month - but I have a feeling that things will never get worse there, only better(*) and better(**) and better(***) and better(****):

(in historical sequence)
* ... receiving visitors and moving to a new flat
** ... moving my drumkit here and finding a band
*** ... family joining
**** ... buying a boat! (just kidding... or not?)

Someone told me that everyone will just claim to visit but eventually most people just talk and then won't really do it. This seemed realistic to me, so I pushed people a bit, and now my calender is seriously packed! But I'm glad about it, and prepared - except for the salmon cooking promises that I made, I really should start practicing now I suppose :-) Oslo is full of museums, and so far I haven't visited a single one - not even the Munch museum which I'd really love to see, and which is almost next door from my place. I'm doing this to avoid spoiling the fun when visitors arrive; I plan to only see at most two with every visitor, so I get to see something new every time, which is also more fun for the visitor than going there alone or with a yawning Michael ("oh THAT again..."), I guess.

The rest of my life in Oslo is mainly about work (which is fine, in a nice environment), getting private things arranged (right now looking for a flat - they are terribly expensive here!) and learning Norwegian. For native German speakers, the expectation seems to be that you better learn the language FAST because everyone does - most people seems to know someone from Germany who managed to become fluent within a year or less. As for myself, I almost showed up for Dugnad with beer and meat because the description sounded like a barbecue to me. But things will get better, language lessons begin in June.

I hope I can get myself to write updates more frequently from now on - see you all soon, og ha det bra! :-)

First Oslo post

2009-05-04T23:44:00.000+02:00

So I arrived. Things are nice here - everything looks fine to me, but I don't have anything special to say, really... I took a few walks, started to work, met friendly colleagues, it all looks good. I'm only writing this because I promised to put Oslo updates here, and this initial posting buys me some time before something peculiar (i.e. worth mentioning) happens :-)

A new life

2009-04-09T10:14:00.000+02:00

After working at the University of Innsbruck for 7 1/2 years, I handed in my office key yesterday. It felt weird, but good: while I enjoyed my job in Innsbruck, I'm quite happy about all the changes ahead. Oslo, here I come!

So long, and thanks for all the fish

2009-03-25T08:02:00.000+01:00

Phew, a geeky heading... well why not, for a change, it really fits, I did eat a lot of fish.

So I returned from Australia. It was a great time - here's one final musical bit, playing in the street with Rene:

...and the video:

at this point I'd like to say thanks for everything to the Swinburne mates. Here's a pic from the "say goodbye and meet the missus" dinner:

(From left to right: Romina, Lachlan, myself, Petra, Lawrence, Warren, Mattia)

After that, we had a nice holiday in south west Australia (Perth, Bunbury, Busselton, Margaret River, Danmark, Albany...) - thanks to Mat+Romina for helping with the plan!

To conclude, and to help justify the heading, here's a picture of the cutest fish I've ever seen, taken in the Perth Aquarium. It's poisonous (only if you eat it), but no, it's not a blowfish. Sadly I didn't take a picture of the description and so I forgot its name.

Rene

2009-02-23T12:56:00.000+01:00

After the last two slightly depressing ones, it's high time for a fun post again. But how do I get back to the routine of fun posting without showing off again? I'm just having a great time down here, filled with work which I enjoy, evenings full of music, and surfing in between...

So here's the solution: feature someone else for a change. Rene deserves a post. He's one of my best friends, and a lot of the fun I'm having down here is due to him. I would like to thank him for:

* Sharing his great music with me and letting me join him on stage on a couple of occasions. Check out his new Youtube video! The one major thing that's still on our todo list is to go busking...

* Convincing me to go see Underworld instead of a more serious movie. What a good choice!

(forget the Oscar - I'm herewith giving the "sexiest vampire of the year" award to Kate Beckinsale, very well deserved. Congratulations Kate!)

* Introducing me to Drawn Together. How could I have missed this?

* Introducing me to a couple of cool mates down here - Turin, Geoff, Oedi, ...

Thanks for everything, mate! To end this post, here's a picture of brave Rene singing as a frontman (!) jazz singer at Dizzy... he was scared as hell but did a great job in my opinion.

Louie Bellson died

2009-02-19T07:27:00.000+01:00

Sad, sad sad. Check his webpage if you don't know him (which means that you're not a drummer). A lot of greats have recently passed... e.g. Max Roach, also not very long ago.

A somewhat more personal post...

