 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart Banderzy and today. I am joined by mr. Tim Carmen Tim Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I appreciate you having me. Yeah, man You are an interesting guy because you're you're in the really great band g a 20 which are Awesome, I'm a big fan of you guys and have grown to be more of a fan in the last couple months since we kind of started Planning this yeah, nice, but beyond that you you are a Drummers drummer. I mean you're first off. You're a phenomenal player, but you're also a great educator and Author and you've got a number of books out I'll start kind of in reverse order and then end up with what we're talking today But the shape beat series which I want to hear more about that later and then groove systems Haynes isms and then Philly isms is the most The most recent one which the isms series is kind of what we're here to talk about with yep An emphasis on Philly Philly Joe Jones. So Tim like maybe explain what the concept of the isms is and then we'll dive deeper into more about Philly So yeah, take it away. Awesome. Well, I appreciate the kind words. Thank you very much. Yes I actually have the definition of an ism here It says an ism is a manner of action or behavior characteristic of a specified person or thing but in our case, you know, we're talking about a manner of action or a behavioral characteristic of a person or essentially what I view it as It's what a particular drummer that I might look back at in history What they like to do when they play like what's a characteristic of Philly Joe Jones or what's a characteristic of Roy Haynes That when you hear that particular characteristic, you're like, that's Roy Haynes. That's Philly Joe Jones Yeah, that's Tony Williams whatever and I kind of came up with a concept And it's based on the famous Bruce Lee quote where he's he says I fear not the person who has practiced 10,000 kicks once but I fear the person who has practiced one kick 10,000 times So the basic idea for the ism series was to study a particular jazz drummer who you know Kind of pave the way for other drummers and dig into their brain a little bit transcribe them and figure out what their Particular characteristic soloing style would be your well like a piece of vocabulary So the first person I did that with was was Roy Haynes. I figured out what he kind of liked to do And the the idea was to take that piece of vocabulary and kind of milk it for for all its worth You know create musical mileage out of one piece of vocabulary you could say so just to give kind of a broad This isn't really a biography episode about Philly Joe Jones because it'd be cool to do that I'll do that at some point, but I'm sure there's someone who's written a book who is an Absolute, you know knows everything about him which yeah, we've discussed this and we're not gonna go down that road right now But you know the in a couple sentences. Can you describe who Philly Joe Jones is for people who aren't familiar? Some of his highlights and and then we'll go deeper, you know beyond that. Yeah Yeah, he would well. He was born in Germantown district of Philadelphia in 1923 so he grew up in Philadelphia. That's kind of where he got his start when he he went into the war World War two and he came back in 1944 and around that time he moved to New York City and Essentially, I think when people think of Philly Joe Jones, they'll automatically jump to his time with Miles Davis In the 50s. He was part of the quintet with with Coltrane and and he kind of defined I'd say the hard-bop swing era of the late 50s and the early 60s So that was kind of his his period and he also In my opinion Defined like the language of soloing in that time He invented a lot of vocabulary that people today are still using and that drummers after him You know, Elvin Jones and people like that took inspiration from and he played until he passed away in 1985 But he really kind of defined that period. Yeah in a in jazz drumming. So yeah, I mean He was born a hundred years ago Which is that's the great. Yeah, exactly. We literally I mean what a celebrated is a hundredth birthday on July 15th About a month ago. Wow to when we're recording this right now. I mean So he's kind of in the era of Buddy Rich, I guess was like 1917 I think Jean Krupa was like 1909. He's like right. Yeah, he's right in that era of these like that first wave of Or maybe that would be I guess that would be the first wave of jazz like Legends modern and it also helps that we have like More modern recordings of them to study. Yeah, you know, that's another reason I mean, I love that period of the 50s and early 60s because recording technology Kind of was advancing at that point so we could hear a little bit more of what some of these drummers like Philly Joe Jones were playing So I think it's a really, you know, interesting period and he I mean, he was highly influenced by cozy Cole and Max Roach, he actually studied with cozy Cole and he hung out with Max Roach a lot So he took inspiration from a lot of those those guys and yeah How would you explain to someone the importance of Philly Joe Jones? Maybe his his impact on drumming. I know you said that