Rock In Rio (2012-05-26)

[Ball Sack Face]

Mike is a bad drummer.

[fuzzyroes]

I'm 3 songs in listening to this set and the band actually sounds pretty tight. You can actually hear Jeffs guitar nice and loud...

And while Byrne is obviously the least talented drummer to ever sit behind a kit for the Pumpkins I don't think he sounds as bad here as people make him out to be.

[iPumpkin]

Originally Posted by Corganist

Same old story. The people who were bashing Mike before he ever picked up a pair of sticks for SP are still hating for the sake of it. It's not like there's any consensus on exactly why all these people say he's bad. It's always just generalities and completely unquantifiable concepts like "touch," ""feel," and "groove." It's like that bullshit line people used to float here about James and Darcy having some supernatural stage presence that somehow made their technical shortcomings onstage okay. And it's amazing that despite Mike supposedly being off on his timing like so many claim, the rest of the band never seems to get out of sync with him. Are they just all coincidentally falling out of time in exactly the same way he is at exactly the same time?

Meanwhile, anyone out there who has an opinion on drumming that actually matters, not the least Jimmy himself, has had nothing but praise for his drumming. Really, this stuff is getting old.

This is a horrible post. I feel the exact opposite. Just about everyone critical of his technique listed several citations.

[iPumpkin]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

Pics?

There is that one pic of his ball hanging out of a dress.

[iPumpkin]

Originally Posted by fuzzyroes

I'm 3 songs in listening to this set and the band actually sounds pretty tight. You can actually hear Jeffs guitar nice and loud...

And while Byrne is obviously the least talented drummer to ever sit behind a kit for the Pumpkins I don't think he sounds as bad here as people make him out to be.

The problem is you are going from a top 5 all time rock drummer to..well.. Mike Byrne. There is just no real reason for him to be in the band. There at least 20 qualified drummers that would be maybe a 10% drop off from Jimmy and just as Matt won us over, I am sure a talented vet with experience could as well.

[brendo_91]

Originally Posted by whywontyoulistn

I don't like Melissa's tone. Big fan of Nicole's though. I could actually appreciate the current lineup if it wasn't for the drumming.

this.

Originally Posted by SlingeroGuitaro

mike sounds like he is playing MIDI triggers with the velocity turned all the way up. if you have ever heard that you know why he sucks. I used to be a big defender of his.

could it be a sound guy and too many compressors? i felt the snare sound didnt breathe on the audio track but i'm not sure if that was the sound guy or if he's just a monkey drummer.

[brendo_91]

Originally Posted by Corganist

Same old story. The people who were bashing Mike before he ever picked up a pair of sticks for SP are still hating for the sake of it. It's not like there's any consensus on exactly why all these people say he's bad. It's always just generalities and completely unquantifiable concepts like "touch," ""feel," and "groove."

TOUCH FEEL AND GROOVE IS WHAT A DRUMMER DOES IN A BAND. If a drummer is just there to keep time use a fucking metronome.

He's using a track for Disarm and still can't hit his little drum hits at the right points.

And it's amazing that despite Mike supposedly being off on his timing like so many claim, the rest of the band never seems to get out of sync with him. Are they just all coincidentally falling out of time in exactly the same way he is at exactly the same time?

1) It was brought up in the other Rock in Rio thread that Nicole is struggling for timing at some points.
2) The band stays in time, he falls out with the rest of them then catches up. It's pretty obvious.

[Extremis]

How was mikes drumming on the oceania songs?

[brendo_91]

pretty hamfisted, but at least they're his own parts so he can't fuck up the actual notes he plays.

he's a cymbal basher, but more to the point his snare hits are always the same velocity too so he just sounds robotic.

[Forgotten Child]

Originally Posted by iPumpkin

The problem is you are going from a top 5 all time rock drummer to..well.. Mike Byrne. There is just no real reason for him to be in the band. There at least 20 qualified drummers that would be maybe a 10% drop off from Jimmy and just as Matt won us over, I am sure a talented vet with experience could as well.

