Hot Tub Sessions Vol. I

Last week, Brass Queens released our newest album, Hot Tub Sessions Vol. I, a collection of all-original music. We recorded it over two sessions at Atlantic Records with engineer Joseph Pomarico with mixing by Ian Kagey at Renaissance Recording.

Stream the record below or wherever you get your music. If you like what you hear, please consider buying the album, available on CD and vinyl here (it takes 230 streams for an artist to make $1 on Spotify).

Here are some pics and a video from the Atlantic Sessions:

arriving at atlantc

the dw house kit

me with the greatest to ever do it, mr. john bonham

The Midwest

The Grand theater in wasssau, wi

Brass Queens just returned from our first ever trip to the Midwest. We had the best time. Man, Midwesterners are just so dang nice!

on david byrne’s reasons to be cheerful at town hall

We sort of kicked off the tour here in NYC at Town Hall, where we played David Byrne’s Reason’s to Be Cheerful live show. It’s been an entire week and I still don’t have the words to say how much this show meant to me. I was starting to get in to the Talking Heads in high school, but when I saw Byrne perform at Bonnaroo in 2004 I sort of became obsessed. The man is the embodiment of ART and to be on his radar is simply a dream. Here’s the link to the video of every artist at the show (including Byrne, Thao, and Fred Armisen) performing our arrangement of Just the Two of Us.

I booked it home after the show because we had 7am flight to Chciago. We went directly from O’Hare to WGN9 to play their Midday Show. It was so cool to be in the studio of a major news network! Check out our performance here.

The house kit at wgn, home of bozo the clown

After a little nap, we loaded in at the Hideaway to play what was probably my favorite show of the tour. We had a great turn out and the crowd was into it. I haven’t played in Chicago in almost 15 years and I hope we can get back ASAP.

At the hideout | credit: janet M. Takayama

From Chicago, we traveled up to Wausau, WI to play a sold out concert at the Grand Theater’s 10 x 10 series. The show was a blast and afterwards we traveled a few miles out of the city to get a look at the aurora.

The aurora borealis from Wasusa, wi

From Wausau, we traveled down to Madison for a radio spot at WSUM before we co-billed the High Noon Saloon with one of our absolute favorite brass bands, Mama Digdown’s! We got to play their song Mojito with them at the end of their set. Here’s what that was like from my view:

Next up was Ludington, MI for a performance at the Ludington Area Center for the Arts, another lovely show. We stayed right on Lake Michigan and I got to spend a little bit of time by the water in the morning before heading off to Detroit.

lake Michigan

And finally, we arrived in Detroit for a sold out show at the legendary Cliff Bell’s. Prior to the show, we checked out the Motown Museum. Simply put, I was verklempt. Here’s a picture from Studio A. All of this gear was used on those original Motown Records.

motown’s studio A

The next day, we played at Detroit’s Fox 2 (here’s the vid) before having brunch and heading home exhausted but grateful. Tomorrow we play an album release show at Brooklyn Bowl. We hope to see you there for a hometown show!

Out Now: Black & Gold by Brass Queens

The first full length album from Brass Queens is officially here! We recorded Black & Gold back in May at the Bunker in Brooklyn with engineers Alex Conroy and Megan Mishkin. The album contains 5 BQ originals, 10 covers, and features the following personnel:

Trumpet: Alex Joseph, Stephanie King, Minerva Johnson
Alto Sax: Ally Chapel
Tenor Sax: Jenna Murdoch
Trombone: Elizabeth Arce, Stephanie Young
Sousaphone: Nora Nalepka, Heather Ewer
Percussion: Caitlin Cawley
Drum set: Yours Truly

The Bunker has a lot of great vintage kits but I wanted the drums on this to sound as modern as BQ does so I brought in my Yamaha Tour Custom. To say I’m thrilled about the way the drums sound would be an understatement. I mean, listen to that 14” tom. It sounds MASSIVE! My Ludwig Supraphonic really cuts through the band and my Zildjian As blend nicely.

Here’s a short video of three drum clips: The first is an excerpt of Titi’s Kawa where I try to sneak in some licks inspired by two of my favorite drummers - John Bonham and Stanton Moore. Next is the halftime breakdown of Lady Marmalade. And finally, here’s some uninterrupted drum footage of Vision Quest. I don’t have video of the take that we used for the album, but I’m really happy with the drums throughout this song so I wanted to feature it anyway:

As always, Brass Queens has a jam packed schedule coming up, but I invite you to join us for an official release show for the album on November 18th at Littlefield. I hope to see you there!

Video: Brass Queens at Brooklyn

I played Brooklyn Bowl for the first time since 2016 last week with Brass Queens. It felt so good to be back on the stage there, a place where I’ve seen countless incredible shows, ate so much delicious fried chicken, and probably had, oh I don’t know, one or two beers over the last 10+ years (it looks like Brooklyn Blast is no longer on tap which is honestly probably for the best).

I made a little highlight real from some of the clips my wife was kind enough to shoot. I was so proud of the Brass Queens that night! Everyone brought their A-game. I’m hopeful that we’ll be invited back soon!

Every Fuego Ever

In 2014, Phish released its 13th studio album, Fuego, and the title track is a tour de force of drumming. In just over nine minutes, Jon Fishman takes the listener on a journey through a ’50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’ inspired groove and blistering drum n bass before setting up a singalong shout course with the type of mighty fill that drummers dream of playing in front of thousands in a rock arena. I transcribed every version of that fill and turned it into a drum exercise.

