Introduced to Chris Molla
who would eventually become the guitarist and his bandmate by way
of his younger brother, Molla informed him that two
George
Hurley
By default, I am obligated to include at some point and time
the drummer who backed up my favorite bassist, George Hurley. As a member of both the Minutemen and fIREHOSE, Hurley duly deserves
the number seven position merely because he had the incredible knack
to lay down the necessary beats for both the funk fueled grooves of
Mike Watt’s exemplary bass lines and the loose grooves of D. Boon’s
frenetic guitar riffs. Eschewing both the mindless conformity
of mainstream rock and the predictability of punk rock is Hurley's
calling card as a drummer. His powerful style brought an unmatched
sense of musicianship to the unprecedented subgenre that he, Mike
Watt and D. Boon were creating that would subsequently pave the way
for new possibilities in underground music. Hurley was the man
behind the machine called The Minutemen. He provided both the
upbeats and downbeats of a sound that subverted the traditional dynamics
of guitar-led power trios. Through Hurley, The Minutemen
were able to create music that had less to do with the new wave notions
of style and the flippant fashions of the 80’s and more to do with
the interplay between the group’s members—a chemistry that to this
day still goes unequaled and unsurpassed.
After the death of D. Boon,
both Hurley and Watt went on to form fIREHOSE with guitarist Ed Crawford. Continuing with their sui generis that Hurley and Watt had established
earlier with The Minutemen, fIREHOSE came on as a more focused and
enthusiastic version of the brittle, aggressive and punk funk found
in the song structures of The Minutemen. This can be attributed
in what seems to me to be a more fine-tuned drumming technique by
George Hurley. To compensate for the more frantic guitar playing
of D. Boon for the more impassionate guitar playing of Ed Crawford,
Hurley adapted to the necessary change and never looked back without
abandoning his signature style. Not any drummer can pull off this
task so beautifully than did Hurley. He made the transition seem smooth
and seamless and was able to accent both the instrumental strengths
of Watt and Crawford into another band of unlimited potential energy.
Steve Jansen
Long before Duran Duran made their debut on MTV and subsequently
came to dominate its airwaves the band that was their prototype had
already disbanded and moved on to more independent and non-commercial
musical endeavors. Who knows to what extent the career of drummer
Steve Jansen and his former band
So just
for you, my avid readers, I offer you not only one of the most underrated
bands—Japan, but also one of the greatest drummers—Steve Jansen, to
set beats down on wax. Listening to Jansen lay down his mesmerizing
cadences one hears a multitude of influences at one time. Jansen’s
ability to infuse various percussive elements into one song is literally
mind blowing. He can fluctuate between a standard pop/dance beat in
one measure and seamlessly flow into an Eastern occidental/oriental
musical flavored beat the next measure only to round out the entire
sequence with a cool jazz beat. He is a drummer who knows when
to back off and when it’s time to rock—Jansen is the master a layering
unique drum textures into one cohesive drum line. Always one
to push the aural envelope, Jansen’s signature style of odd-timbered
and intricate pulses is what breathed life in to the minimalism and
ethereal song structures of