Today at work I was listening to some Beatles tunes and gave pause to a certain one: “She said she said” from Revolver (their best album IMO). I was really getting into it, but wasn’t exactly sure why; the lyrics are kinda cryptic (supposedly it’s about an acid trip) and the guitar parts aren’t really that unique. After a little introspection it came to me: drums! Ringo’s drum part is one of the most interesting of any of their songs; it doesn’t really follow any other instrument but complements them all beautifully while driving the song forward.

Ok, so this isn’t really a relevation. I have known for years how much I dig a sweet beat, even going so far as to remark “rhythm’s in my veins, baby” to some girl at one point on a dance floor somewhere (Europe, probably). It’s why I’ve gone through so many different genres in my many musical phases over the years, from the insane electronic percussion of Aphex Twin’s Drukqs to the polyrhythms of Tool’s Lateralus to John McEntire’s orchestrated genius in Tortoise.

I’ve never really acted on it, though. A couple months ago I was playing Rock Band at a friend’s place and picked the drumset as my instrument. After starting on medium difficulty it only took a few songs to advance to hard, where the drum part is only slightly different than the actual song. Sure, the movement’s not quite the same, but you do have four toms and a kick drum so any deficit in coordination will hurt. It was pretty fluid and oh so much fun. Well damn, I thought, why not pick up a drumset myself?

I would, actually, if I hadn’t just bought a new guitar (no, it wasn’t that expensive). My roommate plays drums but I’ve been unsuccessful in coercing him to bring it out from Colorado. I’m not even concerned about the usual annoyances of owning a drumset:

  1. Space. My room is massive and could easily accommodate a drumset.
  2. Noise. I live in a college neighborhood, they’re all noisy punks anyway.

The only concern is annoying people with my suck-ness for the first few weeks. Oh, and money, which hopefully my tax refund will take care of!

It’s time to stop getting down to the beat and start laying down the beat. You know what I’m talking about.