Tom Tom Magazine Issue 2

February 2010 / Issue Two

brandi carlile Allison Miller Gossip Hannah Blilie big pink AkikoMatsuura leJDtigre Samson highShaggy castle Denton quasi Janet Weiss telepathe Busy Gangnes & Melissa Livaudis

Sh aggy De nt o n o f H i gh Ca stle by Ph i lli p e de Sa bl e t

Co n t rib u to r s F ou n d e r /E d i t o r- I n - C h i ef

Mindy Abovitz D e si g n D i r e ct o r

Candice Ralph W e b M ast e r

Harlo Holmes C opy E d i t or s

Teri Duerr, Jeremy Scott Northwest Correspond e n t

Lisa Schonberg Bek Andersen, Erin Nicole Brown, Jennifer Leigh Aschoff, Michael Lowe, Rebecca Smeyne, Aaron Wojak, Sarah Svensson, Dalton Blanco, Phillipe de Sablet, Sarah Svensson, Galina Fecher, Meg Wachter, Maggie Owsley, Ally Picard, Jocelyn Chase, Green Wayland Llewellin, Stefano Galli Ph ot og r apher s

Courtney Gillette, Marisa Suarez-Orozco, Alison Mazer, Michael Lowe, Allie Alvarado, Lisa Schonberg, Meg Ryan, Fiona Campbell, Kanako Wynkoop, FonLin Nyeu W r i t er s

Temim Fruchter, Bianca Russelburg, Lisa Schonberg, STS, Nikki Mcleod, Allie Alvarado O n l i n e W r i t er s

C o n t r i bu t i ng Arti sts

Niles Armstrong, Kate Wadkins, Aidan Koch, Martha Grover Holocene, Backspace, Revival Drum Shop, The bands that performed benefit shows, Lisa Schonberg, Maren Abromowitz, Carey Horowitz, Angela Cheng, Tiny Favorite, Hot Box, Ima, Aba, all our family & friends.

Th a n k yo u

Letter f rom th e ed i tor

Tom Tom Magazine was birthed out of necessity. Female drummers are, in general, left out of the media, so here we are, creating our own mode of communication. It is here, in this magazine, that we celebrate our achievements, share our skills, and encourage future drummers to get on the kit and play.

In this issue you will find intriguing articles with professional drummers, drummers on the road, and beginners. Online you can find a daily reinforcement of the same nature.

Thank you for reading this and pass it on.

Love, Mindy

“I just discovered a funny thing that helps me play evenly and in-thepocket–wearing my hair up in a high ponytail, which helps me keep time with its swing. It’s like a metronome.”

—Lindsay Schief of Lake

i llust r at i on by n i l es a r mst ro ng C on tact

W eb s i t e

info@tomtommag.com A d d r e ss PMB #85, 302 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211

www.tomtommag.com

(front) Akiko Mastuura of Big Pink by Stefano Galli; (back) Hannah Blilie, of Gossip by Bek Andersen.

For advertising i nqui ri es

Correcti on f rom Is sue One

suz e is the bom b

E m ai l

info@tomtommag.com

on th e cov er

Vivian Girls photgraph by Ryan Muir ; On the Cover (front) Nicole Turley of Swahili Blonde (back) Frankie Rose of Crystal Stilts & Frankie Rose & The Outs

From Bebop to Mainstream, There is Nothing She Can’t Do. I n t e rv i ew e d & pho t o g r a phed by M i ch a el Lowe

I discovered Allison Miller by accident listening to Dr. Lonnie Smith’s “Jungle Soul” on the radio. Her playing was stunning, extremely creative, and yet not trying to draw attention to the drums—a difficult balance to achieve. The playing contained everything I strived for as a drummer myself. She takes you on a journey at every show, from AC/DC to J.S. Bach to Monk to Coltrane. It's all in there. Miller is a musician’s musician, and brings total commitment to everything she does, from avant-garde jazz playing with Marty Ehrlich and Ellery Eskelin, to her more mainstream pursuits with Natalie Merchant, Ani DiFranco, and Brandi Carlile.

Miller and I spoke at her crisp clean apartment in Brooklyn over several hours this autumn. She has the kind of humility that comes from true mastery, from having nothing to prove. She leaves no question she is one of the best drummers out there, period.

Tom Tom Magazine: I want to ask you about your experience as a woman in the music business, first coming up as a Jazz drummer, and then your expansion into other forms of music. Is there any difference in the way you feel or are treated in the different musical forms you pursue? Allison Miller: Yes, I feel like

I am treated differently in different musical forms and genres. But I don’t feel that it particularly pertains to my gender. I feel like each musical genre, be it jazz, rock, soul or folk, inherently attracts different

attract a different type of musician, one more interested in making an individual political statement or in coming together, through song, to make social change.

Naturally, these two types of people will react to gender differently.

But there is one situation when I always feel the immediate effects and presence of sexism. When an audience or individual has never heard me play before. I will always have to prove my musical worth.

It is never assumed that a woman can play her instrument. She always has to prove herself.

What do you make of the fact that women vocalists in Jazz seem to have a long history of being successful? I think

traditionally instrumentalists have been socialized to be seen as masculine, but female vocalists have been accepted, and young woman vocalists have been encouraged. If a young woman never sees a woman playing the instrument that she is interested in playing, then that young woman won’t think she can do it. It seems like voice has been the only accepted way for a woman to pursue music as a career.

How have things changed over the trajectory of your career? Well, mostly, I have

personalities, different types of people.

Jazz is often considered a muscular music and can be a competitive tradition. For example, in the jam session, instrumental soloists often try to “cut” each other by soloing back and forth. Whoever out plays the other, silently wins. I don’t particularly identify with this competitive spirit.

Folk music is often about stating political or social views, and naturally this will t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 0 2

noticed that there are more professional female musicians, and more women in the media.

This is a refreshing change, but we have so far to go. The music business is like any other business and we are far from true equality. We are heading in the right direction, but we need to stay open-minded and aware of continuous progress. Tom Tom Magazine is a sign of progress!

We agree! What do you think are the most important things to work on for musicians

true to the music you were meant to create and your place in the music. I think sometimes musicians know immediately what their true voice is, but for others it takes longer to figure out. It took me a while. Know that there will be ups and downs. But, the downs will deepen your musicianship. Also, learn your craft. Make sure you have good musical time and always remember when playing that less is more!

How have you developed your listening skills? The fact that I studied piano

first was a really important thing.

I internalized melody, harmony, and form before I focused on rhythm. The piano, and singing, just expanded my ears, my ability to listen to everything that is going on and not just the rhythm.

You play very melodically. Whether you are comping or soloing, I always hear you responding to the music melodically.

I am always thinking of melody. Even if I am playing free. I also consciously practice stepping away from myself while playing, getting out of the way. As an

“Stay true to the music you were meant to create and your place in the music.” artist I want to get out of the way and let things flow. I want to stay musically open, listening intensely to everything that is happening. But to work on getting out of the way, a drummer first has to get their technique to the point where their lack of technique doesn’t get in the way.

How does a musician decide where that point is? Well, you only need enough

technique to be able to express yourself.

You work on your technique until you have the ability to say what you want to say, then practice becomes more about maintenance... until you have something else you want to say that you don’t have the technical ability to pull off! You have to decide what you need. I am also never satisfied. There is no “resting on your laurels” in music and there is always more to learn.

When did you start to feel like you could do what you wanted to do on the instrument? And in terms of your career arc, did this level of mastery coincide with any particular stage of your career? I have

felt like I could play what I wanted to play since my mid 20s but I didn’t feel like I really knew what I wanted to play until my 30s. My teacher, Michael Carvin, said that there are three stages in a career. In the first stage, you are the drummer, as

live pho togr aphs by Joanne weisne r

A LLISON m il l er

who are committed to a life long journey with music? Stay true to yourself. Stay

Full name Allison Miller Nickname Alli, booboo Age 35 Hometown Olney, MD lives in Brooklyn, NY current bands Brandi Carlile,

BOOM TIC BOOM, Emma previous bands Ani Difranco, Doctor Lonnie Smith, Natalie Merchant day job Drum, Drum, Drum!

in, “Hi I’m Allison Miller, the drummer...”

You are trying to get your skills together and become comfortable on the scene.

Then as people start to know who you are, and as you become more comfortable, you no longer have to introduce yourself as a drummer. People know what you do, and at this point you are a working musician, which is stage two. The third stage is when you master your instrument and become an educator, giving back to the community.

I feel like I reached this last stage in the last five years. I have gotten to the point where I can really play what I hear, and I don’t have to think about “drums” any longer, just music.

