Well, maybe it’s not a real ‘tape’ per se, but I wanted to make some mixes of the music on my YouTube channel, since it is interspersed within a ton of other content.
Some of the videos in here have very little views and were uploaded a very long time ago (one way back in 2010!).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the mix. If you want to be included in a future mix, just let me know and send me your link!
Hey all, I’ve made plenty of posts promoting my own music, but some of you might not know that I am often working as a sideman on other people’s music. I thought I’d put together a little list of fairly recent-ish recordings by bands/solo artists that feature me on drums.
FRAME – State of Mind. Caitlin Frame is an incredibly gifted musician and songwriter. The band FRAME is her brainchild. It’s amazing indie pop, with incredible vocals by Caitlin, slick nostalgic production, and mature and well thought out arrangements. I’m playing drums on probably 90% of this album. Get it on 180g vinyl with the bandcamp link!
Ronan Conroy – not a part of anything -Folky, punky, and diverse in energy, but Ronan’s music is always from the heart and full of atmosphere and mood. Once again I’m on drums on most of this album, except for a few tracks my sister plays on! Ronan is a talented and prolific musician, you should take the time to check out his work. This and most of Ronan’s albums are available on CD.
3. Echoscape – Halfmoon – Acoustic math folk? Is that a thing? Well yeah it is, especailly once you hear Satoshi Inoue’s work in Echoscape. I played drums on this incredibly complex EP that is half in English and half in Japanese. It was the last thing Satoshi and I worked on together before he moved back to Japan. We had previously worked together in Quiet Sons. I am really proud of this one, and you can get it on CD 4. The Excitables – 3AM – This one is a bit of an odd bird, but a great EP. It’s odd because my friend Will Scecina back in St. Petersburg Florida and I recorded the drums, guitar, and vocal tracks way back in 2010 when I was still living in Florida. Then in 2015 I added bass, and keys. So I’m playing drums, bass and keys on this one. Will wrote all the songs, sang and played guitar. These are some great catchy 90s indie vibed songs. You can still get this one on CD from bandcamp.
This obviously isn’t all of the sideman work I’ve done, but these are within the past 5 years, so I thought I’d share them all here. Help support these awesome musicians by buying some of their merch!
I just released a new live performance video the other day of me playing drums along with a song I made in Milkytracker. This is not the first video like this I’ve made, in fact I now have 11 or so videos of my playing along to chip trackers with live drums.
In addition to that, I’ve done several other types of performances on YouTube over the years, and have been adding them to this playlist above over time. I thought I would post it here again since it has recently been updated.
Private drum, guitar, or software lessons on Skype or Discord: Skype: justin.robert87 Discord: demonicsweaters#6261
I started playing the drums when I was 10 years old. Over the years many different drummers have influenced my playing but one in particular that I saw play in the early 90s basically changed the way I thought about playing the drums, and the instrument as a whole. That drummer was Damon Che of the band Don Caballero.
I grew up in Morgantown WV, and quite often my friends and I would head up to nearby Pittsburg PA to see touring bands that weren’t making it to Morgantown. This time we were heading up to see the band Tar. Tar were an awesome band and we were all very excited to see them. There were two opening bands, and one of them was this band I’d never heard of at the time called Don Caballero.
I barely remember them setting up, but I do remember some tall lanky dude standing outside behind the glass doors of the venue before they got started in a long black trench coat, drinking water out of a gallon jug and smoking a cigarette. That dude was the drummer of Don Cab, Damon Che.
Don Cab came out and their first song was like a sudden explosion of a sonic fireball that basically leveled the audience. You could feel everyone in the room staring at the stage like they were witnessing something like planets colliding. At the center of all this, and the one directing the collision was the drummer. He was seated behind a cheap black Pearl Export series drum set, with huge toms setup nearly perfectly flat and gigantic shiny B8 Pro cymbals set up very high and tilted.
I was close to the front of the stage, and watching him play, but couldn’t really believe my eyes. His motions were completely alien looking, and the way his drums were setup looked amazingly uncomfortable. But the sounds I was hearing were unlike any drumming I had previously encountered. It was busy, really busy, but with a very deep pocket feel and incredible power. Every couple seconds I was hearing a new beat I hadn’t heard anyone else play before. It was complex, bombastic, intense and incredibly tight.
At this moment I knew the drumming world had just received an upgrade and I felt incredibly inspired to get even better at drums and my love for the instrument grew even stronger than it already was.
So let’s take a closer look at Damon Che and see what exactly made him such an awesome force behind the drums.
This track I played Drums, Guitar, Bass, and Synth. I had fun with the video wearing some cute (and weird) outfits. It was once again recorded on my 2005 iBook G4 using the Mbox 1 Audio interface.
Drums: Tama Imperialstar Bop https://amzn.to/2Fbemvg
Guitar: Ibanez GRX20w https://amzn.to/2JXVSgM
Bass: Crescent Precision Copy https://amzn.to/2qGUnKW
Amplification: Ammoon PockRock https://amzn.to/2POZruV
#mathrock #experimental #crossdressing #queer #dragqueen #drummer #weird #synthwave #guitarrock #heavy #drummer #oddtimesignature #newyorkcity #brooklyn #demonicsweaters #90s #rad