The drum face and life
Hi. Have you ever seen a live band? Literally just glanced at one? Cool, then you know that drummers ARE the nastiest. Hands like sandpaper, shirts as sweaty as wet T-shirt contests, oily hair in bunches. And the pièce de résistance-- nasty faces. If you didn't know, now you do and you can finally start living.
The drum face is sacred. It transcends music and ties the body to the soul with every hit. It's beauty in one of its purest forms. But too many drummers try to hide it. They wear the "4/4 beat, do-a-fill-every-chance-i-get, i-hope-i-look-hot" mask instead of letting the music take over.
Here's the best example I can give.
Sorry Rush fans. Unlike life, size doesn't matter for good drumming.
The point I'm trying to make is that the drum face is one of the most genuine expressions that man has ever expressed. When you let it take over, that is. These expressions are so genuine that if I really wanted, I could tie certain drummers' drumming faces to my moods.
Most of the time, you can find me feelin' like this.
Animal - The Quintessential Drummer
Just loving life, never giving up, and doing what I love. Like how Animal was chained to his drum set. Dedication...
... Or when I'm upset and on the verge of tears cause it's 100 degrees out and I chose to wear black pants. i.e. Today.
Takashi Kashikura - Mr. Nothin' But Raw Emotion
.... Or when I feel like joking around and being cute.
Lars Ulrich - awful drummer, GREAT faces
Clear enough, playing the drums can cover every spectrum of human emotion in the span of 3-4 minutes. One second, you've got the look of an irate lumber jack rampaging through Yosemite, the next, a prepubescent boy crying because he's trapped. It makes you bipolar, in a cool way.
And when I'm not drumming, I'm thinking of ads. These last few weeks have been dedicated to finding my place as a full-time Jr. Copywriter. Yeah it's been tough. But I don't give up and this is what I've wanted. I've spent years trying to make this process as easy as possible by building my experience. But it's still tough. And I embrace it.
So here's my drum face for where I'm at right now.
Pretty sure this is in the middle of "Enter Sandman" and he just stopped playing to do this.
Bring it on. The kid's never gonna stop moving forward.