Did U ever got bored with all the grooves that U regularly use? Maybe with fills too on that matter. I found that I got very bored with my grooves and feel the need to somehow "upgrade" myself. Now I normally play rock, and sometimes some prog and kind of modern techno beats, but I just cant seem to find the way to enrich my groove-fill arsenal. I tried to steal something from other kinds of music like jazz etc. but that stuff just don't fit in that louder punchy music I'm into. Ideas anybody?

Great info Bart. Yes Nemo Y.E.S.....i certainly get bored with my own feels, licks, and grooves. I pride myself in making our song list more exciting to the band by changing things up here and there without drastically altering the feel of the original tune. Go over George Stones Stick Control book to open up some fresh ideas. Sometimes ill sit down and pick three or four tunes to kick up a notch with different fills but it takes some thought as to what will work well versus going for different things on the spot. Sometimes ill think Narada Michael Waldon, sometimes its what might Londin or Porcaro do. Widen your palet with various drumming influences. Sometimes its Michael Schrieve when i cant think of my own thing.

All these players who left a branding iron on my mind can make their presence known if i summon it. Also get Gary Chaffees videos sticking time linear time etc for unique ways to come up with a new approach. I can definitely relate to you Nemo.

Along with what Bart said, you may want to check out Billy Ward's DVDs. His latest one (Voices in my Head? I'm totally blanking here) has a section on practicing stuff like that. The basic thrust of it: When you're practicing you're generally doing a left-brain activity. Live you're more in the right-brain zone. Stimulate that right brain activity by playing a two bars of time, then two bars of something melodic. Then play two more bars of time, and two more bars that somehow build and grow from the first two melodic bars you played. But keep it musical... going from quarter notes down the toms to eights, sixteenths, etc kind of misses the point.

And try and spice up your existing grooves and parts. Maybe you add some ghost notes, or work on some accents and syncopation that make it fresh.

In terms of pulling from other genres... there's a ton of sick stuff in jazz, part of it is just gaining an ear for it, which definitely takes some time. (Unlike rock music, odds are you haven't had jazz music playing everywhere you went all the time). What's been telling to me is listening to jazz basically eight hours a day, every day since May, and then going back and listening to records by Cinematic Orchestra, Lemon Jelly, Quantic, etc. The electronica guys are really adept at finding one bar and taking it out of context.. juxtaposing it somewhere unexpected to amazing, amazing effect. That kind of out-of-context listening can give you the keys to take something you've heard, tweak it ever so slightly and throw it somewhere unexpected. Done correctly, it can have tremendous impact - make you feel like the floor is falling out from under you, or like you just got run over by a train (in a completely hip, very musically relevant way).

So I'll take the safe route of echoing the bigger brains on the topic: Take what you know, and make it something you don't know.

This is probably the single most inspiring thing I've watched online since I started drumming. I watched them all, clip 7 blew me away! I need to get on some rudiments NOW, I can't believe all that comes from relatively simple sticking 

Yes, Nemo, you are not alone. Go and play a fiddle, bagpipes, something with melody, that's what I do. Okay, I'm pretty lousy on the fiddle, and I don't own any bagpipes, but a bit of melody playing helps me an awful lot with the drums. It sort of resets the mind, and I come back with a different view. I also challenge myself with something out of my normal range of interest on the drums. I favour swing, so for a break I am looking at some reggae. Good for you, Nemo, perhaps would be some straight ahead jazz. Cool stuff like Miles Davis 'Kinda Blue' is a challenge to play along with, Jimmy Cobb's minimalistic approach is more difficult than it appears. Moanin' is a fun Art Blakey number to drum along to - there's heaps of it out there. Just as the reggae will put a fresh face on my swing playing, swing will add a new flavour to your rock. You should see what a couple of years of middle eastern hand drumming did to my fills! Hemiolas are good too, the 6 over 4 that Stuart Copeland does in one of the Police numbers (Message in a bottle? I think..) is very middle eastern in feel, and really useful.

For what it's worth.....

Awesome clips of Stanton Moore- he's just too good!

I'm never bored with playing groove.  Learning complicated patterns is extremely boring to me anymore.

Check out clinic and video clips on drummerworld.com

I like the Drummer Cafe forum better, but drummerworld does have a lot of good video clips.