Bikini Kill Had Something To Say Back In 1990 | It Still Rings True In 2013

I stumbled upon an old Bikini Kill video the other day.  They were performing live outside some state capitol building.  If they weren’t dressed in 1990’s clothing, I would have guessed by the musical style that it was a recording from 1979.  Was this a band that had been playing these songs for a dozen years? No, they were too young to have played back when so many other bands played this same style.  So why did this band gain the attention that they did?  This version of stripped down, repetitive, less musically inclined style of music has been done so many times before.   

So I took a look at the lyrics.  Maybe that’s where I would find the lure of this band. Yep, that’s where the band hits a nerve. They speak of being a strong woman, being yourself, feminism, and so much more. They might have sounded like old school punk rockers, but their lyrics were “new school.”   

Bikini Kill’s second album contains the song Alien She.  The words that ring out in that song speak of someone who is two women.  One is pulled towards the stereotypical way “girls” are supposed to be. The other tries to understand that other side. What I pull from that song is that it’s about someone who struggles to be herself.  Someone is trying to understand why they think the way that they do.

The band wrote more focused lyrics as they gained a better knowledge of song writing.  Take the song Double Dare Ya.  The song challenges women to speak out, to fight for their rights, to stand up for themselves. The song Feels Blind starts off slow, and almost melodic.  Is it an anthem? It could be. It has one great line, but the words leading up to it are very important. “As a woman I was taught to always be hungry. Women are well acquainted with thirst. Yeah, we could eat just about anything. We'd even eat your hate up like love.” 

Give Bikini Kill a try.  You might enjoy the mix of old school punk music set to lyrics that are so important, even 23 years after they first came out.  Keep in mind that the members of the band went on to work on women’s rights.  That’s more punk rock than so many other musicians who talked the talk, but never walked the walk.

   

Drumming For Profit | Being A Hired Hand In A Band

My last band was led by one person.  She named the band after herself.  She did all the promotion, the booking, and the hard work that it takes to get people in the bar. Sure, the other members of the band had to play well enough to keep people from leaving, but she had no problem with replacing you if you couldn’t make a show. As I recall, she went through some 19 bass players over ten years. One of them was nick-named “T3” because he was the third bass player that was named Tom.  Not just the third guy in the band named Tom, but the third bass player named Tom.    

When you joined her band, you were welcome to play the hell out of your instrument, but you weren’t allowed to bring your own songs into the band.  On more than one occasion, I heard her say to other members “That’s a great song you just showed us.  Now go and start your own band if you feel like playing it.  This is my band.” What’s funny is that I heard her say that at least three times over the years.  It was somewhat amusing; because she would let the musician play the entire song first, then give her speech.  She didn’t bother telling new members in advance that they weren’t allowed to write their own material. If you didn’t like what she had put together you were free to leave.  On the other hand, we were free to add whatever we liked to the songs that she wrote.  In fact, she felt that I never over played my drums on her songs. If she had it her way, I would be going ape behind the kit on every number.

Hitting The Road As A Hired Hand

In 1998, a band that hired me for a tour gave me their disks, told me to learn the music, and instructed me on just where I could add my own creative ideas. (See photo above.) There weren’t many spaces for me to break out on my own musically, but I knew what I was getting into.  When those moments in the song came up, I took full advantage of the opportunity. No, it wasn’t very much fun playing those somewhat rudimentary drum parts that someone else had written, night after night, city after city. But I was the hired help.  That was my job. What was my incentive? Getting paid a per diem, part of the net profits, and getting a cut of the merchandise. There had to be a guarantee for me. After all, I was the hired help.  I wasn't going to see any profits from record sales.  I would receive no income from royalties.  The drummer who made the album, the guy sitting back at home was getting paid for my hard work. The more shows we played, the more disks we sold, the more money he made. At the very least, I knew what base rate I was guaranteed, before I got on the plane for Europe. 

