You Know the Score...

Who is the Greatest Drummer of All Time? Slightly rhetroical if you're reading this here I guess - but I it also appears the readers of Consequence of Sound have equally discerning taste in music.  Naturally Chamberlin stolls in the top 16 Drummers of All Time in their recent readers poll - but will he be voted to the number one spot...

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/whos-the-greatest-drummer-of-all-time-round-one/full-post/

Talking of Polls...

 Treble runs a feature on their collective 50 favourite drummers, of course, JC is right up there;

... [Chamberlin's] roots are in Buddy Rich and Deep Purple, and that his neurotic, gunslinging style is considered semi-revolutionary among rock drummers for its reliance on jazz-style riffs. His most varied work was on the titanic of nineties avant-rock, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, famous for its excess but scattered with off-chart gems like "Thru The Eyes Of Ruby," which perfects the Chamberlin snare sound  and "Galapagos," a piece of stormy minimalism which Chamberlin has identified as one of his favorite Pumpkins moments...

The band as it then existed crashed on the rocks, of course... but at the peak of the Pumpkins, no one brought the thunder more regularly — no one in the entire world.

Not that I tend to keep track of these kind of things...

... but Jimmy's show-case for DW drums, released around 10 months ago, just hit 100,000 views on YouTube.  Congrats JC.  If you haven't already seen it, enjoy;

Its somewhat eclipses the view count for the last official release from the Smashing Pumpkins', from 8 months ago, Owata (music video version) sits at 27,000... :O

This just doesn't get enough plays...

When JC has talked about Machina being " the most honest record [Smashing Pumpkins] ever made, because it's the least least forced. It's what came out of us naturally, as opposed to songs like 'Geek'..."*  I just think that this is a perfect example of SP playing naturally back in the day. At the very least, it's one of the great examples of JC playing what seems to come completely naturally to him: The ease, power, swing/feel and harmony with the guitars he injects is well... just, absolutely, splendid. G&TGC and Stellar went on to echo this type of playing from JC perfectly, as far as I'm concerned.

Let us know if you feel differently;

Cheers.

*Rhythm magazine Christmas 2000

P.S I may have had a dram or two 2 many, please excuse me.

Portnoy Leaves Dream Theater

Just thought I'd post this, as Mike's statement reads a little like someone else's and shares most exactly the same sentiments...

...sadly I must say that at this particular moment, my heart is not with Dream Theater, and I would simply be “going through the motions,” and would honestly NOT be true to myself if I stayed for the sake of obligation...While it truly hurts for me to even think of a Dream Theater without Mike Portnoy... I do not want to stand in their way...I wish the guys the best...

Incidentally, there's already a couple of 'wish lists' on a forum or two, that are mentioning Chamberlin as a suitable replacement...