2009-02-14T14:21:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone out there!

Looking at my blog, I'm getting the impression that all I do is show off - look what a cool drummer I am, look how I'm travelling around the world, look, I go surfing...

I don't want to show off. I document things that make me happy and mean something to me, that's all. Anyhow I believe that this might be the overall impression that gets across, and with this post I'd like to change this a bit, by writing something serious for a change.

I herewith publicly announce that I'll "bury" the last year. It's actually a bit more than a year (but I'll keep calling it a year here), and it wasn't the greatest time for various reasons. Some bad things happened, not so much to me, more to others, but bad nevertheless. I think that, as a person, this last year changed me quite a bit, and hopefully for the better. I learned various things, one of them being that we all don't live forever, and therefore we have to live now, look ahead, and be careful to avoid wasting the time that we were given. I did waste a lot of time during this last year. I thought and did things which were just stupid, and feel sorry about it now (because it wasn't always cool for everybody involved), but I cannot change that anymore. That's a part of what I now understand; I've been thinking too much - about things which happened, AFTER they happened, which means that I've been thinking too much about the past. We shouldn't do that.

There are several BIG changes ahead - 2009 will surely end as the "year of change" in my personal history. I wanted it this way, and I'm happy about it. Now is the time to concentrate on the future.

Phew...

The next posting will probably be about fun again - drumming, surfing, whatever :)

The first Melbourne post

2009-02-11T10:16:00.000+01:00

I guess that, with a bit more than a week now passed, it's about time for a first blog post.

Except for work (of course :) ), the week was music oriented. I went to see Rene play at the Espy on the day of arrival, we played a jam session at Dizzy's, an open stage at a place whose name I keep forgetting, and another open stage at the Spleen bar (where I accompanied Rene on a cardboard box and a beer barrel).

On the weekend, there was the big ending of the St. Kilda festival, with all kinds of stuff happening in the street; a guy set up quite a big drumkit to make money playing (I guess?), and for a dollar you could play on it. So I did :)

Here's me, looking forward to playing, and him, happy with the money:

Here's him, telling me not to break his precious cymbals:

And here's a couple of people watching me. In fact he told me not to stop when I wanted to, because people started putting coins in hix box ... so now I know that I have an alternative career possibility if I ever decide to quit computer science :)

Finally, a video of me having some fun with polyrhythms. Thanks to Mattia for taking these pics and shooting the video!

Check out the guy paying for my "art" at 0:55 :-)

Big waves ahead!

2009-01-28T15:49:00.000+01:00

- literally, because I'll go to Melbourne again, and for sure I'll be surfing the waves in the Torquay area. Metaphorically too, because I'll move to Norway, to join the Networks and Distributed Systems group at the Department of Informatics of the University of Oslo. I suppose that this blog's content may shift a bit, from "mostly drums" to "mostly elks" or something like that...

I love the Rebirth Brass Band, and I love the Maple Leaf

2008-12-07T11:32:00.000+01:00

I just returned from New Orleans, where I saw the Rebirth Brass Band in the Maple Leaf Bar once again. After all these years, they still play there every week, and if I would live there, I'd probably be there to see their show in this place every week too. It's quite an experience, which can never be fully captured by a video.

Ali G Translator

2008-11-13T23:19:00.000+01:00

i was recently told dat my blog entries is too borin - so, fa a change, i'd dig to share somethin wicked wiv yous. as some of yous may know, i ave a link to da ali g translata on my webpage, askin people to translate their emails before dey send them to me if dey dig my respect. so now, fa da first time, a colleague wiv a sense of uma translated a standard invitation to review a papa fa a magazine. in da house's an excerpt:

--
(..)
i believe dat da subject matta is within your general area of expertise and int erests and i would dig yous to serve as a reviewa fa da papa. a copy of da papa is attached at da batty of dis note.

if available, i would appreciate it if yous could review da papa and borrow me your assessment as soon as possible.
(..)
if yous cannot make dis date or is not available to do dis review, please let me know as soon as possible. if y ou is unable to do dis review, suggestions fa alternate reviewers would be mostest welcomed.
(..)
***i would appreciate it if yous ack da receipt of dis note.***

thank yous well much fa your elp wiv (..)
--

RESPECT to Ioanis Nikolaidis!

