Wednesday 27 April 2011

Corgan Plugs SKYSAW 'Great Civilizations' - Also Pre-Order !

Corgan Tweets:
JC's new band Skysaw http://soundcloud.com/skysawmusic/sets/great-civilizations/s-ScmpM
Pre-order the début record from Jimmy Chamberlin, Mike Reina and Anthony Pirog (produced by Roy Thomas Baker) on MP3, CD and Vinyl - right here: http://store.dangerbirdrecords.com/products/great-civilizations
Prices start at $8.99 for MP3...

Saturday 23 April 2011

Announcing: Major Smashing Pumpkins Announcement - Coming Soon

Back in December 2010, Billy Corgan announced he was going to announce something; following further announcements, Corgan has announced another announcement about what is presumably the last announcement about the announcement;
"Major @smashingpumpkin announcement this coming Tuesday. Regards new and old SP music. Big changes…exciting news.”
Grunge Report wishes "it was that Jimmy Chamberlin was re-joining the band". Don't think it's going to  happen I'm afraid guys.

Here's my predictions: Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan has signed a new record deal as 'Smashing Pumpkins 3.0' - 'SP3' have abandoned the ridiculous 'teargarden release method and Billy will be releassing some unreleased SP1 music (at some point in the future).

Idiocy aside, any [new] Smashing Pumpkins music with Chamberlin playing is good news as far as I'm concerned.

Friday 22 April 2011

Jimmy Chamberlin & SKYSAW Tour Dates

Right here: 
http://www.songkick.com/artists/4121086-skysaw/calendar
http://dangerbirdrecords.com/news/entry/skysaw-touring-with-minus-the-bear-in-may-june
Friday 20 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Varsity Theatre Baton Rouge, LA, US

Sunday 22 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Freebird Live Jacksonville Beach, FL, US

Tuesday 24 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Revolution Fort Lauderdale, FL, US

Wednesday 25 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
The Ritz Ybor Tampa, FL, US

Friday 27 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
The Handlebar Greenville, SC, US

Saturday 28 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Soapbox Laundrolounge Wilmington, NC, US

Sunday 29 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw and The Constellations
Music Farm Charleston, SC, US

Monday 30 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Sky City Augusta, GA, US

Tuesday 31 May 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Minglewood Hall Memphis, TN, US

Wednesday 01 June 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw and The Constellations
The Cannery Nashville, TN, US

Friday 03 June 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw
Diamond Ballroom Oklahoma City, OK, US

Saturday 04 June 2011
Minus the Bear with Skysaw and Girl In a Coma
Josabi's Helotes, TX, US

Monday 18 April 2011

Chamberlins [rather large & loud] - Zwan Kit...

A you know, Jimmy recently talked about getting his Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute drums, back from the shop and setting them up in his basement studio.  Well here's a couple of pics which just now popped up @ the Drum Pads' (where Chamberlin held his clinic in 09) Facebook page:


There's one two shots of (a couple) of Jimmy's Silver Sparkle Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute Nouveau also:


Woah - SKYSAW Serrated

INTERESTING

SKYSAW - Great Civilizations Track List...

Well well, over at DangerBird we have a track-listing and lyrics for the whole record:

Skysaw - Great Civilizations
1 - No One Can Tell
2 - Capsized Jackknifed Crisis
3 - Tightrope Situation
4 - Serrated
5 - Am I Second
6 - Nothing's Ever Easy
7 - Tracey Jayney Girl
8 - Great Civilizations
9 - All I Hear Is Snow
10 - Sad Reasons

Tracks 4,5,6 & 7 are previously unreleased from the THIS EP.
So, based upon the lyrics, can we identify anything from the live show...?

(I would say the second video is Serrated and I Am Second is the 3rd video... )

Saturday 16 April 2011

Jimmy Chamberlin on Drum Channel - theTitbits!

A very animated Jimmy Chamberlin joins Chad Szeliga, Terry Bozzio and Danny Seraphine in a round table discussion on Drum Channel.

Jimmy talks a little about his recent switch to the ‘Drum Worshop community’ he feels that DW will be able to support “the search for a better sound and evolution of the instrument and artist”. He talks a little about building his DW drum kit online initially; probably using this.

He talked about getting back his (don’t call it leopard) Jaguar print Zwan kit which was leant out to a drum shop, and having that set-up in his home studio at the moment.