his it's really about his his soloing style and things like that But I think his swing feel as well though for me He defined the swing feel of the 50s Okay, you know the way the way he played a lot with the bass player Paul Chambers They played in a lot of groups together and I think the two of them Their feel was the foundation for For jazz in the 50s. I mean they played on so many heavy records that today we study So yeah, I think obviously his solo vocabulary was was revolutionary and really unique and He had a lot of you know a lot of personality in what he played Which you know, I think it's really cool and really difficult to achieve that So I'd say his solo vocabulary and the way he swung Yeah, where the the two things that really defined and he also he played with It was interesting to dig into his history a little bit and just you know Miles Davis talked about like how he Philly just brought fire to the bandstand. He had a really energetic often loud fiery style of playing drums Which also was unique for him. I think yeah. Yeah, absolutely Well, do you think that Philly Joe Jones? like I feel like He gets credit amongst drummers, but he's a little he flies a little bit under the radar of You know, there's the household names that everyone knows but I think Doing your book is gonna give more credit where credit is due and help get his name out there I mean, do you think he gets enough credit or he's a little bit underdog? Well, I think within if you talk to jazz drummers. Yeah, I think he's he's up there on everyone's list that I talked to at least a you know the legends But yeah, I mean, I think he is overlooked by some of the earlier guys What you mentioned like the buddy riches and the people who were more I guess showman or you know They take long solos which Philly could do and in my opinion His solo style speaks to me more than some of those other drummers Because it's it's it's very musical not that the other guys aren't but but yeah I think you know, I think he could he can be overlooked by Musicians or drummers who maybe aren't focused on the jazz world and I think he's an incredibly person incredibly important icon to To check out, you know, everyone I think needs to check out Philly Joe Johnson. Yeah inspired a lot of people Yeah, for sure. I think there's the the musical solo goes a long way and is yeah We all like to be kind of like blasted with an amazing ripping drum solo, but sometimes it's it's nice to have a little more Tonality and and music to it. But another thing I can say to regarding like what he did for the For soloing he had an incredibly like rudimental approach to soloing He had all of the rudiments under his hands And he had the ability to orchestrate those around the drums and kind of make them his own and if you listen to interviews He talks about, you know, the importance of the rudiments and studying the rudiments and that's kind of how he developed His style of soloing. I know we studied with Charlie Wilcoxon And he went through all of those solos in his book and a lot of that comes out in the way Philly sold soloed himself So I think that's also an important, you know, thing to know because he taught Philly Joe Jones taught a lot of drummers Later on in his life And that's what he did when he when he taught he had his students go through The rudiments and rudimental solos and how to apply those onto the drum set. So sure All right now to to create this book, which again is Philly isms Hudson music first off I love the cover that you did the artwork for these is just super cool and very like timely and it just fits with the vibe Did you do that or no? I didn't actually this is a good moment to shout out. This is guy Jamie Browick He his company is called B side graphics And I reached out to him because he's done some work on some of my own jazz trios releases He's he's designed posters and covers and stuff like that. So he has just like a really cool Old-school like jazz Art style. Yeah, it's like exactly. This is this is perfect And when I you know thought of the concept for this book and the style of the cover, you know, Gary Chafee's Pattern series, you know, it's such a unique cover that he just changes the color of from book to book So that was kind of something I had in mind. I was like, oh, I want to make it one cover That's unique and vintage looking and stands out and then I can change the color and As I go through each drummer pretty much. Yeah, I think it's smart because it sticks out and it's clearly it's clearly you Now let's talk a little bit about how you You know what your process was to break down these styles because it's it's true I mean if you if we look at ourselves we find when we sit down on the kit We have our go-to things We have over our vocabulary that we like to do and some days that can drive you insane thinking, okay Stop playing the same thing. Yeah, but there's there's there's like there's certain things that you can always tell and in a great way of I Can you can close your eyes and just hear that person playing and knowing it's them and that's something that's very important so and I think that's everyone's goal at the end of the day is to get to that point and You know