{"id":436,"date":"2007-03-29T20:02:28","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T00:02:28","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-01T18:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T18:17:00","slug":"is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-billy-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-billy-co\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There a Drummer in the House: Billy Cobham&#8230;Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J88Ep3_vKIk?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em><strong>Why, Billy, why?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Why ask why, right? I bought <strong>The Mahavishnu Orchestra&#8217;s <em>The Inner Mounting Flame<\/em><\/strong> a couple of months ago knowing that I&#8217;d be getting my money&#8217;s worth of guitar wanking from <strong>John McLaughlin<\/strong>. But that would be cool, especially after hearing a song on WPRB one night and hearing that scorching tone I&#8217;d loved so much over the years from his work with Miles Davis. The more of that tone the merrier. <\/p>\n<p>I also knew I&#8217;d be hearing a lot of fusion noodling from his bandmates, including drummer <strong>Billy Cobham<\/strong>. I&#8217;d long known of Cobham from years of seeing him on 3 out of every 5 covers of my friend Sethro&#8217;s subscription to <em>Modern Drummer<\/em>, but I only knew his legendary fusion drumming in pass, or more like while running away from guys in the &#8217;70s who tried to play me that stuff. <\/p>\n<p>I had little trouble liking this album, and some of the full-band noodling added up to something cool and unintentionally funny, as seen in this clip of the band playing <strong>&#8220;Noonward Race&#8221;<\/strong>. On the following songs, however, Cobham&#8217;s ridiculous chopsmanship is a buzzkill to some otherwise fine hot licks from McLaughlin. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/VitalTransformation.mp3\" title=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/VitalTransformation.mp3\"><strong>&#8220;Vital Transformation&#8221;<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/Awakening.mp3\" title=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/Awakening.mp3\"><strong>&#8220;Awakening&#8221;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Is there a drummer in the house?<\/strong> If so, I ask you <em>Why?<\/em> Why should Cobham be allowed to overplay the way he does? Who but subscribers to <em>Modern Drummer<\/em> and non-musician fusion fans who you&#8217;d never want to be alone with at a party care to hear all those distracting fills, fills that are counter the core rhythm of the song? Can&#8217;t they hold an Olympics for drummers who feel the need to express their chops to this degree?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why, Billy, why? Why ask why, right? I bought The Mahavishnu Orchestra&#8217;s The Inner Mounting Flame a couple of months ago knowing that I&#8217;d be getting my money&#8217;s worth of guitar wanking from John McLaughlin. But that would be cool, especially after hearing a song on WPRB one night and hearing that scorching tone I&#8217;d <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-billy-co\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[146],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}