Is there anything specific that you practice regularly? I do Alan Dawson’s Rudimental

Ritual almost every day. It keeps my hands in good shape, warms up my muscles, gets me ready for a gig. I have been doing it for so long that it is meditation now. I do the Ritual with brushes and sometimes with sticks on a pillow. I keep a practice pad next to my bed.

At what point were you attracted to music?

I don’t remember a point when I wasn’t attracted to music! I started drums when I was nine. My mom says that I was always banging on things, but she wouldn’t let me

play the drums until I learned piano, so I studied piano and voice first. I feel like rhythm came naturally.

“Music is energy, and I try to be the conduit for the transportation of that energy.”

Who are you listening to right now?

There are a couple drummers I am really into right now, Pheeroan akLaff and Hamid Drake. I am also obsessively listening to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Prince.

Also Jonathan Brooke & The Story's Plumb.

Another thing I am obsessed with right now is Donny Hathaway’s In Performance, a live record. My favorite thing is when a friend makes me a mix. Non-musicians, musicians, it doesn’t matter.

It sounds like your listening is quite varied. Yes, but it is all good music! I never

listen to bad music. [laughs] The things that all these recordings have in common is that they all have great rhythm.

You are an extraordinary improviser.

Sometimes is it difficult to explain exactly what Improvisation is to someone who is either not a musician or not an improvising musician. Steve Lacy in an interview once said he was always looking for something that made perfect sense in the moment.

That was his only criterion. Do you think a musician can prepare for improvisation?

I think it is really important to have a strong foundation in the melody, but I agree with Steve Lacy. Feeling the power of now, of being in the moment, that is what music is. The other thing that helps me with improvisation is staying open and visualizing myself as a vessel to transport the creativity. Music is energy, and I try to be the conduit for the transportation of that energy. The music is happening whether you are there or not, so instead of trying to control it, I just try to jump on the bandwagon and let the music take me where it wants to go.

You have a very individual voice, but I hear some strong influences in your playing, Specifically Michael Carvin, Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins. Yes, they

are all big influences on my playing, also Roy Haynes. They are all very melodic players. Michael Carvin especially, not just because he was my teacher but because

he plays so melodically. All these drummers have taught me the value of dynamics. It is so important for me to play dynamically!

You also have an incredibly deep pocket, how did you develop your groove? I have

always gravitated toward danceable music, so the union of dancing and music is really important to me. I feel like all music should be danceable, even free music. Growing up in Washington, DC, I listened to Prince, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Meters, DC Go-go…. Everything I listened to was dance music, and my sisters and I danced all the time.

Let’s talk drums. What do you look for in your equipment? I look for a warmth in my

equipment, a warm sound... I don’t decide.

My ears tell me. I also have been using an Indian bell, tuned to G, a set of agogo bells, and a set of African agogo bells. The other thing I am into right now is a crappy lid to a kitchen pot!

What is your favorite set up? Four

piece, 18/12/14, and I play silver sparkle Yamaha Birch Custom Absolute drums.

I also play a Yamaha Roy Haynes signature copper snare. Two Zildjian rides on the right with a sizzle on the far right, and a non-sizzle crash on left. I like my drums tuned fairly high in pitch, with the floor tom and the rack tom a third (preferably) or a fourth apart.

As a full time working musician, how important is it for you to find other pursuits you enjoy doing that are not related to music? I think everything

affects my music…. I enjoy running, dancing (tremendously!), eating really good food, laughing, and reading.

How have your teachers affected you as a woman pursuing a career playing the drums? I don’t think that my teachers

intentionally approached me differently because I was a woman, but I do think there are unconscious things that are socialized that perhaps we are not aware of. They certainly weren’t easier on me!

If anything they were harder because they saw talent. My first teacher, Walter Salb, once told me, “If you can deal with me, you can deal with anyone in this business.”

Did your teachers understand the kinds of things you would have to face as a woman drummer? and how did their teaching help you prepare for both being a musician, and being a woman who would face unique challenges in a maledominated field? They emphasized that

I should be the best I could be. Both of my teachers were very supportive of women.

Their approach to teaching was—how can I say this?—they were very intense, they were hard! I like teachers that scare me to the point where I never show up unprepared.

I like the challenge of meeting high

a l l is on ’s t e c h ni q u e Walts Paras

expectations and having a teacher like that prepares you for this business.

As a teacher yourself, how do you approach these issues? The main thing

is that I try to get my students to play the drums with conviction and confidence.

I don’t teach them differently, though I feel like sometimes I have to state my authority more with male students.

With some male students, if they haven’t seen me play, they don’t respect me right off the bat. The women on the other hand usually give the respect right away.

In general, what is the role of the drummer on the bandstand? Specifically how do you see your role in a Jazz group? And how is that role different for your more mainstream oriented music?

The primary role of the drummer is to keep good time, it doesn’t matter what kind of music you are playing. In a jazz group the music is more interactive and I play more of a supportive role behind the soloist. In mainstream music it is more about keeping a really solid groove and playing the right parts for the song, which can be the difference between placing the bass drum on one, or on the “and” of one... the beauty of simplicity, finding just the right part. The parts don’t change much from night to night, but the feel can.

How is recording and playing your own music different from being a side musician?

Do you prefer one or the other? I love

performing my own music but I find it more difficult to play drums with my own music. In some ways I prefer to bring my individual sound to the music of others.

When I play my own music I focus so much on the arrangements and compositions that I forget to figure out what I want to play on the drums! It takes a while and is a matter of letting go and letting the music and the drums take on their own life.

What’s in the future for Allison Miller?

This is one of the first exercises I learned on the drum set and it has proved to be one of the most important. Walter Salb, my first drum teacher, created this simple, yet brilliant paradiddle exercise.

The paradiddle is an essential and vital percussive rudiment. It utilizes the single and double stroke and is executed by playing RLRR, LRLL. So simple yet can be explored infinitely around the drum set. Walt’s Paras tackle just a few of the endless possibilities of playing paradiddles around the drum set.

t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 0 4

Start by learning each measure individually, repeating until memorized (mentally and muscularly). Then, when all seven measures are memorized, work on combining them together into a cohesive whole without stopping, reading through the exercise like one would read through a piece of music. Repeat at will.

Always practice with a metronome.

The hi-hat foot should play on beats 2 and 4, using the heal, toe method. The bass drum can optionally play quarter notes for the first five measures, then as written for the last two measures.

Well specifically I am looking forward to the release of my new album which is coming out in March of 2010, my first since 2004. Since then I have done three collaborative records: A Grazing Maze, At the End of the Day, and Emma. I also have one other project called Become or Be Gone, which is not out yet... I am actually singing on that record! So I have been busy.

The new record is BOOM TIC BOOM! The band is Myra Melford on piano, Jenny Scheinman on violin, and Todd Sickafoose on bass. I didn’t realize until I was writing the liner notes that the band is 3/4 women!

All of the compositions are by women.

My next project is going to be an all percussion recording which I am really excited about. I just want to continue growing and making music and eventually would like a full-time teaching position at a university.

Cami l l a Da n g er P hotogra phed by Sa ra h Sv ens s on Drum: leedy & ludwi g v i ntage s pa rk le ma rch i ng s na re

really picky about only playing in places with decent sound systems.

t e l e pat h e I n t ervi ew ed by C o u rt n ey G i llette P h o t o g r a phed by G a l i na F ech er

One half of the now-defunct math rock band Wikkid, Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudis are two musicians who cashed in on their creative compatibility to form Telepathe in 2005. Early EPs like Chrome’s On It showcased the eclectic beats and buzzing hymns that got indie music blogs and fans all aflutter. Last year saw the much anticipated release of their LP Dance Mother, which built upon their blend of ethereal and electronic sound, resulting in a depth that dance music usually isn’t privy to. They recently talked with Tom Tom Magazine about the conundrum of playing electronic music live, organic touches in beat making, and why they love the grid. tom tom magazine: So how did you two get into beat making and electronic music?

Busy Ganges: We used to be in a rock band for a couple years.

Melissa Livaudais: Yeah, Busy played drums and I played guitar. We broke up, and Busy and I really wanted to make something new. So I got a laptop, and we started using a program [called] Reason. ttm: How does playing instruments influence making electronic music?

BG: I feel like we always look to put a human feel into whatever we’re making.

Even if most of a song fits perfectly on a grid, we typically like to add a couple of elements.

ML: Nuances!

BG: Yeah, like nuances, like something that’s floating. Even if it’s panned all the way to the left, it still gives it like an organic feeling.