There are at least 20 qualified guitarrists better than Billy and Jeff. Mike is in the band not only for his skills, as James and D'arcy OBVIOUSLY weren't there for their playing. There's something else in this band and that's called chemistry... you can't replace chemistry for "the greatest drummer in the World".

[reprise85]

where is this chemistry you speak of...? can you give examples of this chemistry in action?

[Forgotten Child]

not my fault that you can't see how the band is really tight playing live and they are getting better and better. I hope the atmosphere was well transposed to the studio with Oceania, I hope the production didn't kill it.

[SlingeroGuitaro]

Originally Posted by brendo_91

could it be a sound guy and too many compressors? i felt the snare sound didnt breathe on the audio track but i'm not sure if that was the sound guy or if he's just a monkey drummer.

I could say its the sound guy, but he has always sounded like this. His drum kitbsounds like shit. He uses moon gels which is a pet peeve of mine- I would be willing to bet he uses some other muffling as well. Muffling and moon gels says either your kit is shitty, you don't know how to tune, or you're lazy.

Fact is the guy doesn't have a musical ear. A drummer will never really SELL records for a band, but the band can never be better than the drummer. Drummers need to have the most well trained ear in a band. A lot of drummers will play their kit without a reference to other instruments and try to fix what they don't like. Its like trying to mix a song while soloing each instrument- it doesn't work. Often times the harmonics and resonance that drummers don't like in their kits add more to the overall product than they're aware. I always respected jimmy for that- he didn't have a super snappy snare, didnt have a clicky kick.without muffling anything and having a great ear for how his drums were tuned I can guarantee you h could take his kit and play any type of music without making adjustments- and it would fit right in.

Mike lacks all concept of this.

[GLOWer]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Child

not my fault that you can't see how the band is really tight playing live and they are getting better and better. I hope the atmosphere was well transposed to the studio with Oceania, I hope the production didn't kill it.

what a cop out.

[SlingeroGuitaro]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Child

not my fault that you can't see how the band is really tight playing live and they are getting better and better. I hope the atmosphere was well transposed to the studio with Oceania, I hope the production didn't kill it.

I think they are getting worse as a band playing the old material. Maybe some of the new/old stuff they are throwing is more difficult on the 'feel' scale I don't know, but how they played last year along these shows tells me the band isn't as good at pulling it off as they were when mike first joined.

That said, it wouldn't surprise me if Billy looked at how they are with NEW material and said 'this is how I want it, being just OK with the old stuff is good enough.'

[Space Girl 1979]

Originally Posted by Implosion

In short, people were wary of Matt Walker, but he ended up proving himself over time. A much shorter time. Matt Walker wasn't Jimmy, no, but he also didn't make the old songs sound significantly worse. There was less enthusiasm for Kenny Aronoff. The guy is a renown drummer, but his style did not mesh very well. I wouldn't consider Joey Waronker's contributions to the Pumpkins as significant.

I'm pretty sure there are already very specific examples either in this thread, or others about this concert, about where Mike blows (specifically about the way he plays Cherub Rock). Since Billy fellators conveniently ignore opinions they're incapable of processing or disagree with, I don't know why I'm bothering, but here are some more examples.

Take the Everlasting Gaze outro from this show. Mike plays the pattern with offbeat accents on the ride, which is where Jimmy *starts* with the outro, but fails to slowly ratchet up the intensity and throw in extra snare, tom, and open hi-hat hits. It sounds really flat and robotic.

The intro to Today is a good example where he's way too busy (i.e. he hits too many fucking notes) and hits the drums way too hard. Also the way he plays the fill leading from the verse to the chorus (and between bars of the chorus) is hamfisted and lacks the ghost strokes of the original.

In the outro of X.Y.U., he plays the same shitty triplet snare roll over and over and it sounds out of place every single time.