where someone can listen to you play for 15 30 seconds, but oh, that's that's him or you know, I think that's incredible one if you can get there So yeah, yeah, yeah, do you have any I mean as as a Educator and author what would be some tips that you would say that people could work on? Or can you work on that or does it need to naturally happen to get your own ism? I think One thing that's helped me a lot Well, first of all play out as much as possible play shows Yeah, and then that's but more important than that is record yourself while you do that like I I'll film myself I used to I do it a little bit But not as much as I used to and and it's like watching game footage You know I mean sure and and what I'd like to do is I'll be like, oh man, I do that a lot That's kind of cool. Sometimes when I see myself and listen, I can so that's kind of maybe that's my ism Yeah, more important than that though is you can hear the things that you do that You maybe don't like and you can cut that out of your playing It's like cutting the fad off type of thing. So yeah, yeah, yeah I think filming and recording yourself is the most important thing you can do and that's true with anything like I find that with the podcast I you know, I don't often listen back to old episodes because I'm working on the next one all the time But you find that like yeah, okay time to stop doing that or time to stop saying that thing or yeah It's painful. It's painful or some friendly person will email you and say stop doing that. Yeah But yeah, man, so so then going back to the original thing we were talking about there about What was do day one of working on you know, you pick someone to study the ism. What is that process like for you to learn? Philly isms totally. I'll say this the Roy Haines the Haines ism The piece of vocabulary for him was a little bit easier for me to come by the Philly ism was really difficult to pick because He does so many things or he did so many things that are really unique and interesting He had a lot of little little tools that he would pull out The way I came across across or the way I pinned down this particular pattern, which at the end of the day It's basically the paradiddle rudiment and he liked to play it in a nine-stroke sticking And I chose that one because I noticed that he utilized that in different subdivisions You know, he played it as an eighth note as a 16th note He'd vary the paradiddle sticking in a in a triplet subdivision He also orchestrated it by playing accents or moving it to the toms in a lot of interesting ways I talk about one thing in the book is I call it extending or shortening the phrase So, you know, I as I mentioned the ism is a nine-note paradiddle sticking But what he would do is he would play five note groupings of the paradiddle starting with his left hand So it'd be like left right left left and then end with an accent at right and he would move that around the drums So and then he would there's a lot of I could go for a long time about it But essentially I noticed that he loved the paradiddle and he loved to come up with Interesting ways to use the paradiddle around the kit and that's how I decided to stick with that One thing I will say though This is something I did with Philly ism that I didn't do with Haines ism is I have a section in the beginning of the book Where I talk about nine other Phrases that Philly like to use and I kind of define those as well And then throughout the book when I put together phrases with the paradiddle ism I'll pepper in some of those other examples as well. Just so you get some You know other interesting vocab you can kind of mess around with sure Sure, and it says here that you also like there's points where like like note the X on beat 3 signifies a stick shot Or right stick on the left stick. That's the classic kind of jazz. Just yeah, totally and that that was another I mean Miles I read used to say to the drummers in his group after Philly like do the Philly thing And he'd be talking about hitting that stick shot like that. So that was you know Philly loved to do that Yeah, this episode is brought to you by mono mono makes extremely durable and stylish cases and bags that are made from musicians and creators on the Go I've been using the mono m80 classic fly by ultra backpack for the last two years And this is hands down the nicest backpack. 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I am not an expert on The history of Miles Davis and his drummers, which there are many iconic ones Philly was early on yeah It was like the first iconic well, and then Jimmy Cobb was one of the earlier ones Okay, but you know the three are Jimmy Cobb Philly Joe Jones Tony Williams. Yeah, kind of that But people think about yeah, exactly played with lots of other incredible drummers, but you know the quintets That's you know, yeah, awesome, and I'm looking through here. So so this is a pretty extensive book How do you think that it's a beast? How do you think people should approach this book? I mean do you need to be a master at at reading or what level is or what level of that's a great question Drummer slash Reading ability are you are you going for here? Well the the book comes with