Direct Download

To make up for slacking I’m doing a trio of videos to make up for lost time. The three videos come from a new series of instructional videos I discovered on Netflix. A Los Angeles based company called IMV has flooded Netflix with its line of “Behind the Player” (BTP) DVDs. They have videos for guitarists, bassists, and drummers and they feature mostly artists of the rock/metal/alt variety. They also donate a portion of their earnings to a charity called Little Kids Rock. I suspect it’s all a part of an evil plot concocted to boost membership in the KISS Army, but that’s just my theory.

On to the review!

Content

Stephen Perkins is best known for drumming with Jane’s Addiction but he’s also played for Porno for Pyros, Infectious Grooves and he currently plays with Banyan. Of course, if you have seen this DVD before you would already know that because player history is one of main features of a BTP DVD. All of these BTP features have the same basic structure: there will be a BTP section, 2 or 3 song lessons, and some extras.

The BTP section is where the featured artist: gives you their background, talks about their lives in the band, gives general advice, and talks about their gear. If you didn’t know much about the player before you watched this section, you will by the time you’re done. Stephen chose to talk about getting his first drum set, the different drummers that influenced him, why he plays barefoot, and what each member of Jane’s Addiction contributed to their sound.

I had heard of Jane’s Addiction and Stephen Perkins before I rented this video but I had not listened to much of their music before. I can now say I’m a fan of Jane’s Addiction and it was this video that really introduced me to them. Two of the three songs that Stephen demonstrates were songs that were just right up my alley.

Speaking of which…

All of the BTP DVDs are focused on teaching the viewer how to play 2 or 3 tracks the artist played on. In this case it was: “Pets” by Porno for Pyros,”Been Caught Stealing” by Jane’s Addiction and the infinitely awesome “Mountain Song” also by Jane’s Addiction. Each song lesson has three sections: the actual lesson, an album track play-along, and a jam on the song with a bass player.

Presentation

Stephen Perkins is a great host and that’s what really makes the DVD. He articulate, easy to understand, enthusiastic, and he knew how he wanted to teach what he had to teach. Not all of the hosts of the BTP videos I’ve seen so far have been as effective with their allotted DVD time.

I like the three pronged approach they took with each because it shows that the different dynamics at work when you play to an album and when you play with another human. They definitely give you all you need to learn the song inside and out, so I say it’s a successful effort on their part.

Extras

BTP videos seem to be pretty weak in the area of extras. This one has a promo video for Banyan and a live version of “Mountain Song” that I must admit I could jam to all day. All of the BTP videos feature the same little promo video for Little Kids Rock so that’s in there too.

Overall, I think the Stephen Perkins BTP DVD was successful and sets the bar for what a BTP type of video should be. It’s not an in-depth guide to all things Stephen Perkins. It’s an introduction to: him, his music, and the music he’s been a part of. So if that’s what you’re looking for that’s what offered. I think it was definitely worth a rent just for the sake of expanding my musical horizons, but, because of its narrow focus and its brevity, I don’t think it’s worth a buy.

Content

The meat of actual drum instruction is dedicated to fills in some way or another. He approaches them from an impressive number of angles I must say; Rudimental fills, Fills from songs, double bass fills, and even tribute fills if you look in the bonus section on disk 2. Every time he teaches a new concept on the drum set he almost always plays an example in the form of a fill. This is not a knock on this video; I’m just saying that you won’t get many groove oriented examples. So if you’re a huge Styx fan and you’re looking to see a bunch of Stxy grooves broken down… sorry.

A short list of the topics he covers includes: hand technique, rudiments, odd times, swing time, and double bass. However he has a ton of other little lessons scattered though out the dvd too. These can vary from tips about how to keep your drums in tune to reminders to be nice to your fans. Most of the topics he covers are only discussed briefly but he’s very good at communicating his points and doesn’t need much time. He spends more time on some topics than others but always enough info so that you don’t feel short changed. He even defers to other drummers and learning materials when he knows he  doesn’t have enough time or that he isn’t the right person to go in depth about that topic. In fact, on his hand technique section he says to get Jojo Mayer’s DVD because it’s 3 hours of hand technique and a better resource. One of the most useful things an instructional video can do is recommend other materials for further study. I wish more instructional videos would do the same.

There are pdfs for you to print out but I wish there were more. It’s pretty much the sheet music for all the rudiments he talked about in the beginning of the DVD. I just wish they transcribed some of the fills in this DVD. I can find rudiment transcriptions everywhere, not so with the fills.

Presentation

Now, this was shot in HD and is/was scheduled to be released as a Blu-Ray I don’t know what happened to it. As of this writing I can’t find details on when and if the Blu-Ray will drop. I will do an update of some sort when I learn anything about its production status.

Now then, It’s still a very nice looking DVD in terms of clarity of picture but there were some issues I had with the DVD. There were minor issues with the lighting and volume every now and again. Those were forgivable but the one that was actually a problem was with some of the menus. Not all the menus, mind you just some of them. Some of the menus were very intuitive and easy to use, and some could have you selecting the wrong thing over and over.

Ok so there’s some rough edges on the production… what about Todd as a host? He’s excellent. He comes off as the teacher who tries to really get the students to like him but is still a great educator. Survive some of the jokes and he’s got a ton of wisdom for you. He’s a clear and concise teacher and he also knows his limits so he never talks past where he can effectively teach. Carrying on in the tradition of Neil Peart, he has entire sections of the video dedicated to him just talking about whatever he’s trying to teach, as opposed to demonstrating it on the kit. I’ve found that some of the best info on the DVD has come out of these thought sections. The best thing about them is that they even have him drumming in the background under the commentary to keep it interesting. A trick I hope other instructional DVDs pick up.

Extras.

Lots and lots of bonus footage here to keep keep satisfied. Song commentaries, gear tour, and even a blooper reel. Suffice it to say, if I’m happy about the amount of extras you probably will be too.

All in all. This is a must watch and definitely worth a spot in your collection or at least your Netflix queue.