Gig announcement: 9 and 11 December

2008-11-10T16:27:00.001+01:00

After the nice gig that we played as session opener in Treibhaus earlier this year (see this old posting for pictures and even a short video), Nina Braith invited me to join her for two more gigs, together with a keyboard player from Vienna and, once again, Matthias on bass. Thanks Nina!

The gig on 9 December is in Treibhaus at 21:00, as session opener (like last time). The gig on 11 December is going to be a little longer, in Hofgarten, starting at 22:00 and lasting until approximately 00:30. I hope to see you at one (or both :-) ) of these gigs!

How things are connected

2008-10-23T13:44:00.001+02:00

Sometimes it's strange how things are connected in this world... here are two examples.

1) Just before going to Beijing, in this posting, I wrote about the Steve Gadd drum lick (broken doubles between hi-hat and snare) from Rickie Lee Jones' "Chuck E's in Love". You can hear it here.

Now I'm back from China. In Hongkong (a part of a private trip after working in Beijing), we went to see a jam session in a bar. People there told me that the drummer is really good ... and then, during a solo, he played exactly this lick :-) - things are connected in this world, and drummers love Steve Gadd everywhere.

2) Another strange coincidence: I'm a big fan of the new orleans keyboard player / singer Jon Cleary, and was hoping to finally see his band when I get to New Orleans again later this year (late Nov / early Dec). Turns out that he plays in Treibhaus with John Scofield (and George Porter Jr. from the Meters on bass! wow!) on 1 December... so I'll miss him because I'll be in New Orleans!

Fun in Beijing

2008-10-11T18:25:00.000+02:00

Yes we're having some fun here... (in addition to all the hard work, of course!)

Southpark-ized

2008-10-03T17:28:00.000+02:00

Inspired by the simpsonized picture of myself in my blog, Hansi and Sebastian (notice that his consultation hour is by appointment only! be sure to request an appointment now!) decided to manually Southpark-ize me. I guess I owe it to them to present the results here... I hate to say it, but I have to admit that they're not entirely unrealistic :)

Omnipresent China?

2008-09-30T17:34:00.000+02:00

As my second trip to China is getting closer, just like the first time, I start noticing references to China everywhere. On TV yesterday, Bart Simpson got infected with the Chinese Panda virus. While I searched for bars in Beijing, I was coincidentally listening to "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" from Rickie Lee Jones' "Pirates" album (one of the most beautiful albums ever!). Is this just a coincidence, or is China really omnipresent in our lives here in Europe, and I only notice that before going there?

Since this is supposed to be a blog about drumming, let me say that Steve Gadd's drumming on Woody and Dutch is just great (this shows why I once liked brushes :-) ), and anyway nobody else could have played a better drum track for "We Belong Together" from the same album than (check out what happens after 2:20). And, speaking of Steve Gadd and Rickie Lee Jones, there can be no better example of his broken doubles between the hi-hat and snare than in the song "Chuck E's in Love" from the album named "Rickie Lee Jones". Ah, I just remembered, that one is available on Keith Cronin's great "Drum Licks from Hell" page, right here. This page is great, just like his "Drum Grooves of Doom" page. To get back to Rickie Lee Jones - I've been a big fan of hers for a very long time, but I had no idea that Tom Waits was once her lover until I visited her Wikipedia page the other day. Why didn't they record a duet album? Shame...

Hm, now that was more about drumming and music than about China, despite the title. Well that's just the spirit of this blog - "mostly drums".

Petra

2008-08-22T17:18:00.001+02:00

Check out this picture of Petra :-) quite realistic, except for the lipstick.

Gig announcement: 30 August

2008-08-21T10:25:00.000+02:00

On 30 August, starting at 18:00, I'll play with the Westplace Jazz Sextet. Location: unterer Stadtplatz, Kufstein (open air - will be cancelled in case of bad weather!). I hope to see you there!

Simpsonize yourself

2008-08-16T12:10:00.000+02:00

That's me, simpsonized, from this picture. Simpsonize yourself, too!

I miss Melbourne

2008-08-14T12:15:00.000+02:00

Yes I do. Every day, this picture which I took from a helicopter (sounds good, doesn't it? it was one of these tourist tours... and surprisingly cheap) reminds me of my stay there, these are the "twelve apostles", and it's my desktop background:

Isn't it strange, how you can wonder how people on the opposite end of the world are doing - how is Rene? How are the other Asoma guys, Turin and Mark? Guys, if you read this, I hope you're all right, and I hope I'll get to meet you again in the not so distant future (which means that Grenville would have to invite me again... well, Mattia keeps reminding him, apparently they even talked about me at the last CAIA party :-) (in addition to watching the great Midwest Teen Sex Show again). Who knows, maybe there's a chance for another visit soon. I sure hope so, I really enjoyed every part of it - the nice work environment on the one hand, places like the Espy on the other... well and surfing of course.