How about the noise solo of BWBW? If you can't hear how wimpy and sloppy the fills are here, you're not paying attention. And that's really the bottom line. If you don't understand why people don't like Mike, you probably don't care about drums in the first place.

http://i.imgur.com/qYWtq.png

[Ball Sack Face]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Child

not my fault that you can't see how the band is really tight playing live and they are getting better and better. I hope the atmosphere was well transposed to the studio with Oceania, I hope the production didn't kill it.

lol :beatu p:

[john's ego]

Originally Posted by SlingeroGuitaro

I could say its the sound guy, but he has always sounded like this. His drum kitbsounds like shit. He uses moon gels which is a pet peeve of mine- I would be willing to bet he uses some other muffling as well. Muffling and moon gels says either your kit is shitty, you don't know how to tune, or you're lazy.

Fact is the guy doesn't have a musical ear. A drummer will never really SELL records for a band, but the band can never be better than the drummer. Drummers need to have the most well trained ear in a band. A lot of drummers will play their kit without a reference to other instruments and try to fix what they don't like. Its like trying to mix a song while soloing each instrument- it doesn't work. Often times the harmonics and resonance that drummers don't like in their kits add more to the overall product than they're aware. I always respected jimmy for that- he didn't have a super snappy snare, didnt have a clicky kick.without muffling anything and having a great ear for how his drums were tuned I can guarantee you h could take his kit and play any type of music without making adjustments- and it would fit right in.

Mike lacks all concept of this.

i would imagine a lot of this bullshit would be advised against by the drum tech, who is probably a veteran of the business.

[SlingeroGuitaro]

A drum tech's job is to do what the drummer tells them to. If they wanted opinions they could read netphoria.

[john's ego]

i guess so. maybe someone should link mikey to this thread.

[The Omega Concern]

originally posted by Corganist:

It's like that bullshit line people used to float here about James and Darcy having some supernatural stage presence that somehow made their technical shortcomings onstage okay.

It did. Not just cause they looked good and could play, but because they dealt with Billy and respected him as a musician, but they didn't look up to him or kiss his ass. That's how it was balanced. Billy always had what he needed from them until Darcy flamed out. He was so lucky to have Melissa in the wings because she had the gravitas to maintain and add to that original flow.

Without James, its just off. Jeff may have better fingers, but its a weak aura and does not balance out big Bill's. Throw in the out of his element drummer and its like imitation crab meat. No thanks.

[Starla]

Originally Posted by Corganist

It's like that bullshit line people used to float here about James and Darcy having some supernatural stage presence that somehow made their technical shortcomings onstage okay.

They did. James isn't the best but he's fine.

[Starla]

Originally Posted by john's ego

i guess so. maybe someone should link mikey to this thread.

Billy won't let him read it. He probably banned Nicole and Mike from coming here so that the darkness won't touch them.

[fake plastic]

"They" sound more alive than they did during the Zeitgeist tour..

[slunken]

good points all around

[slunken]

good job netphoria

[Rocket Launcher]

His drum tone is pretty bad indeed (compared to Jimmy's setup, just compare it), and the pounding at many even softer songs or part of songs is annoying, and i can agree to Implosions' points he made, but I guess the guy is still learning, and he is still quite young. At least I hope he gets better soon. It's definitely not that horrible and shitty as some say, though. Oh, and also, Jeff's use of the tremolo arm sometimes seems out of place, and i wonder why he uses it so often.

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern

Without James, its just off. Jeff may have better fingers, but its a weak aura and does not balance out big Bill's.

aura?

I would have agreed with you two years ago. After hearing and seeing the guy live on last year's tour I just don't believe that anymore. He did a great job playing on the last tour, and especially with the new songs you can hear Jeff's parts really well. He's the best player (besides billy) to have ever been in a band with billy and it's obvious that the two of them feed off each other on stage. And Jeff holds his own on stage.

[cardiac]

Originally Posted by Rocket Launcher

I guess the guy is still learning, and he is still quite young.

Billy, however, is 45. The "he'll be okay in a few years" argument is a bit much. Billy is old as shit AND a seasoned pro. He doesn't have a few years to waste training Mike if he has any ambition left to make pivotal rock music.

I agree that Jeff holds his own just fine. No complaints there.

[amoergosum]

Originally Posted by Rocket Launcher

I guess the guy is still learning, and he is still quite young. At least I hope he gets better soon.

Is this the Smashing Pumpkins or Billy's School of Rock?