Content

According to wikipedia, Carter only did session work for Victor on two songs for the entire album. In the video you only really see them working on the track “Zenergy” so you’ll hear that song over and over and over and over. There is a lot of interviews and a few bass and drum duets to space out the studio footage. The idea, it seems, was to demonstrate whatever concept by playing together and then talking about it afterwards. After watching some of them I felt like I saw what they were getting at when they played. Some of the others not so much. One thing I noted is that because Carter Beauford’s style is so unique that it could be difficult taking his ideas and applying them to your playing. Then again if you’re watching this video then you probably already know that.  Victor actually proved to be very articulate and the main educator of the video. Listening to what he had to say about music in a more philisophical kind of context along with his thoughts when he’s producing music is good for all musicians.

Presentation

This is one of the lower quality Hudson Music DVD’s but then it is one of their oldest. It’s in Full Screen and some of the back grounds for the interviews are bad. Whatever, I’ve seen many times worse then that in my time reviewing these things. Camera work and pacing are same old Hudson Music quality. The real thing that annoyed me was hearing that “Zenergy” song a million times while watching it Then again that’s probably what it’s like in the studio. You gotta listen to the same thing over and over again so you can figure out what can make the song better. I’ll just say it’s very realistic in that department and will leave it at that.

Carter gets his points across well enough but Wooten is the clinician of the two and better at communicating. I usually found that I liked Victors take on most of the things they discussed together. Between the pair of them, they were able to clearly explain whatever concept they were talking about. Once again they didn’t go into details about stickings or give transcriptions or whatever. Lots of broad concepts to be found here.

In short, presentation wise, this DVD came out as well as it could given the technology available to them at that time.

Extras

The bonus footage is the only real thing worth paying attention to in this DVD… of which there happens to be a ton. It contains highlights from a Victor Wooten bass clinic and a long form interview with Carter Beauford. The Beauford Interview is interesting and has some song groove examples. The Wooten clinic is a great watch for any kind of musician and the information is still relevant today. It’s the same stuff he talks about on his brand new Hudson Music DVD so that’s good. The extra content is just as good as the main feature when you put them together so definitely watch it if you get a chance.

I happen to be a Bassist/Drummer so I thought maybe I’d be the only one who’d really benefit to watching this DVD. Nope. You should definitely rent this at least once.

Content

The video starts out with Matt and his prize drum tech Mike Fasano talking about tuning, mic placement, and choosing your snare drum. Now, Matt says that he used at least 25 snare drums on the use your illusions albums (there were two of them incase you didn’t know) so obviously his concept of snare drum choice is very different from our concept of snare drum choice. Mike talks about which kind of drums he would use for what kind of song so there is something to learn here.

The tuning section is fine except they advocate tuning both sides of every drum the same as each-other. The snare drum and bass drum are both unique from toms in that they often have radically different types of heads on each side of the drum. So shooting for equal tension on both heads may not be the best idea. Even on toms sometimes you don’t want the super resonate tone that having the two heads in harmony with each-other brings. They do teach the cross tuning method though, so that’s a plus. They also talk a bit about mic which is great because that’s something that’s usually neglected in drum instructional. The entire section isn’t very  long and it’s not really in-depth but I kinda expected that.

After that there’s a lot of FAQ sections and interviews of people he’s played with and eventually a bunch of really really cool rock fills. Yes I am very impressed with the licks section of the video, very cool. Really though, too much of the dvd is performances and interviews with people talking about Matt. Simply put, style came before substance in this DVD. I know Matt wanted to answer his fans questions and make sure the video was fun. It was but wasn’t very educational. The only real exception to that was the fills section which was excellent.

You can’t have a ton of musical perfomances/interviews AND have lots of instructional sections AND keep it 55 minutes long.

Presentation

Other than being in full screen this is a pretty well made video. Matt’s actually a good host and manages to keep the whole thing entertaining as you go through it. He’s very comfortable in-front of a camera and usually has someone to bounce off of so he can keep a nice natural pace and setting.

Extras

Ain’t none.

All and all… It’s not my bag. I wouldn’t have it high on my priorities list because the only really good section was the drum fills section. If your on the fence of wether or not to rent this one then I suggest that you don’t.

Content

His system is extremely similar to Akira Jimbo’s Wasabi method. They both function by taking a simple groove and applying different series of tweaks on the beat. They both start out tweaking the beats maybe once or twice. Depending on the original beat and how creative you’re feeling that day you’ll probably come across some cool beats of your own. Though, if you want your beat to really groove you better not go too crazy because it will quickly turn into a coordination exercise… hence the title of the film. Seriously though most of the examples aren’t readily applicable to most music. In fact, if you are going to play anything that you made using every step in this system; you better give your band a big warning beforehand. I suppose that’s the benefit of the system is you can take it as far as you want; I just think that approaching them with some restraint will produce the most musical result. In-fact most of the best grooves he plays are the ones BEFORE the transformation system.

It’s not all bad though, there are some bright spots in this film. I really enjoyed his solos which I thought were very musical and well thought out. Think Steve Smith but more progressive and less jazzy. He makes great use of a rhythm saw, which is a serrated stick, and a pair of boomwhackers, which is a strange plastic tube that makes a pitched noise that changes depending on what you hit it on. very very melodic and clever stuff

Presentation

It’s fullscreen, it’s grainy, it gets repetitive, and it strikes me as attempt to cram a ton of information in a video that would have benefited from being longer. They did get a few things right too though:  In every example they have split screen viewing AND the sheet music clearly printed under! its even in a readable font size! You can print them off the website which is ok… but it would have been awesome if it were on the disk.

Extras

They punted on this one. They took two of the lessons, removed them from of the main film, and label them bonus lessons. I’m not even sure that could honestly be called an extra. Not impressed. Definitely would have loved a gear tour on his kit as it’s quite nice.

All and all I’m kinda torn on this one. This isn’t a MUST SEE! It’s more of a should-rent-it-if-you-wanna. If you’ve seen Wasabi then you know most of what you’re gonna get and you can be the  judge if you want more. If you haven’t seen Wasabi then I don’t know what to tell you but I will say you should see one or the other.

