{"id":7032,"date":"2011-05-06T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=7032"},"modified":"2011-05-06T11:17:13","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T15:17:13","slug":"is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-stiff-little-fingers%e2%80%99-%e2%80%9csuspect-device%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-stiff-little-fingers%e2%80%99-%e2%80%9csuspect-device%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There a Drummer in the House: Stiff Little Fingers\u2019 \u201cSuspect Device\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RBYoNYuUVk0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>This thread will probably make the likes of down-to-earth garage-punkers like\u00a0<strong>Townsman Bobby Bittman<\/strong> throw up. I apologize if you&#8217;re reading this, Bobby, shortly after eating. This topic is just a part of how I roll.<\/p>\n<p>I love <strong>Stiff Little Fingers<\/strong>&#8216; &#8220;Suspect Device&#8221; even more than the band&#8217;s supercharged\u00a0&#8220;Alternative Ulster.&#8221; The blistering, jumpy chord riffs and stop-start chorus are a needed sock in the gut. <strong>Jake Burns<\/strong> displays less vocal dynamics than one of those <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/i-summon-homefront-radio-to-further-disc\/\" target=\"_blank\">modern-day, overcompressed records our old friend <strong>homefrontradio<\/strong> used to complain about<\/a>\u2014in a good way! (And whatever became of the Hall&#8217;s Original Thunder Down Under, not to mention our more recent Aussie contributor, the delightful <strong>mikeydread<\/strong>? Be well and stay in touch, my friends.) It&#8217;s one of the most PUNK songs ever, and I know a lot of you think that should take a band off the hook for the pipe-tamping point of view I&#8217;m about to raise, but really, we&#8217;re talkin&#8217; about <em>music<\/em>. Just because something&#8217;s &#8220;punk&#8221; doesn&#8217;t mean it can&#8217;t be improved another notch, does it? I would like to investigate ways in which &#8220;Suspect Device&#8221; could be improved, focusing on the drums, the one aspect of the song that I&#8217;ve always found lacking in excellence.<\/p>\n<p>At last night&#8217;s Phillies game, seeing the supreme Roy Halladay live for the first time in 2011, I was reminded not only of his mojo-inducing pregame warm-up throw music, <strong>Led Zeppelin<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Moby Dick,&#8221; but his walk-up music, the opening line of Zep&#8217;s &#8220;Good Times, Bad Times.&#8221; Now <em>that<\/em> song is a balled-up fist of\u00a0the highest magnitude, and think about how amazing drummer <strong>John Bonham<\/strong>&#8216;s contributions are\u00a0to the song&#8217;s rock &#8216;n roll phalanx.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s say you were in on the original arranging sessions of &#8220;Suspect Device.&#8221; The song is at the point of what was recorded and released. Are you satisfied with the choppy hi-hats and uninspired fills? Do you share my view that the hi-hats can&#8217;t keep up with the precision of the guitars? Doesn&#8217;t it sound like drummer <strong>Brian Faloon<\/strong> is simply having trouble keeping up with the song and doing anything of substance? Assuming the guy had it in him to do a little better, assuming he could have relied on a more economical approach to finding a groove within those machine-gun guitar rhythms, can we suggest some ideas for how this song could have been even better?<\/p>\n<p>If you think I&#8217;m full of it and want to defend the drumming on this song, be my guest. I&#8217;m not a drummer, which is part of the reason I ask whether there is a drummer in the house.<\/p>\n<p><em>(The live version posted at the top of this thread is fun, but in fairness\u00a0the studio version follows so you can hear the song in its finished form.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HRHx22hTGUA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>By the way, did you know that Stiff Little Fingers formed as a cover band called <strong>Highway Star<\/strong>, after the <strong>Deep Purple<\/strong> song? I did not know that. Considering one of the most proto-hardcore of early punk bands has such roots,\u00a0this may\u00a0speak to my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/i-summon-homefront-radio-to-further-disc\/\" target=\"_blank\">long-held theories about the later US hardcore punk scene being the result of teenage stoner metalheads who didn&#8217;t want to commit learning the necessary chops to play the music of their hard-rocking heroes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This thread will probably make the likes of down-to-earth garage-punkers like\u00a0Townsman Bobby Bittman throw up. I apologize if you&#8217;re reading this, Bobby, shortly after eating. This topic is just a part of how I roll. I love Stiff Little Fingers&#8216; &#8220;Suspect Device&#8221; even more than the band&#8217;s supercharged\u00a0&#8220;Alternative Ulster.&#8221; The blistering, jumpy chord riffs and <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-there-a-drummer-in-the-house-stiff-little-fingers%e2%80%99-%e2%80%9csuspect-device%e2%80%9d\/' 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\/7032"}],"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=7032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}