ML: We put a lot of thought into making those decisions. People think that when using software or electronic instruments, it’s just like, you push a button and then— BG: And then it comes out. [laughs] The other thing that happened for us as far as making the transition between playing all ‘real’ instruments and sitting down and making electronic music is, well, not having a lot of money to keep up the cost of a practice space. When we were in that band, we used to rehearse in Melissa’s bedroom. Melissa ended up moving out, and we just got more and more used to the habit of just sitting in our room, making [electronic] music, and actually having unlimited time amounts where we could sit down and work on a song, rather than like— ML: Two hours twice a week, and let’s make this song.

BG: We just had more open ended time to really get into structuring a song, and adding sounds and tweaking it the way we wanted it. Really perfecting our ideas more. t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 0 6

ML: Every day, I think I would stay awake for like 12 hours, working on a song.

“Everything we learned, we learned on our own, just by making mistakes.”

—Melissa Livaudis What do you think are the challenges in playing electronic music? BG: Figuring

out how to play it live.

ML: Live, yeah. We figured it out, but it took us two fucking years to figure out— like, we didn’t wanna play to a back track, and Busy plays live drums, and I sometimes play guitar. But then, places we’d play, we wouldn’t be able to hear our tracks.

It was a disaster! We wanted to quit!

BG: We had a lot of shows where if something falls out of time and you can’t hear it, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you don’t have the proper monitoring system on stage, then you’re completely screwed.

ML: Yeah, it was trial and error. And then we got a program called Ableton Live, and we use it not compositionally, but as a sampler. We tried the Media Production Center, but sequencing all of our songs on the MPC was like brain surgery. One time we pressed something and lost everything.

We didn’t back it up.

BG: We have a MIDI device on stage and we trigger things in and out, and it’s almost as if we’re remixing our songs. We have all of our samples arranged, so we can build things up, and tweak things, and break things down. So it sounds a lot more like a live band, like we’re manipulating it live on stage, but we’re not always physically playing it live on stage. Like we’re trying to create this atmosphere. Also we’ve gotten

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten as beat makers, or is there any advice you wished you had gotten? ML: It’s more like I wish

we would have gotten advice. Everything we learned we learned on our own, just by like making mistakes. But, y’know, I don’t regret that. I think that’s really cool. But it also would’ve been nice if we had, had like a big sister saying, “O yeah! This is simple, just choose this, do this. Work it out!”

BG: Also, I feel like our biggest realization, especially in making this record [now], was to stick to the grid system. Especially for pop music. I feel like, at least for myself, for a long time I was weary of the grid system. I thought like it was little too icy, and I wanted things to have even more of a human feel, almost as though it was live.

But then when it came down to editing and arranging the music after you’ve layered a few ideas on top of each other, like using Logic Audio, it’s just so time consuming to try and line things up. Like you’re way better off starting from a very organized place and building from there.

ML: And you have so much more freedom when you do that. A couple of times we were like, “O, we can’t do that because we didn’t make it on a grid.”

BG: Or it’s like, the tempo slightly changes in the middle of the song, then it comes back. So even if you had this great new idea or some new layer that we wanted to add on— ML: A nuance— BG: It would’ve been impossible to structure it, or loop it, as far as like working with loops.

ML: That happened so many times.

We love the grid. Even though it seems, like, totally heartless, there’s like so much more freedom.

BG: I feel like the grid is also a very selfless way to make music. I mean, I feel like people really do respond to it, especially with dance music. When they hear it, even the most basic beat, people will respond to it.

Any setbacks you’ve experienced as female beat makers and female musicians?

BG: Oh, the list is too long.

ML: Y’know, like: we didn’t write our own music; we don’t really play instruments. That’s my favorite—two girls that didn’t write their own music.

BG: Yeah, we’re experienced a lot of skepticism about what we actually do, or what our actual skills are, which is so bizarre.

Like people think you’re just the front women? ML: Like that we have

men writing our music.

Full name Elisabeth Gangnes Nickname Busy Hometown L.A./Oslo LIVEs IN Brooklyn, NY current bands Telepathe

(drumming/beatmaking) past bands Wikkid, Bloodlines, Greenstreets DAY JOB music

Full name Melissa Livaudais BORN IN New orleans lives in I live in space and

Brooklyn and very soon L.A. CURRENT BANDS First Nation and Telepathe DAY JOB Music and DJ full time

BG: Yeah, they think we have some producer, or men behind us, or even like putting clothes on us. It’s such an archaic idea and mentality.

ML: But it’s totally not; it’s still prevalent!

It’s like guys, seriously, they question our credibility. And we worked with [producer] Dave Sitek, and it was amazing. We love him. He’s like our family now, and we learned so much from him. But he didn’t write our songs. He didn’t compose our music.

BG: He didn’t arrange our music, either.

We made all of our own arrangements.

ML: Particularly in America, which is particularly misogynist, critics just assume that Dave composed our entire album.

It’s happened more than a few times. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but enough for us to notice. I notice a lot of male bands, male-dominated bands, that have obviously worked with producers, and obviously had producers shape their sound— ML: But no one’s saying they didn’t make their music!

BG: No one even mentions it, but in our case, we actually shaped ourselves.

It’s so crazy.

“We always look to put a human feel into whatever we’re making.”

—Busy Gangnes How did you come to find other female musicians to play with? BG: Well, the

first band I ever became involved in was Wikkid, with Melissa and two other girls.

At that point I was just like, I want to play with other girls so badly! And then it just eventually happened.

ML: I feel really lucky. Like everyone that is closest to me happens to be a girl and also make music. That’s how I met Ally, who was in Wikkid. And then I worked at this cafe and I met Emily Powers. She was talking about band practice and I was like,

“Oh, you’re going to band practice?” We got to talking and she was like, “Let’s play!”

For me, I feel lucky. Some people say that they can’t ever find people to play with, or don’t know girls. And I’m like, really?

I’m surrounded.

BG: Then I was talking to Emily Powers, and I connected to Melissa and this other woman, Ally, through her we ended up playing music together for two years, and it was awesome. We made a bunch of music and recorded songs, and then the band broke up.

ML: Then Busy and I were like on some other wavelength.

Any new releases or projects coming up?

ML: Oh my god, we’re starting a new collection for a new record. We feel like we just made it. Like we just made the last one. It’s been hard. I feel like we’ve grown so much as musicians, and we’re so critical of ourselves, but it’s not from a place of being insecure.

BG: It’s going to sound different, yeah.

r e ad m o r e at w w w.t o m t o m m ag.c o m

“Every time I go on stage I forget that I’m a k i k o M at s u u r a

What makes The Big Pink so special?

The freaky genius in the back.

Interv i ewed by meg rya n P hotogra phed by STEFANO ga lli

“This is the first time in a while I’m actually sitting in my own room,” says Akiko Matsuura as we settle in for a transatlantic iChat just after The Big Pink wrapped the 2009 leg of its tour before the winter holidays. Drummer Akiko has been touring with her pals Milo Cordell and Robbie Furze to promote their first full-length release while also recording with Comanechi, one of the three bands she co-leads as vocalist, drummer, or both.

Whether she’s wailing and thrashing in a bikini top and leopardprint tights with Pre, using her voice and freaky lyrics as another piece of her kit with the scary-good two-piece Comanechi, or lending her massive skills to The Big Pink, Akiko seems like one of those people who has no low gear, no brakes, and no patience for being anything except 100 percent herself at all times. There’s a fated quality to her rambunctiousness that makes you believe it couldn’t be any other way. The Akiko-ness doesn’t come out unless she’s on the verge of total exhaustion.

t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 0 8

Full name Akiko Matsuura nickname Keex hometown Osaka, Japan lives in London current band Comanechi

and The Big Pink day job Rocking out

tired because I’m doing what I love.”

“I’ve been so busy, it’s like I’ve been taking more than human beings are capable of,” she says. Yep. Why else would you take a gig when you’re already busy with three other bands?

“It had to be me,” Akiko says. “No [other drummer] could bring the same thing to The Big Pink. It might sound like me being big headed, but I’m not just a session drummer. There are so many better drummers than me—they could have a macho drummer who never ever misses…but I have something extra I can bring to them that’s more important to them: I play by feel. That's what I’m good at, that’s what brings The Big Pink a magic.”

They’re also longtime friends. Akiko met Milo and Robbie when she was an arts student new to London and Milo had just started his Merok Records label. They were all fixtures in London punk and noisecore clubs, and she had just discovered drumming.

Merok released a split single of PRE and Comanechi, then a fulllength Comanechi album. When it came time for Milo and Robbie to record as The Big Pink, Akiko says, she was the obvious choice.

“I’m such a lucky girl, being in bands with friends who I really get on with,” she says. “We still hang out even when we are not touring.”