The Tama Iron Cobra is one of the staple pedals of the rock and metal scene. The money Tama has been putting into that marketing has been working; they are one of the most popular pedals because they are fast, smooth, and will survive a nuclear firestorm. Tama has built that fan base and is pretty well happy to stick with the thing they have going on. They haven’t had a major change in design for a while. Ironic, considering the words ” The Legend in Innovation” are etched in the foot board and they’ve been using the same basic model for years. There are 3 basic models that are not designed to be interchangeable though I’ve heard it’s possible if you have enough mechanical knowhow.

The most popular of the three is the power glide pedal, which is the power model… duh. It’s designed for optimum speed and power. Does that mean you can’t play soft on this pedal? Not even close. Does it mean that it will take no effort on your part to get a really powerful earth-shattering stroke? Not that either. If you have a drum hero that’s a Tama endorser then there is a high chance that they will playing one of these babies.

The next variation is the flexi-glide pedal which is my personal favorite and used for several years. It’s designed to give that old fashioned strap drive feel which I would describe as a fast light floating feel. It kinda whips the beater into the head rather then the powerful driving feel that the power glide has. This is the other end of the spectrum from the power glide and would probably suit a jazz player exceptionally well though you can use it for any type of music.

The last variation is the rolling glide pedal which strikes a medium between the two extremes. So basically if Buddha were a Tama endorser then this would be the pedal for him. It’s designed to give a consistent stroke feel all the way through the entire motion.

All the pedals share most of their basic design so from here I can pretty much talk about them as if they were all the same pedal. The current models feature something of interest called the cobra coil which is one of the biggest additions they have made to the line up in a while. The Cobra Coil is an upward facing spring that is housed underneath the footboard and is bolted to the base plate. They aren’t the first to think of this kind of concept. Lots of electronic hi-hat pedals are designed pretty much the same way with the spring pressure under the foot board. Trick’s super pedal, the Pro V-1 is powered with a compression spring like the cobra coil. So this isn’t uncharted territory. Tama might have been the first to ever use a compression spring AND a expansion spring at the same time on one pedal. The other thing is that you can adjust the position of the spring under the foot board to get different feels.

So how does it feel? I’d describe it as giving the pedal a bouncy kind of quality. You kinda need to learn to play catch with the bottom spring and allow it to help carry your foot back up. Once you acclimate your foot to the two spring system it actually feels pretty darn good. The funny thing is that I think this piece of technology would be best combined with a pedal that has a direct drive system and that is the one kind of pedal Tama doesn’t make. With a direct drive pedal there is an unchanging ratio of energy and motion between the foot board and the beater. With straps and chains there can be a snag with can mess with the synchronization. Still I think that I like the pedal with then with out the Cobra Coil. Does it completely change the pedal? no. But it does make it better. Hopefully Tama will take my advice and we will see a direct drive Iron Cobra soon. If they can keep the price of the direct drive model the same as the other models it will probably be the best value for a direct drive pedal on the market.

By the way, the price value ratio of the Iron Cobra series is one of the reasons it’s so freaking popular. People can actually afford to buy one. Single variations of all the models are around 150 – 170 dollar range. The double pedal comes in at a cool 370 dollars. The Iron Cobra is a pretty straight ahead pedal without many bells and whistles which keeps the prices down. There have been updates in the design as time has gone on but still it’s the same dang thing as it’s ever been. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen em all kinda situation. I’m gonna go through some of the other features of the pedal but the exciting part of the review is over.

Aside from the Cobra Coil one of the talking points of the Iron Cobra is the beater. I’ve always liked the idea of this kind of beater; it’s designed to be able to be adjusted so it gets maximum head contact. The beaters are interchangeable with several of the models being made from different materials. The materials include: felt, wood, and hardened rubber. Each of them has unique sonic and rebounding properties.

My favorite is the felt model but you’ll have to figure out which one you like best for yourself. The felt one has a soft striking sound and has less rebound. The wood one has a sharp high sound and a stick like rebound properties. It has the highest propensity of the three to make little beater fart noises so you gotta pay attention to that. The rubber is a sharp low sound and has a bouncy feel; it’s more prone to beater farts then the felt one but less so than the wood one.

Actually that was actually about it for the note worthy feature of the pedal. This is a very basic pedal and not in need of a detailed break down of ever little part like the Pearl Demon Drive.

As a double pedal it kinda has a last generation feel compared to a Demon Drive or a DW 9000. It’s definitely something you can cope with and lots of double bass players swear by it, just look at Tama’s artist roster. All and all it’s the work horse of pedals along with the DW 5000. Though the Cobra Coil might give it an edge over the 5000 because it does help the feel and has been noted by myself and others to help reduce fatigue in the foot and legs.

All in all its one of the best values in the professional range of pedals out there.

I couldn’t have done this review without the cooperation of Fork’s Drum Closet so if my review persuaded you to buy one, give your business to them.

Tell em JABB from drummer talk said “hi!” so they know their relationship with drummertalk.org is worth something.

Content

You’ll never find another drum instructional that isn’t a parody that has this kinda content. This blows Tris Imboden’s video out of the water in terms of being a sub-par instructional video. It is straight up comical. I hope Slim Jim Phantom is just a persona this guy plays when he’s on the stage. Because if he’s this full of himself in real life I’m surprised his ego doesn’t just repel everyone in a fifty foot radius. He talks a little bit of actual rockabilly drumming and the rest is him stroking his ego on camera… I kinda feel dirty watching it. There is literally a large section on how to get a cool image and dance around on stage like he does. He even doesn’t sit down when he plays drums because he likes being up front! Never mind the fact that he can’t operate a hi-hat with his set. There is very little education and a lot of preening and ego stroking. Seriously if we could convert his smugness into energy then we could power a 5 state area.

Presentation

It’s a very old  film so the effects aren’t that great but the camera work is ok and, to his credit, he does have the best backdrop on a instructional video I’ve ever seen. Nice lighting… too bad that the host of the video is the most self absorbed man since Narcissus. He even has a section where he tells you how to get hair like his! This crap isn’t normal for an instructional video!

Extras

What you want more of this guy? What’s wrong with you? Fine he has some bonus footage at the end of the video.