By the end of that tour, we were all pretty sick of each other.   It was nothing personal, you just can't look at the same faces day after day without feeling like you need to get away from it all. The combination of being cooped up together for weeks at a time, and playing the same songs every night made for a long tour. It didn’t affect my performances, but it certainly kept me from going “all in” with that group.  Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation, but I lost my mind on that tour. I met up with some friends in Amsterdam just after the tour ended. One of them told me the only way I was truly going to be happy was when I started my own band. I knew that I wasn't "band leader" material, but it was a nice compliment.

What I miss when I join groups like that is the feeling that I was part of something creative.  I came along after these bands had already built up a following.  It didn’t matter if I received a compliment, or praise.  Those bands would go on without me.  I had to understand that.     

I was called back for a second tour, and took the job. They kept me on as a regular member, and that’s when things started to change, albeit slowly. It took another year for the band to start listening to my ideas, and allow me to be part of the creative process. By year number three, we had written an entire album’s worth of material. The record label wasn’t interested in keeping us on, so we had to decide whether to shop our sound around, or go it alone, or break up. The band called it quits, or at least that’s what I did.  I quit, and the rest of the band took a long break.  Two years later they resurfaced with their old drummer, but those songs that I helped to write stayed with the band.  In fact, they went on to record those songs with their original drummer.  It’s very hard for me to listen to that recording.  With all due respect, that drummer was not interested in playing what I had written. I found out later that he couldn’t replicate my style. It was too different. After being in a band for three years, then leaving, it’s an odd experience to then go and watch that band play live. I didn’t feel comfortable with going back stage to say hello.

It’s so different when you aren’t behind the drums.  As an audience member, I was more forgiving of their mistakes.  It made me wonder if I was too uptight when I was in the group. Those little miscues were actually enjoyable. They looked like tiny mistakes when I wasn’t playing, but huge mistakes when I was part of the band. I learned that I should let those little things go. As for now, I don’t know if I would ever go back to being a hired hand in a band, unless the reward was significant.   

Road Trips For The Somewhat Aged Musician In Me

Looks A Lot Like Our Tour Van

Band road trips are getting harder and harder for me. I hate to admit it, but I just can’t bounce back like I used to.  I have long stopped sleeping on floors. My days of rolling out a camping mat are also behind me.  Does that mean that I should retire from playing out of town shows?  I don’t think so, but there are some changes that I have to make if I want to keep on drumming. 

There are pressures I feel from other band mates when it comes to saving money on the road.  If we have a show that is a couple hours from our home town, I’m sure to hear the usual “We can take turns driving back the same night.” Yep, two hours of driving sure doesn’t seem like a long ride when you are heading out of town.  But after I have moved my drum kit six times in one night, and played a show, the two hour ride home feels more like six.  It’s torture. 

We rolled back to Milwaukee around 4am last weekend.  We unloaded our gear, and said our goodbyes.  I still had another 30 minute drive to my house.  When I finally turned in around five am, in a bedroom with makeshift black window shades, I really hoped to get six or seven hours of sleep.  It’s really hard to do that when your body is used to getting up at five a.m. I managed to get about five hours of fitful sleep before giving up.  The rest of my weekend was ruined. The main reason we drive home after an out of town show is to save $100 on hotel rooms.  There is a value to my off days, and it’s much higher than $100.

So what’s an aging drummer to do?  I’m going to foot the bill for my own post-show motel room from now on.  The band can keep their money, and if they want to drive home the same night, so be it.  I’m tired of loading up on caffeine at two in the morning, rolling out of some town soaking wet from my own show sweat, while hoping to avoid the deputies that have nothing better to do than pull over suspicious looking rock and roll vans.  I’m tired of wondering if our singer or guitar player is going to stay awake during their driving shift.  That keeps me up too.  I just can’t sleep in the van, when I’m too busy worrying that one of us is going to drive off the road into a cornfield.

