Bands/Musicians that have really distinctive drum sounds

Stewart Copeland
Jim Black
Tatsuya Yoshida
Christian Vander
Ringo Starr

DJ Shadow also has a very distinct drum sound, it's pretty integral to his sound.

John Bonham and Keith Moon are among the most instantly recognizable drummers in rock history, to kinda mirror Billy Cobham and Tony Williams on the jazz side...I think Billy Cobham has one of the most distinct drum sounds evah.

Oh, and Billy Martin from Medeski Martin and Wood? Ain't nobody else sounds like that.

Damon Che. Milford Graves. Sunny Murray. Andrew Cyrille. Eddie Prevost. Famodou Don Moye. Han Bennink. John McEntire. Orestes de la Torre. Beaver Harris. Charles Heyward. Paul Lytton. Jaki Lebezeit. Ed Blackwell. Billy Higgins. Ivan Snodgrass. The guy from Circle X. Mario Rubalcaba. Doug Scharin. Rashied Ali. Muhammad Ali. Chuck Biscuits. Brad Sims. Rey Washam. Todd Trainer. Robert Gotobed. Britt Walford. Ben Daughtrey. Mike Greenlees. Adris Hoyos. Chad Taylor. Artemus Pyle. Peter Prescott. Tim Barnes. Steve Reid. Kevin Coultas. Charlie Watts. Robert Wyatt (pre-accident, obv.). Kevin Shea. Charlie Gocher. Pat Samson. Mo Tucker. Amy Farina. Zitro. Many more I'm forgetting.

sorry you prob ddin't mean it that way but...

Damon Che - an octopoid of a man. Perhaps you know him from Don Caballero?
Milford Graves
Sunny Murray - these two guys basically invented free jazz drumming (as separate from Ornette's drummers) in terms of using the drums as a pulse, not a tempo/rhythm/bandleader/timekeeper.
Andrew Cyrille - an heir to Graves and Murray, although with more of a Latin influence (perhaps, although both Graves/Murray played on Latin-style albums too).
Eddie Prevost - AMM's drummer, he really expanded the sound of the drums beyond just strike/attack/quick decay.
Famodou Don Moye - really, since the entire Art Ensemble played percussion, perhaps I could list them all, but once Don Moye joined the group, he really opened up their sound (and brought more of a ritual element to their live performances).
Han Bennink - Dutch crazyman. This guy is SO FUCKING LOUD he makes that Lightning Bolt kid look like a pansy. Ever seen anyone play a trap kit WITH THEIR FEET?
John McEntire - Bastro, My Dead Is Dead, Tortoise. Don't think I need to say much more. For better or worse, inspired a legion of indie imitators.
Orestes de la Torre - Bitch Magnet, as did McEntire, brough some real non-rock syncopation to the underground of the late 80s/early 90s.
Beaver Harris - another great free jazzer, but also very rooted in jazz and African traditions.
Charles Heyward - This Heat/Camberwell Now drummer. If you've heard these, you know how distinctive he is. The beginning of the first track off of Camberwell Now's Ghost Trade LP sounds like live drum-n'-bass style polyrhythmic craziness to me.
Paul Lytton - English improv weirdo.
Jaki Lebezeit - Can, also played with Manfred Schoof. Ahead of his time.
Ed Blackwell
Billy Higgins - two of Ornette's best drummers, while they kept relatively "normal" hard-bop tempos on Ornette's 60s stuff, they def. were distinctive, not just rote bop drummers.
Ivan Snodgrass - hard-ass drummer from the Kentucky underground.
The guy from Circle X - forget his name, but one of my favorite sloppy drummers ever.
Mario Rubalcaba
Doug Scharin - more modern indie drummers with very distinctive styles.
Rashied Ali
Muhammad Ali - If you've ever heard Interstellar Space...
Chuck Biscuits - perhaps the best hardcore drummer ever?
Brad Sims
Rey Washam
Todd Trainer - also up there?
Robert Gotobed - brought to Wire an excellent, simple straight-ahead sound. In the hands of another drummer, they might not have been as good.
Britt Walford - Slint, Squirrel Bait, Maurice, Evergreen. See McEntire entry re: bringing rhythmic complexity to underground rock/heavily imitated but never duplicated.
Ben Daughtrey
Mike Greenlees - ditto.
Adris Hoyos - a MONSTER of an insane woman drummer. Harry Pussy ruled.
Chad Taylor - new generation free jazzer not afraid to add lots of non-percussive texture.
Artemus Pyle - the best drummer Skynyrd ever had.
Peter Prescott - See Robert Gotobed entry, re: his effect on Mission of Burma.
Tim Barnes - a great drummer currently.
Steve Reid - jazz drummer, did a lot of soul/funk stuff too. Really tight.
Kevin Coultas - Basically made Rodan a tenable band.
Charlie Watts - I think he's a great, distinctive drummer who had a huge impact on the Stones' sound.
Robert Wyatt (pre-accident, obv.) - his Soft Machine stuff is great.
Kevin Shea - ex-stormandstress, another madman.
Charlie Gocher - Sun City Girls, totally entertaining and durable/dextrous.
Pat Samson - ex-U.S. Maple, like Shea and Gocher, but with even more bewildering showmanship.
Mo Tucker - Great minimal style.
Amy Farina - Really great DC "post-hardcore" drummer.
Zitro - another favorite, yet more obscure free jazz drummer.