There you go. If you wanna laugh at a over inflated egotist then buy this DVD… If you wanna learn something go somewhere else.

Side-note before we get started. vanzdrumming.com isn’t affiliated with Vans skateboard shoe company. I thought they might have been sponsoring him because I saw VZD and vanzdrumming all over his DVD and skateboarding shoes do make great drumming shoes. I figured maybe Vans was expanding their consumer base… nope. Vanzdrumming is just the name of his website. On to the Review!

Content

Techniques is a bit of dangerous word to use in the drum instructional world because usually when you hear the word technique in a drumming context you think of the physical motions and bodily mechanics used by the drummer to play their instrument. In this case, like so many others, there is very very little actual physical technique taught in this video. There is a small section on hand technique, just enough so that you won’t hurt yourself. If you own or have seen Secret Weapons then you can just skip this section all together. The rest of the video is mostly different licks and patterns to use on the drum-set. I kinda like to think of it as a guide to crazy stuff you can do to get attention at a Guitar Center.  So yes there is gold to be mined here, just use it to create something tasteful not gaudy.

Presentation

For a Non-Hudson music DVD this is actually very good, the camera work is on par and Randy is a pretty good host. He does tend to get carried away with his examples though. One of the brilliant things I must say is that this DVD can be downloaded or you can purchase the DVD. Big points for outside the box thinking there. I couldn’t figure out where that would fall in the scheme of things but i felt it needed to be included for good measure so I put it here. The download can be found here. The cool thing is if you don’t want the whole thing you can just download the chunks you want… pretty sweet.

Extras

There ain’t any! Well not on the DVD anyway and because the DVD is what I reviewed I can’t tell you what the download extras are. You’ll just have to find that out for yourself.

So there you go. A lick oriented DVD for drummers.  A straight ahead review for a straight ahead DVD.

From what I gather the idea was to use the album as a basis for a general instructional DVD, not unlike Voices In My Head. In addition to using the album tracks as a spring board for lessons, Russ also called on listeners of his album to send him questions about the album and what he played on what track. Almost all of the people who wrote in were asking about licks he did and how to perform them so you do get a good deal of cool licks broken down for you in this DVD so never fear about that. Also with the DVD you get two audio disks containing the album Arrival and you also get a play along version of the whole album so you can jam to the tunes.

Content

I had really really high hopes for this DVD, and unfortunately it didn’t deliver on my expectations. The concepts and techniques section of the video is the meat of the video where he goes over the concepts and techniques he uses as a studio drummer and on this record in particular. Lots of the stuff Russ covered was very good, not that it hadn’t been covered in other but it was a good offering to the drumming public. The problem is that the thing was simply too short and too guided by the questions from fans. Most of the questions from the fans were about licks which was fine but it got to the point where I felt it took up too much time from the video. I get the fact that the point was to answer questions from the fans the sections where Russ was just straight up teaching were much better. Which is why I think this video was too short. After playing with all these great artists there is no way Russ didn’t glean more information that he could have shared with us if he would have either cut the questions or lengthen the video. I will say they did a great job with the PDFs though, Props for that.

Presentation

Produced by Hudson Limited this video isn’t as well put together as some of the regular Hudson Music videos, but that is to be expected. For those of you who don’t know Hudson Limited is the independent branch of Hudson Music meaning it’s a more in the hands of the artist and whatever team of film makers he can put together for the project. This can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on your point of view and the given situation. In this particular case it didn’t work out as good as I would have hoped. The menu system can be a pain to navigate because the indicator that they chose to show you what you are about to select is to turn the wording dark purple, when the words are already dark blue. This can make it almost impossible to accurately navigate the menu because you’ll keep wondering what in the heck you are about to select. It’s definitely not as polished and clean as some of the other Hudson stuff. In fact at some points it looks like they were using a really high end web cam to film. For an amateur video this would have been exceptional but for something coming with the Hudson name on it, it’s a bit shoddy looking. If the content were exceptional then this would be a minor nit pick but because the content isn’t winning me over either it irks me just that much more.

Extras

The DVD comes with an album and a play along version of the same album, A good look at the making of the album and video, a photo gallery (boo) and a clip of Richie Gahate Garcia playing for the recording of the album. For a Hudson Limited DVD this is actually above average. The stuff from the limited section of Hudson is usually thin on the extras.

All in all I feel like I paid a little too much for this DVD. I was disappointed especially because I really expected something awesome out of Russ. If Russ ever gives it another shot I’ll be more then happy to see what he comes up with but for me this one just doesn’t cut it.

     I can see why the books are so popular if the DVDs are any indicator of the quality of the books. It’s exactly what you want/expect in something titled Advanced Funk Studies, everything in the book is musically applicable and very funky. Much like the Thomas Lang DVD’s it’s pretty much one example after another with some musical interludes and a short talk before each new section of the DVD. The difference is that all the examples sound really cool whereas with Thomas Lang’s DVD the examples will start to grate at my nerves after about 30 minutes. Now, the DVD’s do not follow the books exactly, they skip many of the exercises but still cover enough ground to be informative. They definitely provide a good guide to what the final outcome of the exercise should sound like.

     In the Advanced Funk Studies portion of the DVD he covers subjects such as: fixed hi-hat patterns, combination exercises, fills and funk patterns, and transcriptions of solos. I especially enjoyed the fill section of the video because I swear i’ve heard drummers like John Dolmayan and Tim “Herb” Alexander use these fills verbatim in some of their work with System of a Down and Primus (respectively.) In Contemporary Drum-Set Techniques, he talks about: applying rudiments to grooves and fills, grips and contemporary rudiments, using contemporary rudiments, drum-set interpretation exercises, hand/foot doubles and hi-hat substitutions, and contemporary triplets.

Breakdown.

     Content wise this thing is full and very well done. It’s meant to be a paring with the corresponding book so all the stuff he does and more is transcribed in there so there’s no need for PDFs this time around. It’ll definitely have the most value for people who are new too using the book because it’s a great learning aid and shows you what you should be shooting for when you play the exercises. It is to the books what the Groove Essentials DVD was to the Groove Essentials Poster. Yes, technically you could probably play all the grooves on the poster and sound great without ever using the DVD, but using the DVD makes it that much easier. Especially for those of us who don’t have teachers or someone to ask for help.

