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Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
Favorite Clyde Stubblefield Track?
This past February 18, funk pioneer and renowned James Brown drummer Clyde Stubblefield passed away. To coincide with this month’s tribute to the innovator , we asked our social media followers to name the tracks they think stand out from…
Get Your Head Out of the Page
Boy, it was strange typing that title. After all, when you’re in the information biz like Modern Drummer is, you’re generally trying to get people to do the opposite. But we’re also in the music biz, and the aim there,…
Pride and Joy
This gorgeously kept example of 1970s drum history comes to us from Orange County, California, drummer Thomas Smith, who originally purchased the Rogers Block-finish setup as a nine-piece kit. “I was very busy in cover bands, traveling throughout California,” Smith…
Steve Smith, Peter Erskine, and Gerry Gibbs take the reins, Def Leppard Live CD/DVD, and more
On his previous disc, Live in Studio, drummer/composer Gerry Gibbs transformed a selection of “elevator music” warhorses into an engaging, swinging affair. Here he has a richer lode to mine, reimagining the music of Weather Report in a mostly acoustic…
Greg Saunier, Anton Hochheim, Christian Paschall, Shannon Forrest and more!
Out Now Greg Saunier on Big Walnuts Yonder’s Big Walnuts Yonder On its self-titled debut, released this past May 5, the indie-rock collective Big Walnuts Yonder fuses wild time shifts, explosive punk tones, and unhinged improvisation on ten electrified, cohesive…
Favorite 1960s Drum Tracks?
As we were taking a look back at some of the most iconic drummers and performances of 1967 for this month’s cover feature, we wanted to find out which tracks our readers and social media followers felt marked the greatest…
1967, the Summer of Love
I was ten years old in 1967. Rolling Stone magazine debuted that year, and I’d just gotten my first “real” drumkit. I started playing when I was seven—like most drummers in my age bracket, after seeing Ringo and the Beatles…
The Grateful Dead's Billy Kreutzmann & Mickey Hart
They have reached this point in their development through their own approach, concepts, and individual techniques. Their approach to music is open ended and continues to evolve.
Split Hybrid
This hybrid electronic/acoustic drumset comes to us from the New York City–based drummer Howard Alper, who explains that the ability to combine traditional acoustic drums with loops and samples enables unique solo performances on a relatively small setup. “Recently I’ve…
The 2016 Guitar Center Drum-Off Grand Finals
This past January 14, Guitar Center held its twenty- eighth-annual Drum-Off Grand Finals, at the Novo club in downtown Los Angeles. Over the course of the competition’s numerous preliminary rounds, which took place in more than 250 Guitar Center locations…
Alphonse Mouzon
At the very end of last year the drumming world said its final goodbyes to the influential jazz-rock drummer Alphonse Mouzon. Although he was not quite as recognizable among the wider drumming audience as pioneering players such as Billy Cobham…
Stanton Moore Drum Academy
For years Moore has also been a sought-out educator. This past December he hosted his fourth-annual Spirit of New Orleans Drum Camp, and now he’s launched stantonmooredrumacademy.com, which is designed to provide educational content for players of all skill levels,…
Chicago II
Dismiss Chicago as lite-rock mom-core at your own peril. Discerning mothers, fans of deep classic rock, and Rob Thomas all know that long before singer/bassist Peter Cetera and producer David Foster steered the band toward dullsville in the ’80s with…
