Late last week, I discovered a bunch of really sweet drumming video's done by this kid named Ricky. He's talented, very talented, and quite the showman as well. On his youtube channel, he's put together a ton of videos of drum covers, which is pretty normal for the interwebz and musicians alike. What's not normal however, is the quality of the production of the videos, from both a visual and audio standpoint. Some serious time was spent recording and mixing the sounds, and it all ads up to some extremely entertaining drum videos. He covers a wide array of music types, and generally seems to be having the time of his life while playing, which is awesome. Drums are my escape and I miss my set terribly, but for the last week I've been playing them in my head through these videos. Below are a couple of my favorites, but I definitely recommend you spend a little time checking out the rest of them as well. Rock on Ricky, rock on. Enjoy!
This one is probably my favorite, because I've played this song a lot myself, but also because he takes a relatively simple drum part and really spices it up. Who knew double bass could work so well with New Found Glory?
Simply put, the Social D show was awesome! I had built it up quite a bit in my mind since I had been waiting so long to see them play, and I'm glad they didn't let me down. I got there early with another friend and we headed inside just after the doors opened so we could get a good viewing spot. We grabbed a place upstairs straight back from the stage and right along the front railing, excellent viewpoint. I stayed up there for most of the show until I couldn't resist any longer and headed down into the pit to let loose! It was a great time, and they played pretty much every song I wanted to hear, except one [Far Behind.] Anyways, not a whole lot more to say except that I'm really glad I finally got to see Social Distortion play live, I somehow feel like my life is a tad more complete! On with the media!
Another pic/view of the crowd and stage
Here's a small clip I got with my phone of the song 'Ball and Chain'
[please, pay no attention to the awful tone deaf singalong]
As I mentioned, I was upstairs just enjoying watching the show for the majority of the evening, but then my buddy said we needed to head down and get into the action, so I double knotted my shoe laces, handed off a t-shirt to another friend staying upstairs, and headed on down. I hadn't been in a mosh pit in quite some time, but it was so much fun, I even got one dude to hoist me up for a small crowd surfing session.
View from the pit. Mike Ness doing what he does best. Rocking faces off!
At the very end of their encore, I was able to get the drummer's attention and ask him to throw out his drum sticks. Anyone who's been to concerts with me, knows that I like to try and get a drum stick from the band. I have a strange knack for usually being able to get one, so I always try. [My collection currently includes drum sticks from Motion City Soundtrack, POD, Dragonforce, Less Than Jake, and [now] Social Distortion.] So the drummer recognizes my request and heaves one stick in my general direction, and I elevated like none other, got above the crowd and snagged that baby right out of the air. My friend Matt was standing right next to me and he immediately starting laughing and exclaiming "of course you of all people would get it!" My friends that remained upstairs saw me right after heading outside and said they couldn't believe how high up I jumped to get the stick, and they were watching the whole time thinking "Did Rob just get that stick?!" Why yes, yes I did. It was a great end to an awesome, awesome night.
The Holy Grail of my drum stick collection
Last but not least, I wanted share one more song/video. I mentioned in my last post that they're getting ready to release a new album, and they played a couple songs from it, and I was pretty excited about what I heard, this song 'Still Alive' was a standout in my mind. Here's video of the song from a concert earlier in the year. Enjoy!
Alright, so I may not be the next Travis Barker, but I do like to get my rock on! The last time I played my drums was last year before Halloween, cause we were having a big party so I decided to pack them up so nothing would happen to them. Long story short, I moved houses a bunch and haven't touched them since. That is until today!
I went last night and get them back out of storage and brought them back to the house. It's just my roommate and I in a 4 bedroom place, so we have the extra space. In the room next to mine I moved some stuff out of the way and began putting them back together! Since it had been well over a year since I've sat behind any drum set, I admit, I was a bit rusty. It'll probably take about 2 or 3 weeks to shake that off and get back to where I was before I stopped. I'm sure our neighbors are going to loooove this! ROCK ON!!! I'll try and get some action shots and put them up eventually!