But is she really the obvious choice? The Big Pink does benefit from Alan Moulder’s My Bloody Valentine sound, and the duo did start as industrialists: Robbie played with Panic DHH, and their Merok and Hatechannel labels have put out releases by the Klaxons, Crystal Castles, Teenagers, Telepathe, and Titus Andronicus. The Big Pink, by contrast, puts out consistently arena-ready, commercial-friendly shoegaze. The Exceedingly Good Keex (as she is known) is a thrashy, sexy, noise-friendly, don’t-give-a-shit hot mess. Akiko gives them street cred.

“I bring punk,” she says. “They need me to make the band exciting live. Also, I bring more soul to the music.”

That’s a point of which Robbie and Milo seem acutely aware.

Having started out as a “noise band,” according to their press bio, now they [want more]. “We’ve made the progression from noise and aggression towards melody and song structure, and now we consider ourselves a soul band,” says Robbie. Out with Nico and Throbbing Gristle; in with Otis and Aretha. For that they need real drums at the very least. They need Akiko.

Good news for anyone who gets to witness this spitfire in action; bad news for Akiko’s cozy, lonely bed. “I wouldn’t do this for any other bands—only for Milo and Robbie,” she says.

Taking on many different projects at once has its benefits.

“I like having [them all]. Whether I’m singing in this band, or I’m drumming in this one, there is me in music. It’s coming from my love and passion… and I only can do it to something I love— no faking. I never pretend.”

Is it exhausting? “I’m actually very worn out, physically and mentally. I’ve been working so hard and haven’t had chance to relax properly, but I’m doing what I do, because I love what I do. Every time I go on stage I forget that I’m tired because I’m doing what I love.”

And then she pours all the love back into her bands. “You see so many musicians who can play, but still sound boring. I think now that I’ve played so many shows with The Big Pink that I’ve gotten better technically, but I still always follow my gut, my feelings and the feeling with the band members I’m playing with. Always.

It’s live. And that’s how all musicians should be doing it!”

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f l a s h c ra s h

by M eg Wacht er

Inspired by the iconic image of a silhouetted Jennifer Beals making a splash and chasing the dream, Tom Tom Magazine and photographer Meg Wachter bring the same wet and wild spirit and sense of ferocious fun to this fashion story with drummers LaFrae Sci and Cassie Marketos. As the tagline for Flashdance so aptly puts it, “Something happens when she hears the music...it’s her freedom. It’s her fire. It’s her life.”

Feral Childe's Pleated Tunic in Silk Cotton Satin Splatter Pennants Print (black) $212; Lederhosen Leggings in Nylon Mesh $72; Braids and Trees Necklace (worn as bracelet) $66.

On C as si e

Mo d e l s/ d ru m m e r s

LaFrae Sci and Cassie Marketos P ro duct i o n

Teri Duerr Horse+Dragon NYC A s s i sta n t sty l i ng

Siri Thorsen P h o t o g r a phy A s s i sta nt

Feral Childe's Pleated Tunic in Silk Cotton Satin Splatter Pennants Print (blue) $212; Braids and Trees Necklaces (worn as bracelet) $66 ea.; charcoal opaque tights LaFrae's own.

On L aF r ae

Cust om m ad e s na r es by

NYC drum maker Nodar Rode.

Tom Hayes www.tom-hayes.com.

M a k eu p & ma n i c u r es

Seong Hee www.seong-hee.com Photographed on location at Lab 24/7, a creativity incubation space for projects and events in Brooklyn, NY www.lab247.net

t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 10

Hannah Blilie is a PacificNorthwest punk scene veteran who has played in bands for the last decade ranging from Chromatics, Shoplifting, Sarah Dougher, Soiled Doves to most famously, Gossip.

Gossip formed in 1999 and had a distinctive gritty Arkansas garage sound. Hannah, a longterm friend of the band, didn’t join until four years later when she was asked to fill in for a tour with Le Tigre and has played with them ever since.

Hannah’s drumming style, inspired by ‘80’s disco post-punk bands like ESG and Liquid Liquid, was central in helping shift Gossip’s sound and making them the dance-punk sensation they are today. In Europe, they are drawing record crowds and paparazzi attention.

“We try not to take the band or ourselves too seriously.”

I first saw Hannah drum in 2001 playing for the Chromatics, when they opened for Gossip before she had joined the band. At 17, I remember being struck by the charisma and energy of the tattooed impish drummer.

I’ve seen Gossip play many times since then and have been impressed by the impact she has had on their sound.

Tom Tom Magazine: When did you start playing and why did you choose drums?

Hannah Blilie: I started when I was 12.

I was in the junior high school band playing sax, but I met this cool grunge rocker drummer in 7th grade, and he inspired me to take up the drums. My dad was a teacher at the school, so I would stick around after school and play the drum kit in the band room.

I know your brother was in the “Blood Brothers”, do you come from a very musical family? Yeah, my grandfather was a guitar

player and traveled the world playing in a swing-type jazzy band. My mom is also a piano/organ player and an elementary school music teacher.

Cool, so music was encouraged. Where did you grow up? When did you start playing in bands and GETTING into punk? I grew up

in two different suburbs just outside of Seattle. Really white-washed and boring places to live, and my brother and I always felt out of place. We first got into grunge, like Pearl Jam and Nirvana in 6th grade.

That was the gateway to Sonic Youth, then punk, and hardcore later in junior high. t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 12

han n ah b l i l i e i n t ervi ew ed By M a r i sa Suá rez - Orozco pho t o g r a phed by b ek a nd ers en

Right when I started playing drums, my friend Devin Welch’s dad bought me a drum kit and we started a band. We used to put on little punk shows in the cafeteria after school. I was in bands with Devin for 10 years…Chromatics, Shoplifting, etc.

Rad. Yeah, I saw you play with Chromatics in Cambridge, MA, back in 2001 and you guys actually opened for Gossip. Wow

that’s wild! That tour was one of the funnest times of my life. We were raging and sowing our wild oats….

That show was super fun. I loved Chromatics. “Hannah’s Song” was the jam! They’ve really shifted their sound since then. Cool thanks! Yeah,

they got really spacey disco sexy styles.

I had a lot of fun in that band though.

Yeah you guys were awesome and I dig their new ITALO-DISCO thing too. So, you go far back with NATHAN "Brace Pain" and BETH DITTO. Were you friends before that tour with Chromatics? Can you tell me the story of how you all met? Yeah,

when I was in high school I used to go down to Olympia a lot to go to Lesbian Avengers meetings and hang out with friends down there. Beth and Nathan moved to town in 1999 and Beth started dating a good friend of mine, and that’s how we met. The early 2000s were an amazing musical time in Olympia, and the Gossip was at the heart of a really exciting scene. There were constantly basement shows with bands like The Need, Thrones, The Frumpies, Dub Narcotic, etc. So my early bands played shows with Gossip and other Olympia punk bands. We were close before that 2001 Chromatics tour, but the tour definitely brought us even closer.

The Gossip was one of my favorite bands.

I’m so jealous! I would have killed to be around Olympia in that era. So you must have been psyched to join your favorite band, who also were close buds. So, the story goes that they were asked to go on tour with Le Tigre and KATHY MEDONCA couldn’t go so you filled in and then stuck around? Yeah, that’s right. We had really

good musical chemistry on that Le Tigre tour. It felt good for me to play a new style too. I know it was really hard for them to let Kathy go, but she wasn’t really into touring any more and they wanted to take the band in a slightly different direction.

Yeah. There was a pretty distinct shift in Gossip’s sound between “Movement” and when you joined the band for “Standing in the Way of Control”. Was that due to your drumming style and disco beats or was

that more of a conscious group decision?

Beth and Nathan had written some songs for Standing in the Way of Control before I joined, and they were moving into more of a disco realm. My style was definitely disco-influenced too, since I had played a lot of dance-punk type stuff in Chromatics and Shoplifting. I was listening to bands like ESG and Liquid Liquid. So anyway, that shift in sound was a pretty organic process.

It wasn’t something we really worked that consciously on. It just happened when we got together to work on new songs.

Full name Hannah Blilie Nickname Stan Age 28 Hometown Seattle lives in Portland, Oregon current band Gossip Past Bands Vade, The Vogue, Stiletto,

Soiled Doves, Chromatics, Shoplifting day job Play drums northwest indie punk band to recording with Rick Rubin, tabloids, and Paris Fashion week. What’s the most surreal experience you guys have had? No, it hasn’t really

of different kinds of music. Some of my all-time favorite bands are Fleetwood Mac, Shocking Blue, Sonic Youth, Devo, Talking Heads... I love hip hop, soul, and R&B too!