(No, there was no particular reason to hold my hand like that)

Jimmy

2008-08-08T08:40:00.001+02:00

...ordered a Frankfurter when we went for a game of Billard the other day (I beat him twice, ha!). He put mustard + horseradish + the two sausages on bread 1, added bread 2 on top of that, and tried to eat it like a hamburger - because that's how he thought it's supposed to be eaten! Americans...

Then again, I have to thank him for taking this picture of the mighty Trento goose, "L'occa piu grande del mondo", which was set up for Feste Vigiliane. I told almost everybody about it, but only few have seen it...

Well; bye Jimmy, have a good trip home, and don't forget to visit the Louisiana Music Factory in your hometown!

Can't stop listening to DMB

2008-07-31T08:38:00.000+02:00

Funny... I knew them for a long time - being a drummer, you can't miss Carter Beauford - but Dave Matthews' singing just wasn't for me. Until, one weekend, I couldn't stop listening to "When the world ends" from the first Central Park concert CD, which Rene gave me a long time ago. I've been a fan ever since; for almost half a year now, I haven't been listening to much else. Sure, the drumming also plays a part in it, but mostly it's just about the songs which are good.

My all-time favorite DMB song is Grey Street, check out the end (from approx 4:35), the drumming at the very end always sends a shiver down my spine.

Speaking of drumming,the groove of Eh Hee is just incredible - so simple, and so powerful... and this is one of the few DMB songs that one can play along to :)

Other great songs: Everyday, Dream Girl, Too Much, Ants Marching, Crash Into Me (if you don't really know DMB, you might still know this one ... the video is terrible though), ... okay, I'll stop there :)

Current practicing

2008-07-24T10:44:00.000+02:00

I play a lot at home these days because it's just great fun to turn on some music and play along with my e-drumkit... too much fun to get myself to practice, but when I do, I play the transcription of Harry Connick Jr's "How Do Y'all Know" (from his great Star Turtle CD, one of the (sadly only) two funk CD's that he made), from an old Modern Drummer magazine .... it's tricky but I almost got it nailed, I almost sound like Raymond Weber :-)

One thing I'd love to get to work is this rudiment that Carter Beauford from the Dave Matthews Band (of which I'm a big fan btw) always plays - it's just RLRL, but played as two sixteenth notes followed by two eighth notes .. but this only sounds interesting at a speed which isn't human - see around 0:20 in this video for example. Or, maybe even better, 1:00 in this one. Damnit, I'd love to be able to do that. Could someone please tell me how long you have to practice this to get this up to speed? There's even a video of a crazy guy teaching the lick, but he's no help... I guess I can play it at the speed at which he shows it, and, like him, I don't sound like Carter when I do that :-)

Oh, and I'll get myself a second bass drum trigger for my e-drumkit, so I can practice double bass... about time, I really need that for one of my current bands. I occasionally use the double pedal there, but so far I never practiced it before, so it's always a risk ... anyway double bass is fun; I found out that I can actually do this stuff (again a Carter video, but actually an old trick) with double bass, including the cross sticking... sure, as he says in the video, it's only for the sound, not for the show, yeah, yeah...

First real post: pics from the Treibhaus gig

2008-07-24T10:27:00.001+02:00

Tuesday last week we (the Alexander Komlusan Quartet) played as Session Opener in Treibhaus, together with Nina Braithwho arranged this gig. Philipp took a couple of pics and made a video with his cell phone, and Jimmy's girlfriend Toria took some more pictures - thanks!

Hi there

2008-07-24T10:17:00.000+02:00

So Tommy and I decided to start a blog today; while it was my idea, he was in fact faster than me. Why a blog? Well - I have an urge to share some of my thoughts with people, so this lets me do that efficiently without getting on everybody's nerves. This will be about private stuff, which means 90% drumming related (yep, boring for non-drummers, that's why this is better than sending emails around :-) ), which is the reason for the name of the blog...

Please leave a comment every now and then so I know that I'm not writing for myself, as a therapy or something - thanks :)