video where I play through a lot of the exercises cool So I mean being able to read definitely will help while using this book But there is a video to go along that people who aren't too comfortable with reading can watch Yeah, and kind of get an idea from and I honestly think this book is great for Beginners intermediate drummers to advanced drummers maybe more the intermediate realm Also for people who you know maybe play jazz a little bit but are really trying to Dig into it more. I think you know as a drummer who's touring in a blues group and playing rock and roll and stuff like that I've always studied jazz, but it's not something that I get to do every day Yeah So for me this was a book that I wanted to work through on my own time to to just get better at at playing jazz So I think it's great for that because it's the whole point is to introduce you know a piece of vocabulary that somebody can absorb and The goal is you want it to come out naturally and organically on the bandstand, you know, you don't want to be just Regurgitating information that you want to make it your own and that's the whole purpose of this book. Yeah. Yeah, so obviously, you know You being kind of in a blues really cool rock band. He It is beneficial to study things like this Take it and put it in any genre of music I feel like you could play like metal any of the many heavy metal genres and take things like this That's one of the things I love most about drumming is like I don't know I mean I we talk about this a lot of episodes about how drums are special But there's not many instruments I imagine where if you're learning, you know Classical violin and then you hear like someone playing like an acrylic 80s kind of like electric violin They're just different but with drums you can take this and apply it to like your you know thrash band totally and You know take these concepts and get a lot out of it. Yeah I mean at the end of the day of the isms and Philly ism is a paradiddle, you know I mean it's so it's like there's so much you can do with the paradiddle, you know in any style of music Yeah, so yeah, I love the paradiddle and then it's good that he's doing it I mean, it's oh he yeah all over the place and he there's a really interesting sticking that he did It's like a variation of the paradiddle In the triplet subdivision that I talk about in the book as well that he moves around a lot and or he moved around So it's there's a there's a lot to a lot to do with it and again as we mentioned The book is 230 pages And a lot of weight. It's a it's a big book. I put a lot of time into yeah Congrats. Yeah, the way I recommend going through it though is you don't necessarily need to go in order It's like you can go through the introduction and basically get the general concept And then the chapters are organized by subdivision So part one is the ism in a sixteenth note subdivision part two is the ism in an eighth note Part three is in a triplet an eighth note triplet and then part four basically we start combining the subdivisions and then Part five. This is a cool concept Basically, we take the ism and you play it While singing heads of popular jazz tunes, you know Again, this all comes back to stuff that I want to personally work on to help me become a better drummer And you know when you're playing a tune sometimes it can be hard to have the vocabulary come out that you've been working on but if you practice vocabulary with a tune in mind on The bandstand it happens a lot more naturally. I think if that makes sense. Yeah No, absolutely. And if even if you Practice something at home. It's and you don't use directly that thing when you're out playing a show It's still helping. It's still time on the kit as Steve Smith says it's all time on the kit It's totally it's it's just very beneficial. And yeah, just just looking at Philly some some photos here online He was primarily a gretch guy, wasn't he? Yes, he was. Yeah, there's a picture of him on like a premier kid I that might have been a rental or something, but yeah, yeah, that's cool Man, I'll let some this I'm sure someone else will have more info on that type of stuff But yeah, sure. I don't want to go too far down that and so he played this at this point Well, so Philly. Yes, then then Roy Haynes. I mean, how would you break down? I know we're talking primarily about the new book and Philly Joe Jones, but how would how would you kind of boil down? Roy Haynes into that like you said Philly Joe Jones loved paradiddles. Yeah, what about Roy Haynes? How did that so the ism that I came up with for Roy Haynes? It's a phrase that people vocalize sometimes It's did it and did it and did it and did it which is essentially to he would do it as stick shots You know on the snare yeah, and then a kick drum and he would play it as a triplet that that come that that come that that come That go he loved to use that he loved to move it around the set He would play it also in different subdivisions and permutate it which basically means he would start it in different points in the measure So that that phrase for Roy Haynes is Probably he's definitely my top favorite jazz drummer if not one of the top Yeah, I've stifles listened and