V-Drum Video #2 - Dave Weckl / Island Magic

Dave Weckl was my 2nd "drum idol" when I was in high school (my first drum idol was Neil Peart, who was the inspiration for playing drums in the first place). Okay while on the subject, my current and probably never-to-be-dethroned #1 drum idol of all time is Vinnie Colaiuta (see some of my video favorites to see how awesome he is if you've never heard of him).

I remember getting this instructional package by Dave Weckl. It's called Contemporary Drummer Plus One. It was a great tool. It had all the charts for various songs. It had Dave Weckl's notes for why he played what he played, all the way down to certain drum fills. It had him playing on all of the included songs, and then all the songs where there again but without the drum track so you could play along to it. That's what I'm doing here in this video on the song called Island Magic (which also appeared on his debut album, but I think he played better on the instructional version).

So, here I am, trying to lay out some ideas on the drums. Not trying to copy too much off of the original (but he did have some great ideas, so I did rip some fills off of him). And as usual, I'm not quite at the 100% accurate timing level with all my notes. I've been wanting to get a video of this up for a week now, and dug the old tape out of the closet (from 1987!) and tonight wasn't the best I've played it over the past week, but life's too short and pointless to be a perfectionist, so here it is.

This was the thrid take of the night, and I usually play my best ideas on the first take (I can never play the same song twice the same way; a song is one big improvisation to me). But tonight I wasn't feeling super extra resiliant, and near the end of the thrid take I was thinking "okay, this one is going pretty well, but I have like 1 more minute to get through and my right arm is pretty dead". You might even notice when I'm banging on the China cymbal at the end I don't even have the proper grip, I'm just holding the stick cave-man style, hoping I don't let go!

Well, all you people out there who know this song... you're showing your age :-D. The rest of you, I hope you like it! Welcome to the '80s!
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• V-Drums
• TD-20
• Dave
• Weckl
• Island
• Magic
• Contemporary
• Drummer
• Plus
• One

[Xformat01]

This was amazing! The audio quality was phenomenal in relationship to the the actual Weckl music. I'mna have to subscribe. Good work, brother!

[egyokeo]

@Xformat01 Thanks a lot! Appreciate the sub. Glad you liked this video. I had to capture the WAV track off my Weckl cassette tape to make this happen ;-P

[roddickyuen]

Hi, which audio interface you used for the recording ?thanks!

[egyokeo]

the digital out S/PDIF... I haven't figured it out yet, but the level is really low and I have to amplify it in software by like 300%... so my 16bit quality turns out to be more like 14.5 bit ;)

[cobhatebreeder]

I love this song. Hey egy, where's that 'behind-the-scenes' part of you playing without the audio, so the only audible thing was you humming the song to yourself? I can't find it but I remember watching it and how much I was laughing ;D

[egyokeo]

thanks! that other video was blocked by youtube for copyright reasons. it was a pat metheny song.

[PHILLYGOODBOYJID]

sound like mario kart music xD

[PivotAnimator50]

arent those the TD-20's? if they are, dude your rich.....

[a5dr3]

Neeeeerd!!!

[MrGul]

@TheMusicOfWhy Yes! You could even say that I love it. A young drummer I used to play with did a promotion drum video on VHS which he sent around to various musicians and on that he played the instructional version of Island Magic – that's how I got to hear it the first time. Didn't check the album version out until later on and got disappointed of it (compared to the instructional version).

[TheMusicOfWhy]

@MrGul You actually like this song?

[cianosbach]

wow, dave himself would be proud..

[Storviksbo]

@PHILLYGOODBOYJID and i mean, who doesn't like mario kart music? ;P

[ctdrums1]

the parts arent right.

[13SamuelDavid]

1:08 - 1:19 Annoying fill!

[MrGul]

Very good work, dude! Probably my all-time favorite Weckl song. I totally agree with you about the instructional version being better than the one on the Master Plan album, too.