{"id":630,"date":"2007-06-11T12:30:56","date_gmt":"2007-06-11T16:30:56","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-01T18:15:49","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T18:15:49","slug":"is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-john-dru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-john-dru\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There a Drummer in the House: John &#8220;Drumbo&#8221; French"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m assuming the following Captain Beefheart video features the drumming of <strong>John &#8220;Drumbo&#8221; French<\/strong>.<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zAoPhVn4y1Q?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI love Beefheart and I have no qualms whatsoever with the drumming of John French. He&#8217;s perfect for those seminal Magic Band albums, led by <em>Trout Mask Replica<\/em>. I&#8217;m not remembering all the details about the guy&#8217;s role in the band, but beside playing drums and guitar in various formations of the Magic Band, I believe he was Beefheart&#8217;s envoy to the rest of his band. Isn&#8217;t that true? What I&#8217;m curious to know is, <em><strong>could the guy drum?<\/strong><\/em> Was it French&#8217;s <strong>chops<\/strong> that made this strange rhythmic magic come together, or was he an idiot savant, paired up with the right songwriter for his unholy skills?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Electricity&#8221; (live excerpt)<br \/>\n<!--Media Player file:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/Electricity.mp3--><\/p>\n<p>Does French play on all of the more normal-sounding <em>Safe as Milk<\/em> lp? I&#8217;m never clear about who&#8217;s who on those albums. Here&#8217;s a live clip of an excerpt of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/Electricity.mp3\" title=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/Electricity.mp3\">&#8220;Electricity&#8221;<\/a><\/strong> from that album. This is probably French on drums. He&#8217;s obviously following a set pattern on this transitional (ie, to <em>Trout Mask Replica<\/em> other-worldlyness) number, but he plays with the abandon and lack of finesse I could imagine of myself or any number of other mediocre guitarists excited by the chance to shine behind the drum kit. Does anyone else feel that beginner&#8217;s joy in his playing?<\/p>\n<p>By the time Beefheart had returned to mixing in normal-sounding songs (eg, the excellent <em>Clear Spot<\/em>), wasn&#8217;t French out of the band or shifted over to guitar? I used to own that album French did with <strong>Richard Thompson, Henry Kaiser, and Fred Frith<\/strong>, but I don&#8217;t recall whether his drumming was any less difficult to follow.<\/p>\n<p><em>Is there a drummer in the house?<\/em><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nHere&#8217;s one of those videos with the &#8220;inappropriate-looking drummer&#8221; I mention in the Comments section. Come to think of it, the whole band and Beefheart&#8217;s stage presence seem equally out of place.<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jIXjfVD880o?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m assuming the following Captain Beefheart video features the drumming of John &#8220;Drumbo&#8221; French. I love Beefheart and I have no qualms whatsoever with the drumming of John French. He&#8217;s perfect for those seminal Magic Band albums, led by Trout Mask Replica. I&#8217;m not remembering all the details about the guy&#8217;s role in the band, <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-john-dru\/' 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\/630"}],"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=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}