So it is with practitioners of the air guitar. Whereas once they were marginalized and laughed at, now world championships and bestselling video games glorify their art on an international stage. The admission 'I am an airguitarist' is no longer necessarily followed by smug tittering, or even tit smuggering, whatever that is. One suspects that whether it existed before it was made up just now, there is probably already a porn site dedicated to it.
But what of air guitar's neglected cousin, the air drums?
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to admit it: I am an air drummer. True, occasionally I've been known to bust out the air guitar, but I feel my air-musical talents are better suited to the air-drumming oeuvre, particularly as my usual performance space is the driver's seat of a Ford Mondeo and this, given the right-shoulder-to-left-hip positioning of the seatbelt sash in Australasian-market RHD motor vehicles, mitigates against proper usage of said prop in the deployment of air guitar shreddage, unless one busts out the backward leftie skills in the style of Hendrix or Cobain. Passenger seat travel, of course, is more permissive vis a vis your typical right-handed air guitarist re the positioning of the seatbelt. But the air drums need no such assistance from props. All one needs is timing, tenacity, wrists like a subcontinental middle-order batsman, and the willingness to change one's name to Phil, as it is a scientific musical fact that all drummers are named Phil - eg Phil Rudd (AC/DC), Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor (Motorhead), Phil Selway (Radiohead), Phil Collins (Mediocrity), Phil Duff (Flange Gasket) etc etc etc - and all that aren't called Phil are actually Unmarked Phils.
With that we present Drum Phil: The World of Bollocks' Five Bestest Air Drum Anthems. In no particular order, because the universe hates order. Second law of thermodybollocks.
Knights of Cydonia, Muse (2006)
Crank the loud bit and try to stop your hands spontaneously flailing about. Go on. Around 4m30 in this live vid from Wembley '07.
In The Morning, Wolfmother (2009)
Given that Wolfmother is, in essence, a Led Zep/Deep Purple/Black Sabbath tribute act - three bands with mesmerically effective drummers - no surprise re the Getting Of An Guernsey here. Could pick any number of tracks - the album version of Woman would have gone well - but went for something off their Difficult Second Album (difficult in that it was probably just as good as their debut, but most of the world had stopped caring by then).
The Right Time, Hoodoo Gurus (1994)
Proof that any truly great Gurus song needed a B. Shepherd songwriting credit alongside that of D. Faulkner. Megolithic hairy arsed riff. Enormous drums. Play it loud.
Moby Dick, Led Zeppelin (1971)
No, not Bonzo's endless fucking solo in the middle, the bit that contained actual music at the start. Bonzo's drum sound was and remains legendary, and as Captain Stupidity (owner of a great deal of the IP behind Phil Duff) once remarked, 'Cowbells are where it's at.'
Noone Loves Me & Neither Do I, Them Crooked Vultures (2009)
Two words: Dave Grohl.
Or... any five songs at random off Motorhead's Ace of Spades album. Either-or.
The Doctor is OUT to see a physiotherapist about his air-drum elbow. Arsebiscuits.
11 comments:
Yeah it's one for Super Advanced Expert You've Spent Too Long On This Game mode on Air Drum Hero I suspect. The back half (neolithic world-ending riff bit) is near-unplayable unless you've embedded the changes into your scone.
I always suspected you were an air drummer.
Just had that feeling.
I'm an air keyboard player, myself: if I'm going to be that silly I want to be sitting down to do it.
But for air drums - no Keith Moon? (FACT: rock legends not called Phil are called Keith)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll-bxodxjts&feature=fvst
Barnes... erm, thanks, I think
Rob - the original Animal should rightly get a guernsey, it's only fair. Though there was no way Keith Moon could have been a Phil, think of the confusion when he toured NZ.
I'll be back with further comment but may I begin by saying that air drumming in the car has its hazards...you certainly have to be coasting down a really long slope if you want to play double bass kick pedal.
AAAAAAANIMAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL
What Jen said.
There aren't many guys I have known who haven't down the air drum thing at one time or another. I blame our ancestors.
One drummer I do have a fondness for is the gorilla on the Chocolate ad doing In the Air Tonight by (another) Phil Collins. That furry dude rocked.
Daze.
Oh man great Gurus choice. It's a bitch to sing all those overlapping call and response bits in the chorus on your own but the shower doesn't judge. You can really go the pose with that song. That big moderate back-beat really gives you the space to form a wide arc with your right arm on the way down. You know...being flashy goes with the territory and every air-drummer wants a modicum of cred :-D
I was taught drums by a naval officer so I never did get that top grip thing going on both sticks. I air drum with the left stick flapping away in the crook of the hand. Looks a bit wankery.
One of my top air-drumming songs is Alice Cooper's Poison but as stated previously you need to be coasting in a straight line at a relatively low speed to get the bass/snare drum thing happening.
And I have thought about this way too much.
Oh yeah and I'm a tit smuggerer from waaaaaaaaay back.
*titsmuggery.com*
Jen - yes. He was based on Keith Moon from the Who, for the record.
Daze - that was a great ad - largely because of the genuine shock-and-awe value if you hadn't seen it before.
Nat - The Right Time is my fave Gurus song of all time, for the riff, for the kareoke value, for the lot of it. Have noticed most of mine have the commonality of Big Fuck Off Drumbeats with open hi-hats. And cowbells, for they I'm told are where it's at.
Cowbells are the bomb! Tubular bells on the other hand have no business being anywhere near a recording studio.
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