And I’m on an ‘80’s house kick these days.

changed. I mean we spend a lot of time together, so there are ups and downs, but we’re like family, and we’re all going through these crazy experiences together.

We feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to play for people all around the world, and of course to work with Rick Rubin. But “success” was not something we ever really strived for, so it’s pretty strange to be in this mainstream crossover world in Europe. I would say that some of the most surreal experiences have been meeting Yoko Ono and Karl Lagerfeld.

Yoko’s a total inspiration to me and Karl’s a true eccentric.

What new bands are you excited about?

What’s your craziest fan story? We

I was going ask you, Who are your all time favorite old bands? I listen to a lot

The xx, Ssion, Micachu and the Shapes, Comanechi, Pre, Men—anything weird.

“My favorite part is the physicality and the cathartic nature of drumming.”

Who are some of your favorite lady drummers? Sheila E., Yoshimi from

Boredoms, Karen Carpenter, Rachel Carns of The Need/Twin, LKN. Can you tell me a little about your group dynamic? I know you are all close friends.

Are there specific roles you each play in the band? Well, when it comes to writing

songs we all just sort of work out our own parts, and trust that it will fit together.

We try not to tell each other what to play and just let everyone work out their own shit. We also all try not to take the band or ourselves too seriously.

Now that you’ve gotten bigger do you find practice is more business like, or can you still have fun with your buds? We rarely

practice! It’s business-like in the sense that we try to get it done really fast. We always laugh though, usually making fun of each other.

That’s good, so you don’t feel that getting more popular has changed your relationships/group dynamic too much?

It seems like you guys have had some pretty crazy experiences recently. Going from a

have a super-fan named DJ Lindsay who comes to almost every European show.

She’s from Manchester and she runs a gay footballer’s (soccer) club. She flew to New York to see her 50th Gossip show this fall.

She’d never been to the U.S. and she spent a week sleeping in shitty hotels and following us around Grateful Dead style.

True dedication! We love her!

What is your favorite setup for your kit?

And why? I like a simple 4-piece kit with

just one crash cymbal. I’m obsessed with vintage Ludwig drums, 1970s are my faves.

Black Beauty snare and Zildjian cymbals.

What do you do to get better at the drums?

What is the best way to get chops? I take

lessons; I love learning new styles. Latin and Afro-Cuban are very challenging!

For chops I play from some books, “Stick Control” and “Syncopation.”

What do you consider to be the most challenging thing about the drums? What’s your favorite part? Getting your limbs

to do what’s in your head. My favorite part is the physicality and the cathartic nature of drumming. I just zone out and feel such amazing energy when I play.

It’s like therapy!

Best piece of advice you got as a drummer?

Be the backbone!

Have you experienced any setbacks as a female drummer? Oh yeah, all the time.

But who’s laughing now?

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Full name Mr. JD Samson Nicknames JAY-Z, JIDDIS, JC (JESUS

CHRIST), JIDD, JA, JOSH, MR. BOOP Age 31 Hometown Pepper Pike, Ohio lives in New York City Current bands Men, Le Tigre past bands Le Tigre, Peaches, New England Roses What you do for a living I am a DJ, remixer, producer, and performer

jd s am s o n Interv i ewed by Alli e Alva ra d o P hotogra phed by B ek And ers en

JD Samson is probably best know for being one-third of the punkpop-dance band Le Tigre, but her huge arsenal of talent has gained her notoriety as a multimedia artist, producer and DJ. She has traveled both in the U.S. and abroad to spread her brand of body moving rhythms to the masses. Whether she’s chopping up records in her studio, or fronting her band Men, JD is always thinking about ways to make people dance, and her music speaks the same message.

Tom Tom Magazine: When did you start playing music? JD: I started playing the

classical guitar when I was about 14 or 15. I took lessons for about 8 months and then just started playing my own way.

When did you start programming beats?

I started making beats in college as part of my film and video soundrack work.

I went to school concentrating in film, video, and multimedia arts.

t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 14

Why did you start programming beats?

I started making beats because I needed soundtracks and it was cheap to make electronic music and beats.

So what were your influences during this time? I guess I was really into the

feminist lesbian punk scene. I think I was really inspired by The Need and Melissa York. But also in terms of electronic beats I was really more experimental listening to Meredith Monk and stuff that was way more crazy.

So how did that translate to your soundtrack aesthetic. Did it free you to make less structured music? Yeah exactly.

I think in the beginning I didn’t have the idea that it was going to be danced to so I felt way more free for it to be out of sync with itself. It was for an audience sitting in a chair, not for a dance party So were you doing stuff digitally then?

What kinds of equipment did you use for EDITING AND PASTING things together?

I just used some old keyboards and drum machines and a four track. And I was editing with video, not digitally at all…

It was before the time of digital editing, unfortunately. All that I learned is basically obsolete.

three weeks. It was really great to be with friends and play big rooms and also really nice to be in a van. There’s a certain amount of road trip element to driving in a van instead of a bus that I really miss.

What are some of the detours you made?

We really tried to have a lot of nature experiences so we went to a hot springs in Oregon, and we went to the Saguaro National Park, and we went to the swamps in New Orleans and saw alligators. Also we went to the prairie in Florida and saw more alligators! Plus we do a chow tour, which is basically finding amazing foodie restaurants all over the country, BBQ shacks, etc.

So what are your live shows like? Who’s playing what and how does it sync up?

“Le Tigre was the moment when I realized: ‘Ok, this is my job now and now I have to make the people dance.’”

Well, fewer people probably can say they know both. So did your starting to make more dance influenced music coincide with joining Le Tigre or was it something else?

Yeah, totally. I mean I have always been really interested in pop and dance music, but I never knew that I was going to make it. Le Tigre was the moment when I realized: “Ok, this is my job now and now I have to make the people dance.”

Pretty fun job! So how did you meld your aesthetic with what your bandmates in Le Tigre wanted to do? Tell me about them and what your songwriting process/dynamic is. With Le Tigre I think I imagined the

process to be way more about jamming and trying crazy things all together in a room. But Jo [Fateman] and Kathleen [Hanna] were way more used to working in headphones and passing the song over to add parts. Someone would add one sound, then another person would add another, but we ended up trying the jam style and we got a lot out of it. We are lucky though.

Our aesthetics are pretty similar.

Yeah a lot of people work on tracks by sending parts over the internet now a days. It’s cool that you guys have tried different ways of writing songs. Do you have any releases coming out? Le Tigre

is putting out a live concert DVD at some point next year.

So, tell me about Men. You guys recently came back from a U.S. tour… How was it?

It was incredible. We went out with the Gossip for three weeks and Peaches for

I sing and play keys and trigger our beats and samples. Michael [O’Neill] plays guitar, and Ginger [Takahashi] plays guitar and a bass that is really her guitar but octave shifted with a pedal.

Nice! More strings. Oh yeah, totally.

It’s much more about syncopation with more strings.

And you guys have an LP in the works. Are you currently in the studio? How’s that going? We are, actually. Yes. We have a

three-song EP out, but we are working on our LP now.

So what would you say are your influences now? Well I love the Presets. I love Dizzee

Do you have a preference between hardware and software beat machines? I use

both. I think they both have benefits. Most of the time I program a sample-based beat with another beat, and layer the two.

What would you say is your favorite piece of GEAR OR PLUG-IN? My favorite

programming piece of gear is the combo of Pro Tools and my record collection.

Very classy. Tell me about JD the DJ. Do you have any gigs coming up? I have

some gigs coming up in NYC, but not confirmed. Those are usually just really fun for me and something to do at night.

Do you have any remix projects/collabs in the works? Johanna and I are doing

a collaboration with Punks Jump Up, which is a rad production/remix team and band from the U.K. I am going to do a remix for An Horse and I am going to do a remix for Neon Indian. Lots of stuff to get working on!

Rascal’s new record Tongue N Cheek. These are my beat influences, but of course I think as a band we are influenced in a major punk way. We just played with Ponytail and that was amazing. Yeah we generally call our music shredding at the club because it is a strange combination of really big club beats and shredding, but kind of like Built to Spill or Modest Mouse at times.

Sounds pretty original. I can’t wait to hear it . It’s new. Yeah, ha.

So what’s its like to have the role of ‘beat maker’ in your band? Beats play a

really important role in my music. Almost every song starts with a beat for me.

It is really the skeleton and framework to most of my music.

Do you play ‘real’ drums too? I can play

one basic rock rhythm on the drums, so not really. I wish I played more drums. I think it would really help me to program beats, even if to just go against the natural body rhythm. Sometimes I think its is good that I don’t though. My beats are weird!