Save A Life And Get A Room

For those of you in working bands, I know what you are going to say. “So Wisconsin Music Man, you are going to make the rest of the band unload all of the gear, while you sleep it off in a comfy motel room?” Not exactly.  I’ll be happy to take my gear to the motel.  I’ll roll all that crap into the room with me.  The band won’t be cursing my name when they get home, because the van will be half empty.  They might be cursing my name when it’s 3:30 am, and they are somewhere outside of Manitowoc, with another 75 miles to drive before they get to Milwaukee.  Instead of cursing my name, they should just admit that after a show they would love to take a ten minute drive to a hotel bed too.  If each band member put up $50, we could all get a solid night’s sleep, free breakfast, and be back in Milwaukee by noon the next day. I will leave that up to them.  From now on, I’m playing the rock star and getting a room. That’s what old guys do.  They get smart, and sleep well.    

Which Drums Make The Best Sound? | Drum Heads Play A Part Too

I'm still playing my poplar Sonor Force 2000 drums.  These are the drums from Germany, not the newer Chinese drums that Sonor makes now. At the time that I bought them, they sounded great.  I knew little about woods at the time, and had a limited budget.  Poplar isn't the hardest of woods, but with the right drum heads, they sound great.  It took me a long time to figure out just which heads would work for those drums.  I'm still trying to figure out what heads work best on a much more expensive set of Yamaha Maple Custom drums that I purchased about ten years ago.  Is there such a thing as the perfect wood or perfect drum head to go with that wood?

For the Sonor drums, I'm using the Remo smooth white heads.  These heads (and that wood,) seem to produce a great sound for rock drumming.  The tones are somewhat muted by the 10-mil thickness of the head, but the notes cut through, and the attack is still pretty sharp.  For an attack that is somewhat less sharp, I will sometimes use the coated Ambassador heads.  That is especially the case when I'm playing the maple drums.  As the Sonor drums have been taking a beating for nearly 20 years, their bearing edges are in need of adjusting.  For now, the smooth heads seem to help in that regard.  If I ever get the bearing edges redone, I'll consider switching to a head that isn't as thick.  For a long time, I played the Remo Pinstripe heads on the Sonor kit.  Those heads lasted longer, and that was a good thing for a struggling musician.  Their double ply Mylar construction will reduce the decay, but the overall sound makes your drums sound "fat."

Evans Hydraulic Drum Heads 

For a short while, I tried my luck with Evans Hydraulic heads.  They looked cool, but the muffled decay was just not what I wanted for a sound as I left the world of punk rock, and moved into rock.  If you want a punchy sound, go with the Evans Hydraulic heads.  Don't expect very much sustain on those drums.  I realize that it costs a bit of money in order to experiment with different skins.  What you might want to do is head on over to your local music store, and see what skins are on which types of drums.  If you can test drive the skins, all the better.

The Residents Come To Turner Hall Milwaukee

The Residents came to Milwaukee last Sunday night. This was my first time seeing the group live. As I felt that it might be the last tour for the original members, I thought that I better get on it. After all, the Residents have been around since the 1960’s. For those of you who are not familiar with the art collective, I suggest that you check out this Residents link.
When did I get the itch? It was back in 1981, when they released Mark Of The Mole. I had asked for the album as a Christmas gift from my parents. (Pretty cool parents, I must say.) After pulling out the vinyl I put on a pair of headphones and started to play it, while others were still unwrapping their gifts. I was 16 years old at the time, but the album still had a huge effect on me. The songs were almost frightening. Mark of the Mole had a theme. It was all about the struggle of the Mole People, and their war with the “Chubs.”

After Mark Of The Mole, I went backwards in the Residents timeline, and picked up Third Reich “N” Roll. The album came out in 1976, and was labeled as a “parody” of American pop music. I found it to be quite serious music. Perhaps I found it serious because the songs that they chose to parody were musical numbers that were (by 1982) overplayed “Muzak.” It doesn’t take much to turn a happy tune into a haunting, freak out of sound. That’s what the Residents did to so many numbers on the Third Reich album.




The Turner Hall performance featured three “band” members: Randy, Chuck and Bob. Their props and set were quite stripped down. I was a bit disappointed considering that I had heard so much about their previous efforts. I won’t spoil it for those of you still hoping to catch the band on this current tour. It was strange enough just to see the group do their thing. I don’t really know if stage props were necessary. My only complaint: They should have turned up the volume