well I ran over to sam ash on my lunch hour to get a ticket, coz the salesguy strongly insinuated that they were selling out fast. so I was surprised when I got to the auditorium and it wasn't even halfway filled, which is weird for ny. but, friday nite and all that; lots of people wanting to get out of dodge.
the clinic was very much like eovonius [sp?] laid out. I tell ya, they really gotta stop with these Q&A things, or just line every questioner up by a firing squad and extinguish them. if I hear one more person ask the man to demonstrate the mozambique, I'm gonna get up, shake them and say, 'go watch the video on drummerworld!'
one girl shamefully tried to steal steve's thunder, by announcing that she was a freshly graduated vocal major from such and such college, and couldn't get a rock drummer to play some standard with her, and wanted to know what she should tell him to get him to play right. she virtually forced steve to accompany her so she could have her 15 minutes of fame. her bimbo bass player girlfriend did more of the same, AND dissed 'drummers who rush' at the same time, much to the chagrin of every drummer in attendance. I was embarassed for my species.
but anyhows, had it not been that they allocated 20 minutes for steve and 110 minutes for Q&A, I would've enjoyed it more. still, there were some nice highlights, namely:
-- steve doing 'bye, bye blackbird'. he kinda fake-scatted/hummed/da-da-da'd his way through it, and it was elegant, robust, lovely. his brushwork was beautiful.
-- his demonstration of his 6-stroke application on the aja tune [of course, someone had to ask about it]. it was cool coz I've been working on that section, so it was nice to see it in action.
-- his overall 5 or so minute brushwork demonstration. he's fantastically fluid, and I dare say my big takeaway overall was an appreciation for his touch and facility with brushes.
-- his insistence that 99% of what he does was shown to us in the bbbb section. he explained that he would take one rudiment, do a gazillion permutations of it, and use it to great effect in a gazillion situations.
-- his acknowledgement that he is not comfortable playing odd times or double bass. he prefers to take odd groupings and experiment with them in 4/4 time. so great to see a legend admit he's not perfect.
I loved his humility, his demeanor, his coolness. wasn't thrilled with the sound of his drums, but maybe that's coz I've been hearing too many dw kits lately.
anyhow, an overall nice time, but it needed way more steve and way less audience buffoonery.
