I usually hate lists, but I figured why not start some debate. Here is a list of my 5 favortie drummers in no particular order.

-Brendan Canty (Fugazi)

-Danny Carey (Tool)

-Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes)

-Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters)

-Bill Ward (Black Sabbath)

To anyone reading, feel free to post your Top 5 drummers in the comments of this post. Just hope the debate won’t get too heated…

According to Harmony-Central.com, a new high-def version of the electronic drum pad, the Mandala is going to be released. Inventor Vince De Franco who founded synesthesia corp. worked on the creation of this drum, with Tool drummer Danny Carey for 5 years, to replace his old Simmons SDX electronic drums. I posted about Isis drummer Aaron Harris a few days ago, he is also a Mandala user as well.

“A new kind of synthesizer, the Mandala 2.0 packages a musical range so wide it simultaneously offers players the top of the line, most accurate model of a physical drum (via 3,000 professionally created, proprietary samples of the Black Beauty Snare Drum) — along with a library of sounds derived from more than 100 other instruments.

It plugs into a PC or Mac with just a USB cable, and its easy-to-use software comes with more than 100 presets for out-of-the-box functionality. Players also can create their own configurations as they explore and discover its astonishing audio range.”

Source.

Most music fans know Danny Carey as the drummer of Tool. He is one of my personal favorites. He usually plays all sorts of odd-timed beats and fills, in Tool, while at the same time putting a lot of power and emotion into his playing. I’ve also seen him around LA hanging out, (sometimes with the other members of Tool) at shows in the Silverlake/Echo Park area. He seems like a really humble and down to earth guy.

So it is no surprise that once I found out he had another band he’d been playing in recently I wanted to check it out. That band is called Volto! They’re kind of a jazz band. Basically, they play original jazzy-type songs, but still feature Carey’s powerful drumming, they also do some covers. I’m not entirely sure what covers they do, besides “21st Century Schizoid Man” by King Crimson (I saw that one on youtube).

Carey I believe, (from the looks of it),  is still playing the same drum kit he plays in Tool, minus his electronic drum pads. The band as far as I know, only plays around Los Angeles, so I plan on checking them out at the La Vee Lee jazz club here in LA on the 16th of this month. I will definitely post about that show here.  Looking forward to it…