This piece has been a long time coming and was truly only possible due to the downtime I was afforded by the pandemic. Though the article was originally written to be published in a certain drum magazine that dropped off the face of the Earth, Phish.net was happy to publish it, so I updated the text to make it Phish-ier which is truly a language of its own! Check out the full blog here. While you’re there, please consider making a donation to The Mockingbird Foundation, a non-profit organization operated by Phish fans, dedicated to improving access to music education for America’s youth.

Download the sheet music here.

Here’s the video of the transcription. Stay tuned to the end for ways to apply this exercise to the drum set:

Drum Jam: Taste (Phish)

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Taste is a top tier Phish song. I love this version from the Island Tour (a legendary run of shows from April 2-5, 1998) because Jon Fishman is a true master of clave and it’s fully on display for this entire run. Any musician who wants to dig further into clave should check out Billy Martin’s book on the subject.

Phish is a master of layering complex rhythms, and you can feel this song in so many ways: 6/8, 3/4, and 4/4, primarily. I highly recommend hearing the full version of this song, as each of the four instrumentalists are expertly laying. it. down! Here’s the link (Taste starts around 22:44). Enjoy!

Opening: Twelfth Night

This weekend, Pace University opens a virtual production of Shaina Taub’s Twelfth Night. Back in January, I was invited to record the drum book by Music Director Alexander Tom, who played keyboard 1 on Grinch in 2019. I’ve done a few things at Pace in the past, including Drowsy Chaperone in 2018. Last year, I was hired to play Head Over Heels there, but unfortunately it was one of the first gigs to go at the start of COVID.

It was really exciting to be in a studio for the first time in nearly a year due to the pandemic. There were only three of us in the main room, plus an engineer and assistant in the control room. COVID protocols were in place, everyone was always masked, and safety was prioritized. We only had a few hours to record the entire score, so we moved quickly and efficiently. I’m excited to hear how everything turned out! If you’d like to watch the show, grab tickets here.

Here is a video of an excerpt from the opening number that I took in my studio in preparation for the session. If music be the food of love play on!

Play Along: Do It (The Phryg)

I’m starting to feel cozy in my new studio space, but I still have a long way to go on getting everything dialed in. I’ve been jamming along to the new single from one of my favorite bands: Do It by The Phryg! This song really has me missing live music! It is played expertly by Collin Patierno (guitar), Bryan Walters (lead vocals, bass,, Nico Sleator (keys), and Phil McNeal (drums). Check ‘em out: www.thephryg.com

For my part, I decided to explore some clave based cowbell grooves interspersed with tambourine accents at the end of each bar during the verse, a purposeful reference to one of Bryan’s favorite bands, Umphrey’s McGee. For the pre-chorus, I move the cowbell hemiola feel to the cymbal stack to provide some accents in the sonority. For the chorus proper, I lay down a straight-ahead cowbell/tambourine groove. The section that follows features an interesting melodic breakdown that I compliment with tom feels a la Pink Floyd, another one of Bryan’s favorite bands. The last section took some time to work up. It’s sort of a combination of 5-over-4 and a clave. The first time through the pattern I play a a shuffle that serves as a ‘rhythmic illusion” before filling through the hits the second time through the pattern. Here’s what those accents look like:

Enjoy the song and please check out and support the Phryg. When live music is back, come find me in the front row at one of their shows.

Reflections on The Grinch

This year would have been my fifth year of playing the national tour of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but 2020 had other plans! It’s been bittersweet to be in NYC right now instead of freezing my butt of in Milwaukee or watching live music til the sun comes up in New Orleans, but on the other hand, I got to spend Thanksgiving with my wife for the first time EVER and we will get to celebrate Christmas from our own apartment.

Still, I miss the escapades that come with touring. I miss the thrill that comes with the curtain rising 8+ times a week and the antics that take place with my orchestra mates after every show. I miss the feeling I get when grandparents point out all the instruments in the pit to their grandkids before the show. I miss the theatre.

Though I know this show inside and out, I’ve never actually seen it, except for the occasional times when I can see above the lip of the stage, and even then, I’m playing so much during the show itself that I can only watch 2 or 3 scenes. Therefore, I am SO EXCITED that tonight I get to watch this musical on television, starring Matthew Morrison as the Grinch himself. I have so many questions — can an unsuspecting worldwide audience handle ‘Whatchamho?’ Will ‘Shopping’ be cut? What exactly happens on stage during ‘Down the Mountain’ that everyone raves about while I’m trying to not drop a stick? Will the quartet nail the harmonies in ‘Now is the Time?’ How many times will I cry? I can’t wait to tune in to NBC tonight to find out!

Here are a few of my favorite drum moments from the 2018 tour. Enjoy!

Video: Badger Strut

I’m nursing a bit of a foot injury at the moment so I’m just going to blast away on some snare drum for the time being.

The Badger Strut by Jay Collins is a short rudimental piece suggested to me by John Tafoya when I was studying with him at the University of Maryland. I found it while going through some snare music earlier and decided to whip it up.

It starts out as a pretty typical rudimental piece exploring some paradiddle patterns before triplets and various types of rolls emerge. The second half of the piece is a true chop buster, featuring sextuplets comprised of accented singles filled in by double strokes.

I have no idea the publication history of this piece, but what I have is two pages with a pencilled in roadmap and dynamic markings from Tafoya. I tried my best to decipher his writing and incorporate it for this purpose!