     Presentation wise it’s… lacking. Like I said before the way they decided to organize the DVD is just crappy and all of the main content was shot decades ago. Only the stuff that was shot for the 25th anniversary edition of this DVD looks well put together Rick makes sure you’re paying attention to all the little details that can make or break your practicing session so props for him being a good teacher.

     It’s a 25th anniversary edition so it’s got lots of extras as you would expect. In fact it’s one of the few Non-Hudson DVDs that really has a good amount of extras. There is two new lessons from Rick and and interview with Louie Bellson and Ed Shaughnessy, a gear tour and a picture slide show. Normally I hate picture galleries on my DVD’s but when it’s in slide show form with music in the background it’s not so bad. Oh and as far as the music played on the DVD it’s… not my thing. It’s really really light funk fusion that I think has no real bite to it. It’s a minor nit pick but hey, that’s my job.

     Over all if you own the two books you should own this. Because of it’s symbiotic nature with the books it’s one DVD that I actually recommend buying and keeping for as long as you keep the books. The exception to this rule are people who just honestly easily grasped the material without aid or have gone through the book so many times they can play it in their sleep. It’s an instructional aid, not much additional material so if you have no need for aid then you might want to rent it for kicks and giggles or maybe just skip it.

     Because of the title of the movie you might be expecting to learn a variety of things from this DVD that you aren’t actually going to. So here are somethings that you aren’t going to get out of this DVD. You aren’t going to learn beatboxing or that crazy tabla speak, nor will you use them as learning tools; you aren’t going to learn anything similar to Buck Nelson’s Fillmetics system; you won’t get a crash course on drumming jargon, you won’t learn anything similar to morse code, you won’t learn how to encrypt or decrypt messages war drum style; and finally you won’t learn how to speak to your drums in such a way that they will talk back in any recognized human language.

     What’s being taught here is a different way of communicating systems & ideas we already have. The idea is that these systems are easier to digest and integrate into your playing when they are taught this way. That and the fact that you don’t have to hunt down each system’s traditional counterpart separately. The thing is that I have no idea if this is truly a more effective way of teaching these concepts. In order to find out it would probably take years of scientific research if teaching music in the language oriented context is THAT much different from teaching it in a numerically oriented context.

     In other words he’s teaching you about odd groupings, rhythmic phrases, improvisation, time internalization, and a few other topics through this linguistic lens. The best example of this is the alphabet system he created using 16th notes and triplets. He took every permutation of a single beat split up into a sixteenth note and triplets and assigned a letter of the alphabet to it. In my opinion his system is much easier to apply and make sound more musical then Thomas Lang’s matrix system… you don’t need the bachelors in mathematics to understand the former, unlike the latter.

     That’s one example where I found the linguistic approach to be a plus… but there were also places where I didn’t like it very much. For instance on his section on odd groupings and splitting the meter into more manageable chunks that were represented by words I found to be very unintuitive. I love the splitting big numbers like eleven into manageable groups of 2s and 3s but replacing the numbers with words just didn’t agree with me.

Breakdown

     Content: this DVD offers an in-depth look into how Benny Greb views and processes the various aspects of drumming. The first disc he covers some of the more traditional topics like independence, odd groupings, and rudiments as well as some not so traditional topics such as his rhythmic alphabet. In the second disc he goes through some general ideas of improving your musicianship and about a zillion different ideas for getting sounds of your kit. The second half  is a strong finish for the DVD and it closes out with a solo. If nothing else check out the second disc because it has some of the most interesting and least complicated tidbits in the whole shebang. Oh, definitely print out the PDFs on the second disc as well.

     Presentation: Dave asked for the guys at Hudson Music to use some place other then Bear-tracks studios and they listened apparently. Almost everything is in nature or in a nice spacious cabin. It’s actually quite nice because they change places in different sections so you do to look at something new throughout the DVD. There are very few musical examples and I actually would have liked some more because there aren’t many breaks spacing the lessons out. Benny is a pretty decent host and  like all big Hudson productions, the camera work is excellent.

     Extras: This one isn’t quite what I would call “jam-packed” with extras but it’s got enough for a feature of its size. Footage of his world tour, two factory tours, a bit of gear talk and a few other odds and ends it should keep  you happy in the extras department.

     I’d definitely recommend this a rent/buy. Especially if Thomas Lang’s DVD’s didn’t do it for you then this provides a pretty good alternative. Either way you should watch at least once and download the PDFs.

Until the next time I get something in my mitts to review… See Yah

     From what I can tell this Video is designed to give the viewer some of the tools he used during his tenure with SRV (Stevie Ray Vaughan) & the DTB (Double Trouble Band). The thing is… if he was successful then he didn’t do much in the band. Now I’m not knocking him as a musician, I’m saying that as a teacher he’s quite a minimalist. This is an hour long DVD and there is a grand total of 18 instructional examples in the whole thing. In most other DVDs of the same length they managed to get in more than two or three times the amount of teaching he did in this DVD. The other thing is that the teaching he did do wasn’t that enlightening. It was very simple stuff that most people could master with very little effort. If you’re going to teach complex stuff it’s ok to cut back on the number of subjects you cover. But if what you’re covering is basic and easily grasped… you better put in a LOT more then just 18 instructional examples.

Breakdown.

     Content-wise it’s really really diluted. He mostly talks about a few different ways to shuffle, and places to accent the beat. He even does a cool shuffle/march thing that’s all on the snare drum but then it’s pretty much over. He does a gear talk that doubles as a “this is how you can get your kit to sound like mine” tutorial, and he jams with video producer Arlen Roth and his buddy Tommy Shannon (the other half of double trouble.)