A viewer asks; “Have any of you zoned out during a gig?”
Chamberlin: What was the question?

JC would, dependant on the gig and set list - ‘inadvertently’ skip a track or two if he didn’t like them; It was up to the band if they went with it or stopped... Maybe he really hated Starz:

According to Chamberlin shark fishing in Nova Scotia with Taylor Hawkins and Josh Freeze leaves the joints a little sore for a gig the next day.

The one that got away...  Chamberlin talks about shark fishing
A little talk around click tracks and maintaining a pulse through a fill. Jimmy went on to say “No clicks used in the Pumpkins and it certainly shows” but post Pumpkins he started to use one (in Zwan). He talks about ‘seeing time’ and a ‘having a clear musical picture in the mind’ about [how a fill should sit in a beat] before even playing it. He also goes on to say that some of “my favourite drummers are sloppy as hell, but as long as it sounds good [to him] and [the grove] has an emotional basis, it doesn’t matter”.

Chamberlin talked a little about recording some tracks for Mellon Collie at Pumpkinland and a little problem which occurred; apparently transmissions from a local taxicab company radios got picked up on their tapes.  He also talked about how in order to look at his drum parts in a different way when working with Flood, sometimes Flood would remove all of Chamberlin's cymbals in order to force him to approach songs in a different way.

In terms of practising; Chamberlin revealed that he is currently working on double bass playing and experimenting with Swiss triplets and poly-rhythms from African style drumming.  He started off using a couple of books; One on ostinatos, recommended by Bozzio and The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming by Bobby Roninelli

Hope you enjoy the slide-show below;



Monday 11 April 2011

SKYSAW Messageboard

For those of you into that kind of thing: It be here

Hope JC uses it as much, if not more, than the Complex one...

Friday 8 April 2011

Just a quick reminder, the Record Store Day exclusive stream of Great Civilizations, should begin streaming in a couple of hours...

Thursday 7 April 2011

Jimmy Chamberlin Interviewed for SPIN

Here's a couple of extracts:
"I want to be 'Jimmy Chamberlin, the drummer, the musician who's done many things,'" the 46-year-old rocker tells SPIN.com, "not just 'that guy from the Smashing Pumpkins.'"

"After I left the Pumpkins, I went home and just sat around," Chamberlin explains. "I have a studio in my basement and I found myself writing all these songs, just taking advantage of the relaxed situation. I wrote about 30 songs in about 30 days."

His partnership with Reina was a total fluke: "I was talking to a friend, saying, 'I wish I could find somebody who looks like a cross between Chris Cornell and Jim Morrison, has a great voice, is independently wealthy, has their own studio, and doesn't do anything but make music.' [Laughs]. Then my friend says, 'I know [Reina]!'

The two started trading songs via email, and then Chamberlin invited Reina to Chicago, where the duo "rented a proper studio for a couple of days," says Chamberlin. "We went in and wrote a song specifically for the exercise of getting to know each other. It sounded great and from then we worked together."

The collaborative experience was refreshing for Chamberlin, who had taken a backseat to Billy Corgan in the Pumpkins. "I always wanted to be in this role, as a songwriter," he says. "In the Pumpkins it was always impossible because Corgan would wake up and write five songs. He was so prolific there wasn't a lot of room for anyone else."

With Great Civilizations Chamberlin is exploring a new, more experimental direction from his Pumpkins days, while still respecting the moody elements of his past. The LP is a collection of prog-leaning, psychedelic jams with flourishes of acoustic guitars, keyboards, piano, and more. Think a proggier, more expansive Sparklehorse. "It's symphonic at points and gets really dark, too," says Chamberlin. There's a full string section on "Am I Second," while songs like "Capsized Jackknife Crisis" and "Tightrope Situation," Chamberlin's personal favorite, recalls experimental bands Yes and King Crimson.

Outside of Skysaw -- originally called "This," a name that "wasn't resonating with me," says Chamberlin, "it's a prohibitive name to Google" -- the drummer is a "closet suburbanite," living outside Chicago where he spends a lot of time with his two children...

He's psyched, however, to return to music and move forward with Skysaw, and put his past with the Pumpkins behind him. "It's important for Billy [Corgan] to carry on as the Pumpkins -- that's a lot of his ownership and a big part of his personality," says Chamberlin, who explains that he and Corgan are friends "from a distance." "He's an extremely talented musician, fantastic songwriter, and a great guy at getting what he needs. But as time went on it became less and less about my journey and more about facilitating someone else's."