Many more I'm forgetting. Angus MacLise, for one.

Press releases style--

Stewart Copeland: arguably, *the* drummer for the 80s, but at the very least, *the* drummer for all those crappy punk-ska bands everyone hates. OK, so that's not a good argument. How about, Copeland is to rock drumming what Bach was to classical composition: drastically precise, idiosyncratic and obsessively detail-oriented. Copeland nails Bach in the groove dept though.

Jim Black: Downtown NYC drummer sounding like a badass crossing of Tony Williams, Copeland, Keith Moon and the "Funky Drummer" sample. With his trademark booming, wet bass drum and razor-sharp, high-pitched cymbals -- in addition to flawless, nimble technique -- Black is the new style.

Tatsuya Yoshida: leader of Japanese avant/noise/proggers Ruins. Not much to be said here except that he can usually be identified after about 2 seconds -- and I think he has like 6 arms.

Christian Vander: energetic leader of French band Magma. There is actually an Elvin Jones influence in his playing, but as he's gotten older, he's sort of traded in his extroverted 70s flash for time-beyond-time coloring. His drumming on Magma's "Kohntarkosz" should be required listening -- but because of his personal style, it's almost impossible for anyone to cover Magma and sound convincing.

Ringo Starr: I was listening to Christina Aguilera's new single yesterday, and the drummer drops this obvious Ringo quote out of nowhere. Why would he do that, I asked myself. It's because his style is so instantly recognizable, that you can turn any song into "Beatlesque" by imitating it. Oh yeah, and he is one of the godfathers of rock drumming in general.

Robotically precise, hard as hell, faster than a bullet-train pointing straight down, and some of the cleanest stuff any drummer has layed down. Not to mention he didn't just keep up with their on-a-dime stylistic-shifts, he pushed them WAY over the top.

Honestly, one of the most overlooked amazing drummers of the past 20 years.

Rick Lee/Skeleton Key

Steve Shelley/Sonic Youth (say what you want but he's the reason I own maracas, and I could spot his playing a mile away)

Bernard Purdie: on tons of sessions, but I esp. like his stuff w/ the Last Poets, and his drumming on 'Morning Dew', which just POWERS the whole song. Joseph 'Zigaboo/Ziggy' Modeliste, from the Meters. Al Jackson from Booker T and the MGs, drummer on all of the great Hi/Willie Mitchell recs. Hal Blaine on just abt every classic Spector/Brian Wilson production. Whoever the drummer is on 'Like A Rolling Stone'. David Lombardo of Slayer. The drumming on 'The Obvious Child' by Paul Simon. Levon Helm. etc. etc.

And yeah, all of stencil's list. Which was gd, annotated or not. Did you include Gunter Muller or Jacques Widmer? The percussion on that Nachtluft alb is like nothing else I've heard.

