Benny Greb Clinic
2:58 Kinda sparse crowd. But it looks like it’s filling up.
3:01 PAS-IC guy is out and intros Meinl guy.
3:03 BG takes the mic. Thank yous.
3:05 BG sits at kit tonplY 2 tracks from his record, Brass Band. Track one, a sloppy New Orleans groove with a big fat back beat. Very reminiscent of The Meters. Track 2 is a straight 8th funky upbeat thing. Imagine if Thomas Lang did covers of Stanton Moore, then you’d get this. HUGE drum break. Very tasty. Nice punches to get us back into the track.
3:17 BG takes the mic. Now he’s going to play a solo.
3:18 Free form solo. Starts with sd roll. Moves around the kit with a pseudo latin foot ostinato. He’s the cleanest player we’ve seen so far. Moves to just his hands keeping the kick pattern going. He’s hitting any and everything he can find on the kit. He’s even playing the click sound of toms touching! Back to sticks with a big rolling double kick ostinato. Solo ends with standing o.
3:33 BG takes the mic. Thank yous. Gives run down of gear.
BG: 2 things that are very important: groove and improv. We as drummers are mostly pattern oriented. We focus on the fill but not on how to play it. We often speed it up. Time is very important to us. (does a group clapping exercise – “football clave”). Now do a click sound and clap! Take things slowly and practice things with this internal click. A quarter note “chit” sound. I’ll take 1 question.
Q: How did a white boy from Germany get so funky?
A: I get that. When we listen to music – to the lyrics, to the way it was played and recorded. And listen for a long time! not this iPod, 12,000 songs. I tried and tried to listen to as much as I could.
3:53 Plays one last track. A piece from his first solo record, Grebfruit. It’s a band piece where BG has sung all the parts except for drums. Bass, horn stabs, etc are all BG singing. Lol!
Filed under: PASIC Blog
