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drum tabs - Roy-at-tth - 12-26-2002

Anybody have any TTH drum tabs, I already found 50MC, NOIS, and long time running, any others?

Please post if you do.

thx

Yeah, - das_hips - 01-14-2003

Sorry to say, but the Johnny's drums are the weakest part of the band. Very simple, and basic rhythyms all the way up until M@W when he added a little flavour. Any particular tab you looking for? I must have played along with each hip CD at least 50 times. The first 4 are just boring, though.

- arseface88 - 01-21-2003

Das hips, are you ever lucky I didn't hear you say this in person. There. Is. No. Better. Drummer. In. The. World. Than. Mr Fay. He's able to produce suble, jazzy rythms, powerful grooves and drum machine experimentation on the same album without missing a beat. Listen to his mile a minute work on the live take on train keep a rolling. Listen to flamingo. Hell, even listen to some of their early stuff, where his big, earthy beats MADE the music. You know dick.

- dannya2 - 01-21-2003

Do you mean Flamenco?

- das_hips - 01-28-2003

OK arseface,
I'll give Johnny his fair piece. He is a very solid drummer. I am not denying his ability to perform at all, but can you sit there and tell me that the drums involved on Fully Completely ( excluding Fully Completely, interesting beat ) match equally to other alt-rock bands of the time (i.e. Pearl Jam's 'Ten', Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Blood Sugar Sex Magic')? Johnny was brought up with '80s rock music where, as far I can tell, there is very little activity on the percussion line ( again, excluding Rush, Neil Peart is awesome ). Day For Night presented some very interesting 2nd part percussion parts on timpany and tongos (So Hard Done By, Thugs) With Trouble at the Henhouse, Johnny brought a new attitude, the band was opening up musically, and Phantom Power and Music @ Work ( Johnny's best album personally speaking ) brought the opportunity to explore, musically, what would be their modern sound. I never knocked Johnny, I just found that on many of the early albums, when the guitar work was phenominal, that the drums were lacking in comparison to the rest of the band. This is not because of his lack of talent, but because of what he decided would fit the music. Flamenco is not an overly difficult piece, but it fits the music: a soft contemporary rock song with a latin influence. Train Overnight has a nice rock-swing feel, I agree. The last two albums have introduced, as you mentioned, a drum machine. It was a nice touch, it adds sincerity to an evolving band. But before you tell me ' I know dick ', perhaps you could learn to spell Flamenco. I was merely stating that many of the early albums were backboned by a basic 4/4 rock beat with a couple of off-beats on the ride cymbal. How long have you been drumming for, and what are you musical influences. The Tragically Hip is my favourite band, by far, but I don't listen to them for killer drum tracks. I listen to them because Gord's lyrics are powerful, and the guitar work is unparralleled by any other band to ever grace this country, and for that matter, the world. They come together to create a stunning collection of great Canadian artists. I stated Johnny's early drum work was the weakest part of the band. I'm just wondering, if you were to choose, what would be the weakest part of the band? One has to exist. And I was surprised that you would explode at me in such a way when this community promotes opinionated responses to several debatable topics. Before this forum, I was under the impression that any Hip fan would be level-headed, and tolerable to other fans perspectives. Have a good night, arseface.

- das_hips - 03-28-2003

I hate pointing this out again, but I believe that Fully Completely is the most drum lacking album I have ever heard. Again, for the third time, Mr. Fay is quite a solid drummer, but I find that his early drum work is not as entertaining as the drum work I have on many of my other CD's. And I would have to say that the music I listen to has more than a 9:1 ratio of non 4/4 music. At the top of that list is Soundgarden and Pearl Jam ( Matt Cameron, fantastic drummer, graduating from Temple of the Dog, to Soundgarden, to Pearl Jam). Road Apples, I would agree, presents emotion, but FC and UTH are kind of boring to jam along with. That is all I said, and if you disagree fine, but I never said Johnny was a bad drummer, I said that I find the guitar work , bass work and lyrics better in retrospect to other bands, whereas the drumming didn't quite fit that standard in the earlier albums. And when I said ' a basic 4/4 drum beat' , I meant the beat from NOIS, predominant in a lot of songs off their earlier albums. And to date I only count 2 hip songs that don't match the 4/4 benchmark ( Long Time Running and Beautiful Things ). Many other bands have very offset rhytmic patterns (7/4 and 9/4 in SG). Anyway, this is a useless debate because we are obviously both in agreeance that Johnny is a good drummer, I am just saying that I think the early albums are boring.

Mike Curran ( 20, drummin' for 6 years )

- das_hips - 03-28-2003

P.S: I also agree that Johnny's triplet fills on the ride are very good, especially in Little Bones, it adds a funk feel.

- Roy-at-tth - 04-27-2003

can any of your tab out any of these songs:

Music at work
Chargin Falls
Escape is at Hand
Use it up
Good life
something on
stay


it would be SOO much appreciated.