transcribed him since I was in high school. He was the first guy I really grabbed on to so he was I knew that was a thing he did a lot So it was a little easier to just write off be like yeah, this is the one I'm gonna do for him Yeah, absolutely, and he's 98 years old right now So lucky to go in lucky to have him around. Yeah. Have you gotten any feedback? Did he did he respond at all to your book? I don't think he's no. I don't think he's seen it yet. I'd love to I'd love to hear his thoughts on it though I mean, yeah, he's a he's absolutely a hero of mine and it's incredible too like how he's managed to You know stay relevant in every style of music basically since he started playing and he's also a fellow Bostonian I'm from Boston. So I yeah, I like that too. Yeah, absolutely Probably the last thing you want to hear as you've just finished this massive mega book is well, what's next? But but like yeah, yeah I have some other ideas what would be something that like that do you you would want to who's another drummer? Cuz obviously, you know, you want to keep the series going and all that stuff Who would be your next kind of drummer to attack? Yeah, I have a couple in mind And I also I love when people recommend them too. It's cool But yeah, I max Roach is definitely somebody and then another person I've been thinking about is Which would be a little bit different is Idris Muhammad and kind of come up with He has some isms within his grooves that he would use so I think it'd be interesting to Kind of dig into that a little bit. Yeah, that's another another version. So yeah, and then Bill Stewart He's another person who I love and I've thought about doing it with too But yeah, you know, I'm just juggling a few different ideas I got to talk more with Rob Wallace at Hudson music and we'll figure something out So yeah, I mean, it's a cool concept of books and that's one thing that I like about Just anything that's like like everything in the world has typically been done in some capacity but this is kind of a very unique idea and You know, I think that It's it stands out as being like, oh, that's really cool. I want to learn more about that How is the reception been since you've released it since it's you've been releasing the series It's been great. Actually, I was shocked and really happy to find out that Haines ism was Nominated the modern drummer readers poll. Yeah, best education product in 2022 Congrats. Thank you. It was I mean, I it was Crazy, I didn't expect it at all and I was on a list of people like John Riley and you know David Garibaldi and all of these people that I've looked up Dave DiCenzo for years It was like all of those names and then me You know, I'm like, this doesn't seem right, but well you deserve it for doing all the work And honestly, it's I think there's a little bit too of like those guys are icons and legends and and and known for being An author but for you being I mean you've got some books under your belt, but for being a Younger guy who's kind of new to that scene relatively. It's cool. And I'm glad they're they're showcasing What what's what's happening with it? Who ended up winning? I don't I don't know yet. Actually, I think they announced in September Wow, okay, so that's that's very fresh. That's yeah. Yeah, it's new I just just found out about it. I guess last month. So it's cool. Yeah. Yeah So I was looking on your website and and obviously we can talk more about the isms and stuff But I I as a you know dad of young kids was very interested in your Shapebeat series totally. Yeah, what's up with that because drum notation and music can be boiled down pretty simply To just shapes and yeah, this means this this means this How what's the whole what's the story with that? Yeah, this though. There's a funny backstory to this book actually So it'll be kind of a little bit of a sidestep, but I'll get into it So I used to teach kids a lot around the Boston area And I also at the time was studying with Gary Chafee who is a legend and was a great mentor for me Gary basically called me up one day and he was like my grandson Tirenin who's six years old Wants to learn how to play the drums. I don't Gary was like, I don't know what to do I don't know how to teach a six-year-old. He's like, I'm used to teaching Berkeley students and in above Yeah, so he's like, why don't you come over in my place and teach them lessons in my basement? And I was obviously pretty intimidated because it's Gary Chafee, but I'm like sure. Yeah, why not? Yeah, so basically I started teaching his grandkid And I had come up with this method because the shape beat method because I was noticing that You know, four-year-olds and five-year-olds were starting to you know, their parents wanted them to learn how to play drums And that's me. Yeah. Yeah, but they don't know, you know, if you think about it music notation It's it's basically fractions. It's math. It's a lot of a lot of things like that I'm like a little kid doesn't know what that is So but you know a four-year-old knows what a triangle is a four-year-old knows what a square is and a circle Yeah, so the shape beat method is essentially if you see a triangle, it's play the hi-hat if you see a