     In terms of presentation it comes off as very unplanned and almost like instruction wasn’t the goal. It honestly felt more like a SRV tribute then an instructional video. The only times Chris showed any real passion was when he was talking about SRV. The rest of the time he’s kinda meandering through something that resembles a drum lesson but he seems totally out of place. There were a bunch of musical performances but honestly all they did was to cover for the fact that Chris had very little to say. This says more about the director and producer of the films then it does Chris because I’m sure he had more to teach then this. It’s their job to give him direction and coax the knowledge from him… they failed

     For extras they have slow motion exercises, artist biography, selected discography, and suggested listening. That isn’t horrible when you consider the age of this thing but it’s nothing special.

     All in all this one is skippable. I wouldn’t bother, you’ll learn a lot more by listening to some SRV records.
As you can tell my no-mic scoring experiment is still in effect so tell me what you think about that in the comments section.

Later Days

     Now before I go any further I must warn you that this DVD (as well as Mike Terrana’s DVD) are both in PAL format which means that unless you have PAL compatible DVD player you won’t be able to watch this DVD. Here in the states we pretty much use NTSC so beware if you are an American looking at renting or purchasing this DVD.  

     Back to the feature itself, this video should be viewed as a primer to playing Afro-Cuban music WITH A GROUP. As Phil explains in the video, there is very often more then one percussionist in a Afro-Cuban band and drummers are the newbs. All the other percussion instruments were around loooooong before the drum-set was introduced into latin music, so it’s your job to not step on the toes of the other players. So if you’re looking for an encyclopedia of hot licks to solo with during your unscheduled solo in the middle of  ”La Cucaracha” you’re in the wrong place. (However! If that IS what you are looking for, Phil has a book that might interest you.)

     It starts out with Phil talking about what  kind of setup you should have for playing latin music and the role of each piece of the drum-set in latin music. Which is also a good excuse for him to push his endorsements really hard. He then goes on to talk about the clave, how it relates to Latin music, and why it’s so often misunderstood and even mystified. This is one of my favorite sections because he explains that the clave has metaphorical meanings as well as being an integral rhythm in Latin music. It also has an interesting aspect of bridging the gap between 6/8 and cut time which are the most popular time signatures for latin music. The 6/8 comes from the music’s African roots where cut time is more prevalent in modern Latin music.

     From here the main focus of the video remains on functioning in an Afro Cuban percussion section in different situations. This is what the video is really about. He teaches you the function of a rhythm on it’s traditional instrument and how it’s played when moved to a drum-kit. You’re taught almost as much about playing the other percussion instruments as you are playing on the drum-set. This is great because you need to know what you are imitating because you’re a backup percussionist more then you’re a traditional drum-set player. This is the best part of the whole DVD because it actually tells you what you need to know to be the drummer in an Afro-Cuban band. Not how to latinize your playing, not how to be Tito Puente on the kit, and most definitely not how to play Latin rock like Tris Imboden.

     From here there is a small section on integrating the left foot clave into your playing. Phil pretty much says that there two levels of using the left foot clave. The first is just being able to use it in patterns, the second is mad crazy soloing and fills over a clave. He says that for level one you should buy his book. For those of who have already achieved ownership of his book and a decent command of the left foot clave, he demonstrates some of his favorite fill/solo ideas over a clave. 

     After that he goes over how the clave is the key in moving through cut time and 6/8 in latin music. Basically it’s a way to help internalize the clave rhythm and naturalize non native players. More importantly it’s also a spot for him to pimp his OTHER book that he neglected to mention earlier. After that there’s a song performance with the whole band and it’s over.

     Time for the breakdown… but this time I’m going to try something new. I discovered during some of my recent reviews that I thought I did a better job of conveying how I felt about the DVD and it’s parts when I didn’t use the Mics.

     Content wise the vid is excellent in terms of providing a birds-eye view of the drummer’s role in an Afro Cuban setting. In fact it’s the best… but that’s not saying too much because it has little competition in this field. For now though, it’s king of the hill. There are PDF’s for the exercises and what not but they aren’t on the actual DVD. You have to email phil with proof of purchase to get the exercise PDFs if you didn’t buy it through his website. I can’t say much about those PDFs cause I rented the video so I don’t have exercise to them, but I’m sure they are useful. I just think this is a bad way go about distributing them.

     Presentation wise it’s got great camera work and makes great use of splitting up the screen so you can get everything at once. Phil himself is mellow and not a very exciting host. You might like that but I like my hosts to have a good deal of energy and enthusiasm in their presentation (see Billy Ward & Gregg Bissonette.) Like I said Phil pushes product at almost every opportunity he gets but he did it in a way that was quite annoying and teasing. The way it’s structured in terms of giving the viewer breaks and changes to keep it from getting repetitive was handled badly. You’re going to hate that freaking piano riff in the sound clip they use to transition from one chapter to another.

     Extras in this thing are almost non existent in terms of stuff that might entertain and enlighten the viewer. There is one VERY short behind the scenes clip which is kinda… meh. There are a ton of extra adds for the stuff he hocks on the DVD. Remember the PDFs i said that weren’t on the DVD? Well, there are PDFs on the DVD but it’s just adds and catalogues for his endorsers.

     Bottom line the content of the DVD is pretty darn good but his constant attempts to sell me stuff along with a mediocre performance as host makes this DVD quite irritating to watch for me. No real extras to speak of and you can’t get the PDF’s if you are going to rent the DVD… which unduly pressures us to buy this DVD even though for some of us it’s only worth a rent.

If you really wanna learn the basics of being the drummer in an Afro Cuban setting then you should rent it to make sure you are in love with it before you shell out the money for the PDF. Everyone else should probably just glean what they can from renting it and send it back.

Leave me a comment about what you think of my little no mic score experiment. After all the review is about you guys.

     This whole video is him breaking down licks that he used in construction of two solos that he demonstrates in the video. There’s not much else to say about it. Really. There isn’t. Most of the licks he does are hand foot patterns that are pretty common in many metal fills and solos. They aren’t complicated but they are usually played very very fast so having them slowed down and demonstrated is a plus. You get some Printable PDFs… that’s nice… hat’s about it.

This is probably the shortest review I’ve ever done… time for the breakdown.

For content… 1.5 of three mics. He breaks down two solos… that’s it. He gets the half star for the printable pdfs… props for that.

