Sarasota Music Scene

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A belated critique of drummer's night...

The Drummer's Night series of shows just celebrated it's fourth installment recently at the Cock and Bull pub, and I couldn't have been more uninterested. Let's just say I went to the first two and decided I had gone to one too many. Here's the problem with them: every single jam inevitably winds up being the same general beat played at the same general tempo. It seems like all the drummers are either looking around trying to read everybody else's playing, or lost in their own 80 minute solo. The really insecure drummers hit their skins harder and harder, and the modest, soft-spoken drummers are content to waste their evening away pretending to enjoy their instrument. And then the creator of the event, who I'll comment on shortly, seems to think that with 96 drummers playing in an open-air venue that four guitarists are going to have a chance to play some licks that will be discernible and audible to anyone but themselves. It sucks for the drummers and it sucks for the guitarists and I have to imagine it sucks for people who show up thinking it's gonna be a life-altering experience (intoxicated people aside). Let me tell you the only person I can say with absolute certainty that it doesn't suck for: its Creator.

Its Creator is a gentleman who appears to have done a lot for local music. The key word here is appears. For someone who has the reputation of a selfless and tireless promoter of original, local music he sure does thrust himself into the spotlight at his events. Everyone at any given moment knows where the event's Creator is when he's at his events as he spends countless calories walking around from stage to stage to soapbox to stage with his utility headlamp, ineffective mega-horn, and unnecessary announcements. When he's not walking around promoting and commentating the event that everyone is already at, he's punishing listeners with his unique brand of amateurish, droney, unmusical bass guitar "playing" and kick drum I-don't-know-what. Let's face it people, the "experimental music" label in many cases is just a really polite way of saying "this music is affecting my life in a negative way and I wish it didn't exist/wasn't happening so near to my ears." Still, because of his tenacious leg-work in the marketing process and his established clout as a big time local production machine, he manages to get up to 200 people to a musical event that lacks music. Furthermore, he gets to collect all of the indie-social points that come with these large scale events.

But to show that I'm not a completely heartless, lifeless, tireless asshole I will say this: his end of the daikdjfiaowejijaf whatevers do impress me, albeit slightly, in their ability to sound more like music. Probably because there are more musicians... zing! I think the concept behind Drummer's Night needs to be reevaluated. I think the dial tone stuff is getting somewhere. I think he might secretly be putting on all of these events to stroke his own deceivingly large ego... ?

Godspeed,

Daedalus

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Comment by Claire Franklin on December 7, 2011 at 1:03pm: wise and kind... hehehe. All I know is thank god there's some real dialogue and activity going on this site! I was beginning to lose hope thinking no one actually cared....

Keep em coming! Who else wants to contribute??? ANYONE??

--the wise and kind Claire

Comment by musicdiarrhea on December 7, 2011 at 12:33am: Josh Skyball,

You got me. I spent some time at Drummer's Night 4. While I didn't enjoy the "music," I did enjoy a couple nice glasses of beer. It is my sincere hope that I will live up to the grand expectations bestowed upon me by the wise and kind Claire of SMS. Don't hate on me because I have chosen to create useless blog entries. Was I being harsh, senseless, and completely unfair? Maybe. But alter-egos can be that way sometimes.

In my eyes, my humble blog entries have done exactly what I intended them to do. The more feedback I get the more I will refine my approach. It is my sincere hope that I will live up to the lofty expectations bestowed upon me by the wise and kind Claire of SMS.

Most importantly, Josh, don't lose any sleep over what I write. Continue going to shows. Continue supporting whatever you want to support.

Let me have my tiny corner of the blogosphere,

Daedalus Aflame

Comment by Josh Scheible on December 6, 2011 at 8:21pm:      So this is belated as in two full years belated? The beginning of the article implies that you didn't even go to the event that you're trying to critique. I'd say that step one in offering an effective critique of an event is actually going to it, because what you think about an event you went to two years ago really isn't relevant to what the latest iteration of that event was like. If this is the basis upon which the rest of your criticism is predicated, I have to say that this is a pretty useless article.

     That said there's very little substantive criticism in this article. The bulk of it is just whining about how you don't like John Lichtenstein. Sorry man, but not liking someone's personality doesn't make you a music critic. It seems like the guy elicits your envy more than anything. Getting gigs can be tough in this town, hell I know that, but that doesn't mean you should hate on someone who's out there working hard in this scene putting on events people enjoy. If "experimental music" isn't your thing, maybe these events aren't for you, but saying that the label itself is some sort of polite euphemism is just exposing the fact that you're probably that stuck-up square at the show looking down his nose at the people who are actually creating something.

     SMS, if this is the critic that has come to keep the scene on its toes, I think we can keep our feet flat on the ground for now.