- briansmccabe - 08-23-2003

I just realized how long this thread has been dormant, but I just have to weigh in. When you live where I live, you simply don't have the opportunity to discuss the technical and artistic merits of Johnny Fay.

For starters, das_hips is absolutely right - UTH, RA and FC are very, very straightforward in terms of drumming. There's no question about how different Johnny's playing in the studio was then compared to now. Arseface is right too - drummers evolve and get better just as other musicians do, and this is clearly reflected in Johnny's work.

To refer to Johnny as the "weakest link" in the band is to assume that there has to be a weakest link, as das_hips said. Logically, this of course makes sense. Logically, the only way a band could *not* have a weakest link is if there was some quantifiable method of determining each member's skill level and it turns out everyone is on equal ground.

*Musically,* if you will, though, there is not neccesarily a weakest link. When you asess music as an artform as opposed to a science, there doesn't have to be someone that stands out as "worse" than everyone else. Some bands may still have a "weak link", for sure. But not The Hip. Their music transcends its components of individual parts and becomes a seamless "wave" of sound in which everything fits as perfectly as is possible.

If you were to asess percussion in terms of a science, there is no question whatsoever that Johnny Fay has not come anywhere near demonstrating that he is the best drummer on the planet. There are drummers who have done and can do and continue to do things on the drumkit that Johnny hasn't even come close to demonstrating. But if we look at it as an artform, a mode of expression, Johnny's playing leaps out. In studio, his playing from DFN onward in particular jumps out, and in a performance setting, every song of every show is an expression.

See, the magic of Johnny is that on those earlier albums, he laid down some very straightforward, no-frills beats - only to improvise his ass off when playing those same songs live. To this day, the band plays NewO virtually every night, and every performance on Johnny's part is different. Truthfully, the same goes for a pretty decent chunk of DFN. Listen to every live version of Grace, Too you have access to - no two are identical. The studio version is as straightforward as it gets, and I think Johnny does that on purpose, so that he has "room" to do what he wants in concert. He is able to contribute to the growth of the song, just like everyone else in the band does. I don't know that the band neccesarily lays down the most basic, straightforward versions of their songs in studio, consciously plotting to change this or that live. I'd be shocked if they did, frankly. But the songs start off at a certain point, and they grow in concert. Bands whose songs don't grow in concert are bands whose concerts are boring. Rush is a prime example. Their studio work is in my opinion, virtually unparallelled. But their live renditions are nothing more than technically flawless readings of the studio versions. Musically, that's boring. Scientifically, i suppose, it's engaging. Lucky for Rush, a large portion of their fanbase are folks who are more scientifically minded. BTW, arseface - I don't know who told you Neil Peart plays or has played with a neckbrace, but they were dead wrong. Unless you have seen a photo of neil playing with a neckbrace on (that clearly isn't doctored), don't believe it because it is a load of shit.

Incredibly, as his studio playing has grown more vaired, Johnny has still managed to create pieces that he is able to mess with in a live setting. Are You Ready is a perfect example. There's an off-beat time signature to the song, and he plays it a very specific way in studio. but again, listen to it live. It's different. Johnny comes up with his fills on the fly, yet he still manages to keep perfect time. I think its a shame that this sort of thing seems to go largely unnoticed by even the most hardcore of Hip fans. Everyone's busy watching Gord D flail around like a madman and rant about who-knows-what, but meanwhile, Johnny's right behind him creating some mind-blowing work.

brian mc

- briansmccabe - 08-23-2003

oh yeah---

as far as tabbing drumbeats to hip songs goes - I'd bet money that Johnny himself couldn't even tab his own beats. The reason why is because his playing isn't about reciting the studio version hit for hit. He plays each song different each night, and that is the essence of him as a drummer. Don't bother tabbing the songs out - just play them the way you feel, keep the tempo, and play around with it. You don't need tabs of Music at Work and Chagrin Falls et al to do that.

- Roy-at-tth - 08-23-2003

hah, since I FIRST posted this thread I was quite the newb drummer..

I'm getting better now - and yeah, fooling around with stuff is fun - I've developed the ablity to play by ear and know if I'm on time by ear so, y'know it comming.

thanks alot though.

By the way - larry mullen junior (U2's drummer) wanna know your opinion...his stuff founds good and is easy to play - I've never really seen him do anything *too* difficult. Of course, he gets the job done, and what else matters? I find the stuff he does fun to play. (ie sunday bloody sunday or something)

- das_hips - 09-11-2003

Hey...
Larry Mullen is a very solid drummer... and I find he plays a lot like Johnny.
If you've seen the Elevation tour disc he does nothing special but plays a tight sound... I like his early '90s work a lot more than the '80s work, as I find most of the drumwork in the '80s a writeoff, even perhaps a step backwards from the '70s.
Most Overrated Drummer : Lars Ulrich,
Worst Contemporary Drummer : Ron Welty (Offspring)... even his studio work is very very flawed.

P.S. On Day For Night do you think it's Johnny who plays the superimposed percussion on So Hard Done By and Thugs, because I know on The Bastard they got some Iraqi guy to play the tongos...