For presentation he gets 0 mics. Honestly it should be more like a quarter mic but I can’t give those so I’ve gotta round down.

For extras it gets 0 mics because there are no extras.

1.5 mics is the grand total.  

You’d have to be a Bozzio freak to rent this and it’s just not buying material because it’s too brief.

Incase you don’t know who Ian Paice is, he is (among other things) the drummer for Deep Purple. If you don’t know who Deep Purple is then you need to ask my friend and yours, Google. Pretty much if you didn’t know who he was before you started reading this then this really isn’t the DVD for you. Not for the Pros is all about Ian and is for people who really like Ian as a Drummer and a musician because there isn’t very much instruction going on in this DVD. There is concert footage and some footage of him in a recording studio, There are camera angles galore and you can easily tell this thing was made for a surround sound set up because almost every single segment you can pick from has about three different options for what kind of surround sound you want. It’s not high definition though so I can’t make full use of my new HDTV here.

Speaking of segments, I should probably tell you about how this DVD is set up because it’s very unusual for a Instructional DVD. Unlike others, this DVD isn’t designed to be watched straight through from beginning to end. It’s very easy to deduce that because there isn’t an option to do so. The DVD is broken up into different unrelated segments that you play. Imagine one of the old “Twist a Plot” variety books where depending on your choices you would go to a completely different place in the book. If you don’t know what books I’m talking about then just imagine the extras sections of a DVD for a big movie like Lord of the Rings. You don’t just hit a button and watch them all sequentially. You pick and choose what interests you and you watch that. That’s how the main menu of the whole DVD works. You just pick and choose.

The problem with this DVD is that there isn’t enough content of any type to justify buying it or watching it more then once. It could be awesome if there were more to it but it just feels like a bunch of extras packaged as the main event. Too much bone and not enough meat. Even for people who are die-hard Ian Paice fans there just isn’t enough here, and it’s not worth it for someone who isn’t big into Ian Paice/Deep Purple.

I don’t think that I can really give this one a proper mic score because of its wonky set up and the fact that it isn’t really an instructional. It’s bad but it isn’t so bad that it’s good like Tris Imboden’s DVD was.

Honestly it feels like the extra’s section of a really good Drum instructional… except that’s the entire DVD

Let me put it this way. If you love Ian Paice then maybe, just maybe, want to rent it once. Anyone else should skip it.

Let it be known before I get this thing going, I’m not a snare drummer. At least, I’m not the kind of snare drummer like the target demographic of this DVD is. The type that probably have spent time in a marching band of some kind and play HUGE snare drums that sound like popcorn popping. This DVD made me very very hungry because I didn’t hear the snare drums as snare drums, I heard them as popcorn. How is this relevant? Not at all. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

Back to the subject. I think that anyone who’s ever had a drum lesson has gone through the snare drum lesson before the teacher will allow you to bang on the whole kit. It makes a lot of sense too. The snare drum is an integral part in the development of the drum kit as we know it today. If you want a full understanding of the drum kit, you need some snare instruction. Plus the snare drum is the perfect tool to use when teaching the basics of drumming & rhythm to new drummers. Y’know… this is a quarter note, these are sixteenth notes, this is a rudiment called the paradiddle etc etc.

But this isn’t about trap drummers! Nope, this is about the drummers who decided to stay in the world of snare drumming and take it to absolutely crazy levels. Jeff Queen is one such man and he’s recognized for being the best at what he does. Jeff will take you from the basics all the way to the stuff you need to play the crazy frankenstein hybrid rudiments that Dave’s been tackling on show as of late.

This video IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS even though it may seem that way at the beginning. I mention this because I myself picked this up thinking that it was for players of all skill levels after reading a vague description on Netflix. The funny thing is that I got through a significant portion of the DVD before I realized my error. After all, he does start out the video by teaching you how to hold your sticks and how to make a stroke. Very basic stuff right?

Actually first segment dealing with hand technique is easy to understand and replicate. It’s extremely similar to Jojo Mayer’s S.W.F.T.M.D. DVD during the hand technique section. In-fact Jeff teaches much of what Jojo does in his DVD until the end of the hand technique section, which is when this DVD goes off in a different direction.

This point really intrigued me as I thought there was probably enough difference between snare drumming and trap drumming to warrant a noticeably different approach to their hand techniques. I was wrong. Which is nice because you don’t need to relearn how to walk to get through the hand technique section.

After he gets through the hand-technique selection he starts talking about note groupings and something called “the grid.” It was at this point I realized that there was no way this DVD was suited for beginners. The grid actually reminded me very much of Thomas Lang’s matrix. The grid is a constant stream of sixteenth notes with constantly shifting accents that forces you to play virtually every accent pattern possible. It also comes in a triplet variety, and you can throw diddles, flams, and drags in there too. Jeff claims that many drummer came up with hybrid rudiments that we know of by messing around with this grid thing. I don’t doubt him.

The big problem with this DVD in general is that Jeff moves through the explications of what he’s doing really fast and then proceeds to demonstrate what he was talking about too fast. It’s like listening to two lawyers discussing something in their native language, legalese. Because you, the non-fluent speaker, have to decode the jargon to process what they are saying, you get left behind. The good thing is that you have rewind and chapter navigation features so you can get Jeff to explain himself as many times as you need.

From note groupings he continues on in the same way through the rest of the DVD. Chugging on through: Timing, Buzz Control, Diddle Control, Flam control, Grid 2.0, Hybrid Rudiments, Tricks, and how to develop crazy nasty speed.

Time for the breakdown

For content this gets three of three mics. This is flat out the best snare drum instructional on the market. It’s also the first DVD in a long time to get all three mics in the content category.

For presentation it doesn’t get a mic. Jeff is a “meh” host and also suffers from blowing through certain things without enough explanation. However you can get around this by having him explain it multiple times it’s not horrible. The film isn’t very well segmented and would have greatly benefited from having some of the solo’s in the bonus section placed throughout the film. Also maybe some clips from him performing in blast or in any of the drum corps he’s been in. Honestly this film deserves about 1/4th of a mic for presentation but I can’t a quarter mic so i’ve got to round down.

