All right, here we go, my new book is DONE:
Rants – vol. 1.
Drummers, drum media, and the internet
by Todd Bishop. 290 pages.
Get it: on CYMBALISTIC | on LULU
All right, here we are, a svelt little 290 page pocket book, containing all the posts filed under the rants category here on the site. Everything I typed in a rage, hopefully in an amusing way, usually over something awful I witnessed on the internet. Massively updated and expanded, since my original writing on some of them is very bad. And thin! I had to flesh some things out.
In fact, editing it for publication has been a real education on how good of a writer I ain’t. Oh my God. There were only a couple of real dogs I had to cut altogether, but a lot of it was pretty raggedy from a prose writing standpoint. Especially the real early stuff. I don’t know how you put up with it.
Have I convinced you to buy it yet?
In my defense, I lived most of my life in contempt of the written word— “a vector for lies”, I called it, which is not wrong. The thing is the thing, and writing about it is not the thing, it’s something else. I firmly believe that.
But writing serves some kind of limited utility, and can be entertaining, so write I shall. That’s how you phrase things when you’re a real writer of word-books.
I have organized it into the following topical drift-piles:
GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND WHATNOT
All about what we do here, our values in general— on music, learning the drums, teaching the drums. Questions of drummerness, and why they’re all against us.
DRUMMING GEAR
Various complaints, drum and cymbal sizes rated, rules of gear acceptability, approaches to buying junk. Analysis of a really, really wrong effort to re-engineer the drum set but smart.
HANDS
Technical matters, especially related to that subject of endless fascination, “hand dominance.” Let me tell you, I never get tired of it, and neither will you. The wonderful smart open handed drumming vs. the desipicable contorted crossed-armed drumming we all do. Various rudiments are praised and castigated.
INTERNET AND OTHER PERSONALITIES
Escalating irritation over the existence of YouTube and everyone on it. Discussion of some other people, and the things they’ve done. Stewart Copeland, Stanley Spector, the guy who said rudiments have “nothing to do with drumming.”
THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC AT PRESENT
Tech interference in music. I’ve softened much of my language when there are drummers involved, but here I really let a couple of creeps have it. What we should be doing as serious music people living in this screwed up economy.
Get yours now: on CYMBALISTIC | on LULU