And what’s your studio set up? I mostly use

Pro Tools and Ableton these days. I record samples from vinyl and I use various drum samples and modules along with midi drum pad triggers and keys.

“There is no correct beat. Take a chance.

Listen to your heart.” have you experienced any setbacks as a female beat maker? I’m not someone

who likes to highlight my losses, but I do want to suggest that everyone try to think of five female producers and five female remixers who have broken through and hit the mainstream.

Best piece of advice you've gotten as a beat maker/producer? Dance more.

What would you recommend to SOMEONE starting off? I would suggest that you

feel the rhythm. Dance. And have fun.

There is no correct beat. Take a chance.

Listen to your heart.

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s haggy d e n to n i n t ervi ew ed By f i o na c a mpbell pho t o g r a phed by da lto n bla nco

After busting up the local church's drum kit as a teen, Shaggy Denton, currently in the band High Castle, got a taste for the beat.

Seeing High Castle live is intense. Their music is sick, but it’s the drummer who blew it out of the water for me. She is a massive force to be reckoned with; a pounding tidal wave. This is a lady you would not want to encounter in a dark alley, especially if she had, a pair of drumsticks on her. Their debut record You’re On Your Own Way is available on Zum Records.

TOM TOM MAGAZINE: When did you start playing the drums? Was there a particular reason? Shaggy Denton: I always wanted

to play the drums. I was 17, my brother and mother just recently became born-again Christians, and me and my brother brought this shitty sound percussion drum set home that was supposed to be for the church.

I ended up beating the shit out of that one in no time; I broke all the cymbals. I used to sit in the garage right after school and practice playing along to “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters; it was my favorite song.

I ended up having to buy another drum set for the church that I was never allowed to play. About a year after that I started going to shows and playing with some friends.

I finally bought an emerald green wrapped sunset kit for 120 bucks from some kid who didn’t want to play them anymore.

That was my first drum set.

t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 16

I was watching some youtube footage of you playing, theres a lot of power and strength behind your drumming. where does that come from? Just the need to

always bring it. It's not as fun any other way. I'm kind of a wimp, but I have a lot of built up aggression and energy.

I liked the double up on the cymbals. is that a crash screwed on top of a ride?

Yeah, I used to play with a China on top of a ride, to produce more of a crash sound.

I lost the China at a show, then realized I just had to hit the ride harder to make it crash like I want it to.

What is your favorite setup for your kit?

Why? Minimal and functional. Keep it

simple. If I had more stuff, I’d prolly lose it.

What would your dream kit consist of?

Bigger than life bass drum and snare, made by me.

What do you do to get better at the drums?

Play. Play to songs you like. Watch other people play. At shows, I always watch the drummer. It’ll give you an idea of how you want to play. how does the fact that you play guitar effect your drumming? I’d say that

my drumming effects my guitar playing more than the other way around. When I play guitar, I can feel the drums in the back ground, it helps me write songs.

What do you consider to be the most challenging thing about the drums? The

most challenging thing is not smashing my hands.

Have you experienced any setbacks as a female drummer? Yes. My period.

It sucks.

H i to m i Nak am u r a i nterv i ewed By Al i s on Ma z er photogra phed by a a ron woja k

Full name Hitomi Nakamura Age 34 Hometown Nagano, Japan lives in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn current bands High Teen Boogie,

Statues of Liberty, and Undead (w/Bobby Steele of Misfits) day job I waitress and teach drums to kids

Tom Tom Magazine: when and why did you start playing the drums? Hitomi

Nakamura: I started at 8 yrs old. My father was a drummer. He taught me and also I really felt attracted to the drums.

What do you do to get better at the drums and improve your chops? I practice on a

pad at home ten minutes every day. Just ten minutes, but every day. I go to the studio and listen to my bands’ CDs at full volume for about one-and-a-half hours.

I practice by myself.

What do you think the role of the drummer is? This is important. The drummer always Full name Shaggy Denton Age 25 hometown Camp Pendleton, CA lives in Berkeley, CA current band High Castle PAST BANDS Hips, Saboteurs day job I work with a woman who

needs to be the metronome for the band, so the drummer doesn’t need a lot of fills, just

a simple beat, keeping the beat (and the band) always on time. which was the Most notable show you ever played? I had a show at Bowery

Ballroom last October. Bowery is so huge, the upstairs, so many faces. And the drums sounded amazing. My kick drum was huge. If I kicked, it came back to my body. I was surprised. Very nice sound and a lot of people in the audience. I played with Statues of Liberty. Two American tall guys and me.

Who are your favorite drummers?

I have many favorite drummers, but my favorite is Stewart Copeland and John Bonham and Neil Peart and Dave Grohl from Nirvana. I like power drums. Rock.

What would you recommend to a new drummer starting off? Just practice on a

pad, not a drum set. Maybe half a year.

Just the pad. Just rudiments. I know it’s boring, but keep doing it for ten minutes every day. Then you can sit at a drum set.

Imagination is very important. You listen to CDs. Imagination first and rudiments.

Bring coffee. That’s it.

has multiple sclerosis. We hang out and I make her meals. I go to school full time too. Learning how to be a carpenter. My mom says I should be more like Jesus.

Who is your favorite drummer?

Stevie Wonder What are some of your other hobbies?

I love to skate. I’m learning how to do a boneless.

Best piece of advice you got as a drummer? Still waiting for it.

What would you recommend to a new drummer starting off? Start simple.

Base drum, snare, and hi-hat. If you can't afford some sort of kit, beat on whatever is around, all the time.

Love to do it. If you are in school, there might be a music program at your school, take advantage of it. Or check out your local rock camp (wish I had this around when I was younger) .

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1 Drummer 1 Questio n

1 Drummer 1 Question is Tom Tom Magazine’s new interview series

by Lisa Schonberg (Explode into Colors, Kickball, STLS).

Lisa asked influential drummers one question and commissioned an artist to make a portrait of them. This issue features interviews and portraits of drummers Teresa Poidomani and Janet Weiss.

T e r e sa Fi ggi an i Poi doma n i Illust r at i o n by K ate Wa d k i ns ba s ed on a photo by Joey Fi ggi a ni

Teresa Poidomani Figgiani has been playing drums for about fourty years and teaching for 30, and also performs as a vocalist. I took lessons with Teresa as a kid, and havealways looked up to her inspirational big band jazz drumming and tasteful solos. www.mys pace.com/ teresa s ong there are some great patterns that come from them especially when you perfect them and are able to play at a pretty fast tempo. As far as Teresa Figgiani Poidomani: I was taught at a obstacles, I think that it’s so important to very young age how imalways take whatever is portant rudiments are for a challenge for you and "Take whatever is your chops—they help you strip it down to the slowwith speed, control, and est tempo and perfect a challenge for you being able to play different it that way. It’s like a and strip it down." stroking patterns without puzzle–sometimes you struggling so much. I tend have to take the pieces to create patterns and fills that have rudiments in apart then put them back piece by piece. That the mix. Being a drum instructor, I think I have helps getting the whole pattern, coordinating paradiddles embedded in my brain. I’ve given what your hands and feet have to do, and also students ideas on how to use them for fills and the tempo you need to reach.

What is a current favorite drumming technique of yours, and have you developed any techniques to wo rk a ro und o bstacles i n you r d ru mming?

t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 18

1 D r u mmer 1 Q u e st i on

J an et Wei s s Illustrati on by Ai da n Koch

Janet Weiss has drummed for Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, Bright Eyes, Junior High, The Shadow Mortons, The Go-Betweens, Sarah Dougher, Elliott Smith, Gold Card, The Furies, and Quasi. cannot, and should not, be avoided. We got a lot of media coverage the ten years I was in Sleater-Kinney. We were very careful about how we were photographed.

Wemade sure we weren’t "We never liked portrayed as weak or helpThe more images the mainless because we weren’t. stream sees of women at sitting down in photos, We never liked sitting drum kits, the less threatdown in photos, or lookening they will be. Society or looking passive." ing passive. We wanted to t raditionally doesn’t enlook like the Stones; to be courage women to be loud, cool, to be tough, to be heroes. primitive, and aggressive. These properties are crucial in the drummer’s world and they How has media coverage (blogs, weeklies, zines, radio, magazines, tv) affected the way that you, and female drummers in general, are perceived, and how would you ideally be portrayed? Janet Weiss:

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loi s w il k e n I n t e rv i ewe d by f o n l i n n y eu i llust r at e d by ma rtha g rover

tom tom magazine: How and when did you become interested in Haitian drumming?

