Meg White Is Amazing!!

I’m hoping to be go-to gong gal in my perfect world.

someone who has their own gong and can dependably show up? a rarity in these days

It me: Mature reliable gong-enabled 😎

Even with messing with a lap steel, it is definitely a different kind of beast than a guitar.

I’d love to get a chance to fart around with a pedal steel or b bender guitar, just to try them out but don’t know anyone that plays one and they are really expensive.

I've bought my wife a couple of gongs over the years. She is not into droning out on them - just enjoys a well-placed strike to re-center herself. One was a 10" wind gong that has gone slightly out of tune due to parades of kids just walking up and smashing it. A year or two ago I bought her an 18" chau gong. It is much more sturdy and sonorous and she has placed it out of the way of young ne'er-do-wells. But yesterday morning, before anyone was awake, one of our cats discovered it and decided that she enjoyed brushing up against it and giving it headbutts.

going to need video of this gong head-butting cat asap

The best strategy is to follow the Nashville model, master one instrument but be at least competent at one or two others. I love stories like Buck Owens and Don Rich, where Rich started out on fiddle for several years before Owens learned he was not just a good guitarist but a great guitarist. Or Bill Berry in REM, who iirc surprised his bandmates (who probably already knew he could play guitar) that he was a piano player, too. The Beatles, of course, swapped instruments here and there as needed (though it helped that Paul was a legit prodigy on his primary instrument).

But yeah, the world is awash in good guitar players, but as the saying goes, a band is only as good as its drummer.

gong cat to (cat) thread

there were always chucklebutts who would say discouraging things like “well good luck, there’s hardly a shortage of awesome drummers in (city where I live)”

what fucking cities are these? IME drummers are absolutely the most in demand and hardest to find part of any group. every time I find someone who has availability and desire to play in my band I feel like I won the lottery

Last year I played a show where there were five bands. I was the drummer in three of them.

co-sign there is no city awash in drummers period nevermind awesome ones, boo to those chucklebutts and to every awful chucklebutt at the start of this thread, jack white has gone on record in "under great northern lights" that meg is absolutely integral, he plays with one of the best living drummers alive today and he cannot replicate what meg does at all

by which I mean daru jones is an incredible drummer that is living and alive, presently, but he is no meg white

Brighton has a fair few, just as well for our Alice's sake...

Yeah the number of bands I’ve seen that are better than their drummers beg to differ with the idea that there’s a glut of great drummers.

It was framed as an acknowledgement that there are a lot of excellent drummers in this particular city (it’s true, there are) and I shouldn’t bother trying bc I’d never measure up. Because I’m here specifically.

The idea that there is a drummer shortage doesn’t appear to be particularly true here.

Regardless of the on-the-ground reality in this city I can’t imagine anyone saying something that discouraging to anyone they cared about at all. Whether it’s widely true or not I mentioned it bc it reflects the attitudes of the people who gave Meg such a hard time — like their (baseless) criticism of her was normal/justified and wasn’t hurtful. It was not justified and it was hurtful.

yeah it's just assholish, it's not like wanting to be a musician is something that makes any kind of rational sense, you have the love for it, and no one knows how it will turn out. (i guess i feel like performing very niche music for an attentive crowd is success to me, the chances i've had to do it)

i mean hell the white stripes as long as we are on this thread, who would have bet money when they were new that they were going to be bigger than any of that era of garage rock bands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWrrx7uQfS0

^^Solid Smoke

(i guess i feel like performing very niche music for an attentive crowd is success to me, the chances i've had to do it)

ultimately what's better than this imo?

not much really

nothing imo, it is the greatest

i learned drums bc it was impossible to nail a drummer down for our band, they’re all in 3-5 bands already

That clip is fire

god yeah

also perfectly illustrates her importance, in the hands of a more conventional drummer that could have been a really corny blues workout, but it's just pummelling.

swingy / funky / in the pocket too. there's an effortlessness to it.

She's not being swingy or funky at all in that clip or ever

Those are rock solid eight notes w/ funky Jack on top. I mean she's still great, I just wanted to point that out

Basically playing 1/4 time spiritually if not officially, just a one-one-one-one heartbeat ploughing on into infinity. Ask most drummers to do that and they won't even understand the concept! I say this from bitter experience.

She's got good technique though, not locked up and playing from the elbow or anything, the stick's bouncing, nice big sound. Not saying this to be critical, just stuff I've worked on myself and I haven't seen footage of her playing in forever.

Plus, watching that clip, I think what is most striking is their combined energy. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

god jack white used to be so cool wtf

i like that jordan focused on meg's technique, not something i would've noticed a few years ago

i think the important thing is that the white stripes would've sucked majorly without her

Jack White peaked when he punched the Von Bondies guy.

Meg White is one of my heroes.And I am cool with an ethos that embraces Megness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tOXU-qCd8

just came here to post that video, super enjoyed it. just don't read the comments, or the top of this thread, or ...

she turns 50 in december; something should be planned

Damn I didn't get her anything

Are the White Stripes the biggest festival reunion payday that hasn't gone for it? I imagine Coachella or Lollapalooza would roll up with a Brinks truck if they'd agree to play.

I think they're both doing fine, though. Jack has enough tiny hats.

XP Of the bands that feasibly could (i.e. no dead essential members), it's down to the Stripes and maybe like Dire Straits.

I wonder if she holds the distinction of the youngest drummer who has been able to retire.

Of the bands that feasibly could (i.e. no dead essential members), it's down to the Stripes and maybe like Dire Straits.

Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, the Smiths (Andy Rourke not essential)

The Jam, though they mean nowt in America apart from a few Anglophiles.

Xp REM

Carrying over from the TayTay thread: OutKast

... although they actually did one of those at Coachella ten years ago.

Talking Heads have to be the biggest reunion holdouts.

(Andy Rourke not essential)

Rude!

Of the bands that feasibly could (i.e. no dead essential members), it's down to the Stripes and maybe like Dire Straits.

Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, the Smiths (Andy Rourke not essential)

― Pierre Delecto

yeahhhh not sure the smiths would work

Decent chance the set ends with Johnny smashing his guitar over Morrissey's head so I'm on board with it.

The Coachella crowd vibing to "Sultans of Swing" would be amazing. "This was my grandpa's favorite song!"