"I've learned that you can call it a band, but unless everyone is contributing it's not really," says Chamberlin. "It's pretending that it's a band. I wasn't interested in creating another experience like that. Skysaw is predicated on a three-way split."

He adds, "That situation [with the Pumpkins] placed constraints and a parameter on my career that wasn't always easy to deal with. That can stagnate your growth as a musician. Not anymore."

Read the rest here

Yamaha Discontinues Signature Snares

OK, there's been some rumours floating around here and elsewhere on the www. I spoke to my friend, the owner of my local drum shop, and he confirmed it. Apparently it was announced at the NAMM show earlier this year and none are listed on the official site any more. They've stopped making them now, so any brand new signature series snares you can still get, are the last.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

It is Official - Chamberlin Signs with DW

Jimmy Chamberlin would like to announce that he is now playing Drum Workshop!
"After 18 years at Yamaha I have decided to move on. I feel that DW is the company that can take me, and my evolution as an artist, to the next level. They are truly an amazing company that are at the forefront of innovation and are making huge leaps in the advancement of the instrument. I feel like I have found a home with like minded people who are just as obsessed with drums as I am! I wish everyone at Yamaha the best and thank all of you for 18 great years."

Monday 4 April 2011

Jimmy Chamberlin on Drum Channel [Live]

No subscription for this folks, check it out on Tuesday 12 April, right here
Chad Szeliga of Breaking Benjamin will took a break from filming his DVD here at Drum Channel to join us on DC LIVE.  Chad will met up with Terry Bozzio for a LIVE interview and jam session, and special guest Danny Seraphine and Jimmy Chamberlin jumped in on the conversation.

Erm... Chamberlin Actually Switches to DW ... (?)

I think that actually, jokes aside, Chamberlin may actually have switched manufacturer.
Photographer Rob Shanahan tweeted 2 days ago;
Lights, Camera: Jimmy Chamberlin and DW, killer combo. Great shoot yesterday with Smashing Pumpkins drummer, Chicago boy does good.
Meanwhile, Heather Szeliga fiancée of Breaking Benjamin drummer Chad Szeliga tweets;
Just had dinner with Jimmy chamberlain and Danny Seraphine along with the DW crew . What a great night:



Elsewhere over at SKYSAW's Facebook, they posted a picture of the rehearsals before last Monday's show.  Here, zoomed in, Jimmy is clearly playing a different DW kit to the one he played at the show.  Actually, there's a bit of an amalgam of two different DW kits going on (including the one he used at the show) as far as I can see.  I don't know much about DW myself, having played Yamaha exclusively for the past 15 years. So, if anyone has any details about which kit(s) he is using, please share in the comments.

Saturday 2 April 2011

More Photos From SkySaw Live


Head on over to Buzzine for a couple more. The canny-eyed amongst you will notice that he's not even using his signature snare. Maybe this was true, ha.

Friday 1 April 2011

Chamberlin's DW Kit - The Truth

On Monday night fans of acclaimed drummer Jimmy Chamberlin were in for a surprise. At SKYWAW's live début, Jimmy was playing a DW branded drum kit and not one of his usual unique Yamaha custom kits. Further, he had changed his set-up, which has been his standard for over 20 years. Some suspected that it was simply a hired kit, myself included, and there was nothing else to it than that. Following a volley of tweets, announcing he was going to announce something, Jimmy issued this statement, which confirmed what many fans had been thinking:

"Friends and fans, some of you have noticed that I used a DW kit on Monday night. I would like to briefly explain why I have chosen to switch from Yamaha at this point in my career. On hearing the most recent Smashing Pumpkins track 'Lightning Strikes', I was struck by how closely the sound of the drums resembled my own; the snare sounded like my signature snare, there were two low toms panned left and right just like with my own set-up and even some of the fills themselves sounded like they were from my palette. It was sort of like I was playing, but only much... much better.

I have been really inspired by their drummer and had an epiphany of sorts; from now on I am going to strive to sound just like him! Hence, this change of my manufacturer to the one he uses. However, I am saddened to have to concede that as it sounds like he's now playing my old unique kit configuration even more creatively and with so much more facility than I could ever hope to achieve; I feel that, in this respect, I am left with but no choice other than to try something new. Else, I would simply end up being a pale imitation of someone imitating me. That is something JC can not resonate with.
I trust you understand"