Lois Wilken: The connection between music and healing always resonated for me.

I had a guru at Hunter College—composer Ruth Anderson—when I was studying electronic music there in the ‘70s. She encouraged that interest and composed music designed to heal. I was very aware that music plays a tremendous role in healing in cultures outside those of elite European traditions…The following semester I had to do a field project in New York City. Knowing that a large Haitian community was living in New York, I chose Vodou music as my subject, and I met up with master drummer Frisner Augustin [of La Troupe Makandal].

Describe your travels in the field: We’ve

[Makandal] played all over the United States and Canada, in Paris, and, in 2007, in Tokyo. Part of the magic of Tokyo was our discovery of Shinto. We had with us a female priest and two of her closest associates in Vodou, because the Tokyo Summer Festival asked us to stage ritual… When we visited Shinto shrines during our time off, we could feel the connection. I believe that humans share a spiritual foundation that became very obvious to me in Japan, and likely accounted for the Festival’s interest in having us play for them.

ha rlo h ol m e s In t e rv i ewe d by c o u rt n ey g i llette P h ot og r aphe d by maggi e ows l ey

Beat maker, sound composer, web coder, Harlo Holmes aka Lovers v Haters is a jack of all trades. The 26-year-old digital sound artist creates compositions unlike any traditional electronic music. Using livesignal processing—digitally manipulating sound frequencies as they occur—Holmes is a thoughtful and adventurous beat maker, taping mics to, and splitting the sound waves of everything from live drum kits to a tree in New Hampshire. When she brought her unique process to the Tom Tom Magazine drummer showcase in September, the result was incredible. Pounding bass and snare were thinned out into a snapping noise, the sound being stretched and multiplied.

Cymbal crashes popped, spliced from their full sound. The effect was sometime subtle, other times compellingly disorientating.

Up in the sound booth one could see Holmes, hunched over her laptop, the artist bringing all these new sounds to life. tom tom magazine: When did you start programming beats and composing sounds?

Harlo Holmes: I started doing the digital music stuff in undergrad, when t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 20

Has being a woman in this field affected your experience? I’ve been fortunate on two

counts. First, Vodou is one of the world’s most progressive forms of spirituality in that a woman can go to the top of the priesthood. Can you imagine recognizing and rewarding the spiritual potential of women in the Judeo-Christian religions or the great religions of Asia by making women bishops, popes, and imams? And that brings me to the second count of good fortune. Master drummer Frisner Augustin generously shares his art with women, and several women have drummed at Vodou rites in New York.

My thoughts are about Vodou as a cultural whole, because one can’t detach the drumming from it. Each carries both memories from Africa and memories of the experiences of slavery and liberatio.

The dance forms, the melodic modes, the drum ensemble patterns, and the tonal spectrum are as diverse as the peoples who made Haiti. It behooves scholars to pay attention to such elements of Vodou because they serve as keys to something we all so desperately need in an age of cultural homogenization: the antidote of diversity and egalitarianism. We can easily argue that Vodou is psychology because it guides an individual to selfrealization. Vodou is healing; Vodou drumming is healing.

I discovered Fruity Loops, and my interest in that developed in step with my newfound love for computer languages. Fruity Loops puts up a very distinct barrier. It’s pretty much a virtual drum machine, but you are made more conscious of the patterns you’re creating. Then there’s workspace to pile them up, switch them around, and break into them into so many levels.

You use live signal processing in a lot of your sound composition. How does that work? The performance space is

set up with a simple mic above the instrument, so I just route that feed into my computer and do “spectral analysis” on the microphone feed. Which means, for example, that I split up [the sound] into bands of separate frequencies (four bands), and perform delays, ring modulation, whatever onto them.

Live instrumentation has such a physicality to it that you can never match.

Take the flute, for instance, which is a very violent instrument despite its mellow sound. There’s a lot of gasping, a lot of spitting, a lot of sonic artifacts that come part-and-parcel with live performance.

And even though my contribution is digital, I wanted to find ways to preserve that physicality, and even play that like an instrument in its own right.

What’s the best piece of advice you got as a beat maker/sound composer? Beware

Full name Harlo Holmes Nickname Lovers v Haters Age 26 Hometown NYC lives in Currently living in NYC

again after a few years away. day job I’m a web developer and grad student at NYU

of the loop! It’s very tempting to get into a composing groove where you’ve got a few bars that you find totally intoxicating, like you can listen to it over and over again.

It’s a great moment; it’s a great itch to scratch. But that’s the moment when you have to break what you’ve just created and try to put it back together again in a totally different way. Or else what you’re creating is like dead on arrival.

Full name Christina Robinson Nickname Teen; Teen Beats Age 22 Hometown Brooklyn,

Chicago, Staten Island lives in Brooklyn day job Music

teen b e at s I n t e rv i ewe d by a lli e a lva r a d o phot o g r a phed by j e n n i fe r l ei gh -a s ch o f f

Tom Tom Magazine: Tell me about the music projects you are involved in right now?

Teen Beats: Well, I am the producer of

These Guys which I happen to be one half of…But right now I am working on my solo project. I call It “Distorted Retard”. I’m working with a few artists and I’m also holding weekly music showcases.

So did you play in anything before These Guys? I had been producing for a bunch of

local artists in Staten Island. I mean I was in the marching band in high school, and so as far as drumming, I had more of a snare technique and used that to making beats instead of playing drums for a band.

That’s cool. So you were used to hearing the drum sound individually as opposed to hearing them like in a kit. Yeah pretty

much. Although, I do really much appreciate hearing the set in a song and real instruments. I’m actually thinking about forming a band for my solo project.

Okay, so it sounds like music has always been in your life. When did you start actually programming beats and what did

you use? Who was around you or did you start on your own? When I was in like

11th grade, when I was in marching band, and I started using Fruity Loops. It was on the demo version. And yeah music was always in my life from my family. My two uncle’s were DJs. So me and my cousin Flip, who is a part of These Guys, would be DJing at like 14. But yeah I started on my own. I went looking for a program and found it online.

So what kinds of stuff were you listening to then? What were your early influences? Growing up, my family use

to always listen to like 90’s house music and real soul music like Al Green. But my influences were Lauryn Hill, Kanye West, Outkast, Pink, Michael Jackson, Prince, Run DMC and Russell Simmons, with my business side.

So do you still consider these artists/ genres influences or are there new ones on the list? Yeah. I also really love

this group MGMT. And as far as hip hop is concerned, I am not really satisfied with people who are out now. They’ve lost track of what music should be, but times change…

How do you mean? Well, I feel that music

should be with a message, I just feel like lyrically and melodically music is lacking.

Originality has gone.

What do you think is responsible for that?

Hmm, probably media and society focusing on money, money, money and cars and you know the glam…So now that’s what people rap about and I am talking as far as hip hop is concerned.

So you and flip MC together, right? Yes. What are some of the themes of your lyrics? Well, we have touched all types

of topics, we write songs as well. And we wrote this one song for my one arist Eliki. She’s an amazing singer from Chicago…and the theme was prostitution and it was called “Kate Goes To Jail.”

It’s so sick—watch when we record it.

We also have this song called ‘Gone’ and it’s about how you can get wrapped up in all these wrong paths and be gone and not know it. So many, but they definitely have a meaning that can touch people for many, many more years to come, and that’s what it’s about.

Yeah i definitely hear that—in some ways I feel like music is missing that timeless quality too. You hear a single one minute and then it’s on to the next thing…So do you and Flip collaborate on everything?

No, I have this song called “I’m Drake He’s Weezy”, it’s kind of a sarcastic song to show my character. I also have a few other solo songs featuring Eliki. r e ad m o r e at w w w.t o m t o m m ag.c o m

l a fra e s c i I n t ervi ew ed by mi n dy a bov i tz P h o t o g r a phed by meg wachter

Full name LaFrae Sci Nickname Frae-Frae Age 40 hometown Okinawa, Japan lives in Brooklyn day job Freelance

Drummer

Best way to get chops I think are the flam rudiments, and developing the ability to see, hear, taste and sing grooves and ideas.

Chops are as more about imagination than technique for me.

Tom Tom Magazine: Which bands are you drumming in currently LaFrae Sci: I work

mostly freelance, but recent associations close to my heart are The Daughters of Nina Simone project sponsored by the Black Rock Coalition, Blues guitarist and singer Jr Mack, my own group The Swing Messengers, and a great Jazz group called The Committe led by the wonderful bassist Steve Schwab. Last but not least a band led by my great friend and co-conspirator pianist Eli Yamin. We have numerous associations, but the blues band with tubist Bob Stewart and the great Kate McGarry on vocals did a state department cultural diplomacy tour of the Balkins last spring.