For extras this one gets the whole mic. Like most Hudson music DVD’s they do the extra section right. PDF’s, gear talk, lot’s o solos (which i wish they included in the main feature) a photo gallery (lame) and audio commentary on most of the drum-solos.

So there you go 4 mics  

It’s nice that It’s so info packed but they could have done a better job with making it easier to digest… and that’s the only thing keeping it from a perfect score.

No, I mean it. It’s flipping insane how big this thing has gotten. They have a play along book with CD for those of you who need more detail and even MORE grooves then the 47 that the poster and DVD has. Now they have a sequel to everything the original Groove Essentials family had. That means a Groove Essentials 2 DVD with poster and Groove Essentials 2 Play-along Book with CD. What other poster can say that it inspired a critically acclaimed film that demanded a sequel? Not many methinks.

Just for clarification I am ONLY reviewing the original poster and DVD. None of this applies to the original play-along with CD or any of the sequels materials.

Tommy Igoe, (pronounced “I go” and anyone who tells you different is a liar) is a drum teacher and it shows… a lot… and that’s flipping awesome. You can tell by the way his manner and his careful placement of advice and encouragement that he’s been down this path with many students many times. To be quite honest it’s the little bits of advice and his pedagogical skill that really makes this DVD as good as it is.

The DVD itself is a shotgun approach that targets the beginner to intermediate drummer who wants a little bit of everything. These are the people who really should be considering buying this DVD because they are the ones who are gonna be able to grow as they progress through the poster. I know that it’s advertised for everyone, beginners and advanced players alike, but I think that this is a tad misleading. I say this because most complex grooves in this poster are what I would classify as intermediate to advanced. If you are what I would consider an advanced player (I know the term is relative) then this DVD won’t satisfy you for long. You’ll want to really dig into the types of music that are of interest to you and that means that you’ll need more specialization than this DVD offers. I’m not very worried though because most advanced drummers know by that time to research and what to look for in an instructional book or DVD. It’s usually the the beginners end up buying something totally unsuited for their current condition. Now that I’m done talking about the target audience, let’s talk about the DVD itself.

Tommy Igoe doesn’t just demonstrate the grooves in this video. If that’s all he did then there definitely would not have been a sequel. Each groove he goes through is a little lesson. He teaches you step-by-step exactly what you need to know to perform that groove like it should be played in it’s natural context. He anticipates common problems or mistakes a student might make when they do a one of these grooves and gives warning not to fall in the trap. He also plays each groove twice at different speeds to different tracks. He stays calm, collected, and enthusiastic in all situations. He’s the drumming equivalent of Bob Ross. No kidding. If you don’t know who Bob Ross is then you need to google him asap.

The DVD is broken up into 5 different families of grooves. Those are: rock, funk, R&B, jazz, and world. The distribution of different grooves is kinda uneven. Rock makes up grooves 1-10; Funk makes up 11-13; R&B makes up 14-17 Jazz makes up 18-26; and the world grooves section makes up 27-47. In addition to the world section of the poster being over half the poster… almost all of them are latin rhythms. Couldn’t a few of those world grooves have been given to the funk section? At a grand total of three grooves the funk section looks a little malnourished. Regardless, Tommy always says that this DVD isn’t the end of your study in any of the groove families. He makes it very clear that if you find you like funk drumming then you need to go pick up some James Brown records. Only through listening to the music will you truly understand it.

Here be the breakdown.

For content it gets 2.5 mics. Why doesn’t it get the other half mic you ask? It’s because the distribution of grooves is a little too unbalanced. Also there are a few demonstrations he does where he shows how to play the groove with sticks but then when he plays to the track he plays with brushes. If he was going to play it with brushes he should have also demonstrated how to play it with brushes. In fact, a small brushes groove sections would have been a great idea.

For presentation it gets the whole mic. Tommy is a great host and teacher plus the camera work makes it easy to grasp everything that goes on. In addition to that, the angles and camera effects change enough to keep even the most A.D.D. among us from losing concentration. The only thing I didn’t like is that the musical tracks all sounded very light and polished. That was fine for much of the DVD but for some of the tracks it just didn’t fit… though this is very minor and I won’t let it take away from the score.

For extras I can’t give it any mics because there really aren’t any extras. They have an about section for Tommy, Vic Firth, Hudson music, and they have some www links that you can easily go to without ever owning the DVD. Meh.

So that’s a total of 3.5 of 5 mics

Considering that most of those mics are in content and it got the whole mic for presentation, that is a very respectable score.

I can only hope they do this good a job with the sequel.

For beginners this is definitely a buy. For more advanced players it’s probably a rent.

It would seem that people are prone to ask certain question of clinicians just for the novelty of it being explained live. Jojo Mayer still gets questions about hand technique even though he has an entire DVD dedicated to the subject. Steve Gadd still gets questions about that groove that he did with that guy’s band even though there are transcriptions and videos of what he played all over the internet. And Bernard Purdie will still get asked about the Purdie Shuffle no matter how well documented it is.

My point is that a lot of valuable time that could be spent teaching something new is wasted on stuff that is covered too death. If you can easily find the same information somewhere else or already know the answer to the question… DON’T ASK IT! You do the entire audience a disservice when you ask a question or ask for a demonstration that takes time away from newer material.

That being said, It’s ultimately the clinician’s job to make sure his clinic is the best clinic that he can give. if he gets a bunch of crappy questions from the audience it’s his fault. It means he didn’t screen the questions or didn’t do a very good job of it. Does anyone else remember having a teacher that you could get to go waaaayyyy off topic if you brought up certain subjects? The same principal applies here. Allowing the students to drive the clinic through their questions can be a very very bad idea. Especially if you are an inexperienced teacher or already had a set plan that you now must deviate from.

While it’s the responsibility of the teacher to make sure a class is the best learning experience possible, that doesn’t remove the responsibility of the class to be best bunch of students they can be. So bear that in mind if you ever wanna ask Jojo Mayer how he does that crazy thing with his hands when he’s talking about tuning the drums.

I’ll have more posts about what I think can help improve clinics later. After all… better clinics mean better DVD’s for me to review.