Levon Helm and Gunter Muller are excellent choices as well. Yeah, that Nachtluft alb. is great, do you have any other stuff by him (poire_z, the O'Rourke and Teitelbaum stuff's what I've got)?

I like the crispness of the drum sounds that Luke Vibert (under whatever guise) has come up with.

I'll second Pretty Purdie. The drums on the band version of "The Revolution Will not Be Televised" are great, but I find his session work (especially str8 jazz stuff) takes away from how great he can be, like on his solo LPs such as Soul Drums.

-- Julio Desouza (julio@d...), November 22nd, 2002.

No, it's impressive for anybody. And since women are usually smaller and not as strong (Please, no feminist responses of "NO WOMEN ARE EQUALLY STRONG!!", women are just built smaller), it's even more impressive.

without these two, hip hop wouldn't sound the way it does today. these two drummers have been sampled gazillions of times

and what about Tony Allen. he is afro funk

I wish I didn't agree. Great drummer, very distinct.

Oh, and whoever said Dave Lombardo is OTM. The moment I heard Fantomas it was him bangin' them skins. Disturbing crunches and thumps and speed, like a hellicopter trapped in a butcher-shop freezer.

Yuval Gabay was a really good one too, possibly the crispiest drum tones and thickest woofiest kick sounds of any drummer I've ever heard.

I know I said him way back close to the top of the thread, but as I'm listening to his music right now, I really have to say Tony Williams one more time. He was a fuckin' thunderstorm in a box, an organized sonic riot, a goose-bump raising spectre of the chaos-into-order format of the universe, a master of every range audible to the human ear, from the shreakingest cymbal-highs to the rumblingest kick-lows. Man, I miss Tony.

and in a recognizable sloppy way:
Abbath of Immortal
Capricornus of Graveland

Or is this thread reserved for human drummers?

What about the Roots? Jay-Z unplugged? LL Cool J with white deodorant powder on his underarms? Huh?

Mel Gaynor. His drums are probably my favorite part of those Simple Minds records and I can easily recognize him on any of his guest spots. Total monster live.

Bill Bruford. Usually the best player in whatever band he's in at the moment.

Paul Thompson. Like Gaynor, easily recognizable and a monster player live.

That said, when I saw Elvin Jones he was playing new drums that his wife set up and tuned and there was still of course the same unbelievably huge sound as on all the old records.

Tony Williams is a pretty interesting example...I agree with whatever was said about him upthread, and he was just mindblowingly original in the 60s (and started the sound pretty much that most jazz drummers go for these days, little drums and dark cymbals) but totally changed his sound and playing around in the 70s and especially 80s and 90s. He never played either as light or as fucking crazy as he did when he was 17-20, later he was more of a typical chopsy jazz fusion guy (still had those ridiculous single strokes though of course).

Telefon Tel Aviv has developed a pretty distinctive style of beats and sounds.

Led Zeppelin gets talked about all the time of course but there's a reason why that drum sound has turned into the subject of rumour and myth.

?uestlove has his tight post-mixed/triggered sound that hardly sounds like real drums anymore, but obviously works great for what he's doing.

Tom Waits patented his own thing of junkyard trashcan swampy near-New Orleans type beats on Bone Machine/Mule Variations.

Photek programming is recognizable within a couple bars.

There are about a trillion more answers that I could think of when I am not drunk.

also: dem2, timbaland circa 97-98 (aka before everyone began biting him as a rule), anything on greensleeves, klaus dinger (no one gets him quite right), rza, jaki leibeizeitititit (him outta can), the guy from slum village, photek, the guy from the winstons!!...

and "the guy from slum village" is none other than my favorite hip hop producer Jay Dee (don't forget he's done Tribe, De La, Eryka Badu, Common). he's got such a distinctive beat pattern.

although i like the albini explanation of how this came about - essentially he put the microphones really, really, close to the drums.

I also think Trans Am has a distinct sound. Their drummer is a total powerhouse and very driving, not to mention insane to watch.

I suppose it would be beside the point to mention crash worship as they are almost entirely drumming and fiery carnival tricks.