This spring we will be going out again, this time to Democratic Republic of Congo.

I also recently played with Eli and a killer band three times at the White House over the holiday season. Besides being an honor, I liked the idea of bringing our vibrations to the White House's East Room.

TNice, How do you like to warm up? I like

to practice and warm up with brushes medium fast and real soft.

Does your knowledge of the piano effect your drumming? I think playing piano has

developed a strong melodic sense in me that comes out in the melodic approach I have with the groove and drums. Also, understanding tension and release of chords translates into the energy I deliver within a song. Like in a 12 bar blues form, the five chord has a certain lift to it that I can choose to play or not play, but I always feel it. Some of that comes from piano, some of it comes from listening.

What do you consider to be the most challenging thing about playing?

Developing my voice, pushing outside of my comfort zones and to keep learning— and finding time to do so. I mostly listen to Blues, Jazz and World music and I crawl on you tube, and I have friends internationally that send me stuff too.

"I also recently played at the White House… Besides being an honor, I liked the idea of bringing our vibrations to the East Room."

Bands you were drumming for in the past: So many...Neal Scott Johnson band,

hip- hop artist Kelis, 80's queen Irene Cara, guitar god turned Guns & Roses Slash replacement Bumblefoot, opera boy band Il Divo and Sandra Bernhard to name a few.

What was it like playing with Sandra?

Great. She was trying to get more serious about music in her shows. We were introduced and she asked me to be musical director and put a band together. We toured state side and internationally and did a four month off-broadway run of her show “Every Thing Bad and Beautiful”. We had a great time. I learned alot and developed some new chops.

Did you audition for Beyonce? Yes What happened with that? I didn’t get the

gig, but I am very happy for Kim Thompson and Nikki Glaspie. They are beautiful and amazing drummers. The take away for me from that experience was some validation t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 22

What’s your favorite part about playing drums? I feel like I am flying.

Do you have any favorite drummers? I have

that my message reads, else I would not have made it to the top 3 from a 5 city audition process. The challenge since then has been to find or create the right place for my message and myself.

Was it easy making playing drums your way of living? I can be very “failure is not

an option” in my approach to things. This has positive and negative repercussions I work to balance.

What is your favorite set-up for your kit? Why? I practice on and take on the

state department tours a Taye GoKit which I love to play because it is so cute and tiny, but packs a punch. I’m also starting to like a bigger bass drum even though the biggest bass drum I own is a 20. I have 16, 18, and 20.

What do you do to get better? I had a

period in my life where I would practice six-plus hours at a time several times a week. I developed a lot during that time.

a ton of favorites for a myriad of reasons, but my first two favorite drummers are Sheila E. because Glamorous Life dropped when I was in 9th grade, and Art Blakey because of his intense energy and warm spirit when he played. Art really directed the band from his throne and he often did it with a big smile on his face. The late-great drummer Walter Perkins said when asked the same question, “My favorite drummer is the one that is playing right now!”

If you could change one thing about the drums what would it be? I would rewrite

history and go back to slavery where instead of having their hands cut off as a consequence playing the drum, the story would be that the slaves drums and rhythms were absorbed into an American Culture that instantly abolished slavery and became one nation struggling to come together under a groove.

What are your plans for the future?

This is the year I’m doing my own record.

Working on the tunes now.

exc e r pt from D. I.Y. g u id e t o d ru m s by L i sa A nn Sch onberg

rev i e ws

Talk Norm al Sugarland This album sounds like the wound up energy of the abused focused in a controlled and steady productive force.

Turning hurt into a force to be reckoned with. Sarah and Andrya’s empowered voices and driving beats motivate.

It’s music to grab your emotional baggage and throw it into the ocean to, while wearing just a smirk on your face. This is what it would sound like if that coil of tension your childhood trauma left you with, gave you power instead of making you feel out of control.

It’s amazing.—Kanako Wynkoop

Nite Jewel Want You Back EP [2009] Italians Do it Better

ban ds to get into Explode Into Colors www.myspace.com/explodeintocolors Finally punk www.myspace.com/finallypunk Carsick Cars www.myspace.com/carsickcars Boredoms www.myspace.com/boredoms Afrirampo www.afrirampo.com Wet Dog www.myspace.com/wetdogthebest Joe Gideon and The Shark www.myspace.com/joegideonandtheshark Ipso facto www.myspace.com/ipsofactomyspace MNDR mndrmndr.com Hard Nips www.myspace.com/hardhardnips

Care Bears on Fire www.myspace.com/carebearsonfire Love of Diagrams www.myspace.com/LoveOfDiagrams Orphan www.myspace.com/orphannyc Grass Widow www.myspace.com/grasswidowmusic Each Other’s Mothers www.myspace.com/eachothersmothers Hot Box www.myspace.com/hotboxbrooklyn Broken Water www.myspace.com/brokenagua Coathangers www.myspace.com/fuckthecoathangers Telenovela Star www.myspace.com/telenovelastar Quasi www.myspace.com/theequasi

Nite Jewel is the minimal indie pop duo of Ramona Gonzales and Emily Jane from Los Angeles. It was recorded, intimately at home and on a portable eight track cassette deck, using a collection of old synths and drum machines.

Want You Back is the group’s first release after Good Evening and it is pleasingly in the same vein. Ethereal hooks and voices span the four tracks on this EP, though two of the songs almost count as doubles. The first track “Want You Back,” a jazzy upbeat tune, is followed by the vocal stem/mix version, and the disco-y third song, “All out of order,” is followed by a nice surprise. This song has a version sung entirely in Spanish, and though the lyrics are a little hard to make out (vocoder-like effects are probably responsible), it’s my favorite.

Order the Want You Back 12” if you collect vinyl.

—Allie Alvarado r e ad m o r e at w w w.t o m t o m m ag.c o m

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te c h n iqu e Drum Technique 4-2-1 Patterns and the Grid

line has each of the three triplets with 2 beats, and the pattern is repeated twice. Finally, the last line has each of the differently accented triplets with one beat, back to back. This last pattern is played four times. And, there you have the “4-2-1.”

An easy way to remember the 4-2-1 pattern is by viewing this highly sophisticated chart:

by b i a nc a rus s elbu rg

4 -2 -1 t r i ple t acc e n t g r i d

First off: the Grid. The triplet accent grid is a generic exercise that lots of drummers and drum lines refer to. This exercise is played with alternating sticking (RLRL, etc.) It’s just a skeleton really, so you could add in a few different rudiments (flams, for example) and play the same pattern. It really helps to play this with a metronome. (Check out http://www.metronomeonline.com/ for an easy, free metronome.)

Like any exercise, take this a chunk at a time. As you can see, the first line is all similar. The second and third are also. That’s because this is written in a 4-2-1 practice pattern. The first line spreads the pattern out so that each of the three differently accented triplets gets 4 beats, and the whole pattern is played once. The second t o m tom maga zi ne / issue two / 24

In the first section, you play each part of the pattern for 4 beats, 1 time. Next each part is played for 2 beats, and all of that is played 2 times. Lastly, each piece gets 1 beat, and that pattern’s played 4 times.

There you have it: The Grid & 4-2-1 practice patterns. You can use the 4-2-1 pattern for tons of different things. It’s especially nice because it allows you to break down parts that might gives you trouble, and then slowly brings it together.

I’ll leave you all with a singles/diddles exercise, in 4-2-1 fashion.

4 -2 -1 s i ngl es vs. d i d d les

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“Female drummers are classically the underdog, and everyone knows you win big when you bet on the underdog. I want to be good because it’s inspiring to people. That’s my favorite part of playing—that and being inspired by other musicians.”—Maria Schettino of Object 8

1 Kim Schifino of Matt & Kim

by Rebecca Smey ne

2 Jenna Weiss-Berman studying drums

by Al i s on P i ca rd

3 Jenn Shag of Shellshag

by Maggi e Ows ley

4 Katelyn Farstad of Mouthful of Bees

by Jo ce lyn C hase

5 Nikki Mcleod of Telenovela Star

by Eri n Ni cole Brown

6 Angela Boylan of Each Other's Mothers

by Maggi e Ows ley

7 Hugo Orozco of Magnolia

by G reen Way la nd Llewellin

8 Izzy of Care Bears on Fire

by Rebecca Smey ne

f ebrua ry 2 0 1 0 / i s su e t wo

AllisonBrandi Miller Carlile Hannah Blilie Gossip AkikoMatsuura Big Pink JD Samson Le Tigre Shaggy Denton High Castle Janet Weiss Quasi Busy Gangnes & Telepathe Melissa Livaudis