square It's play the snare drum and if you see a circle, it's the bass drum And if two shapes are on top of each other you play them at the same time So I basically just boiled down the notation to That basic it, you know element So I was using the method with Gary's grandkid and he was kind of like, you know over my shoulder like What are you working on with him? But you know and he was he was awesome He was he basically was like man, this is really cool. Like I love this concept. You should put a book out And he was connected with Alfred music because he put out his books through them So he he essentially set the whole thing up introduced me to Alfred and that's how I put together the first book shape beats Wow, I mean as a dad of a four-year-old and a one-year-old but of a four-year-old who like likes to sit on the drums, but It's almost like this like well, let me show you how to do this and then there's just this Like going crazy. I don't want you to show me I could see setting this down and just kind of like walking away because like there's there's really this I mean, maybe it's just my side or little boys of like Someone else showing them something it's different when it's your dad You want to be just silly and crazy, but like yeah, I could see him figuring this out on his own And I will probably order it because that this seems like a perfect thing for that age I had a ton of success using it and I paired it with every section as a list of songs That work for those particular beats because that's another thing that you know kids want to play music So like the first song and a lot of people teach this is like we will rock you Which would be a circle circle in a square or base snare too many times. Yeah, every day Can we play this and it's like yeah, I guess so the shape beat stuff works great for that And yeah, I had a lot of success with it. I actually put out on my own Like kind of like a sequel to the shape beats method. It's called shape beats drum notation simplified That's also for adults because it was I was teaching adults and they They kind of got wind of a lot of my older students got wind of the shape beats method And they were like can we just use that they're like, you know, they just wanted to play music and they're like I'm 45 years old. I'm not looking to learn Notation can we just yeah, you know, yeah, and then some of my those students actually, you know We're like you you should make this book also for adults. So I did that as well. I have another one for Smart yeah, because it's daunting and I mean I've got a background And I went did drum lessons for years and I can read but when you get out of it You sort of like forget and then you look at a page of giant page of notation and you're like God, I just forget how to do this and yeah, it's it's nice to see that to get back into it So it's overwhelming all of the all of those are still available, right? Yeah purchase. Okay. Those are out. Yep. Good to know I'll link everything in the description and then talk about your book groove systems Yeah, so groove systems I've worked on for probably three or four years and it's kind of Taking the concept of you know, the book four-way coordination Marvin Dahlgren's book where You know, you have these Series of you know of notation that go for each of your limbs Essentially that you're combining in interesting ways. So what I did with groove systems is I picked ten styles of music and I transcribed, you know, let's say Afrobeat. That's one of the styles I transcribed the hi-hat patterns that I found in Afrobeat the snare patterns that I found in Afrobeat and the bass drum patterns and I labeled the hi-hat patterns ABC whatever snare patterns ABC bass drum patterns same type of thing and what what you can do with that is take You know hi hat a and combine it with hi hat with snare drum B and then run it through all the bass drum combination So it's a vocabulary method. That's supposed to accomplish two things. It helps with your coordination But it helps with coordination in specific styles of music Because one thing that I felt when I would work through some of the coordination books is like, oh, these are really interesting Combinations, but I can't use them in any musical setting per se. So I wanted to come up with a book where You know, you're killing two birds with one stone essentially Yeah, and I mean this obviously coming before the other ones I see this as a bit of a predecessor to the isms because you're also kind of looking at Purdy variations Gad Mozambique Allen's Afrobeat So you like to look at the the famous styles of drummers that people are familiar with Totally and break them down which I think yeah, why not, you know, it's we all like these people We all want to know how they play why dance around it, you know, yeah, and it's funny to the Going back to your first question is like how I came up with the ism concept Well, the to me the groove systems book has so much information in it, which is fantastic But sometimes I you know, I would step back and be like this is a little bit. It's overwhelming There's a lot of stuff and when I came up with the idea for isms. I basically was like I want to do the opposite I want to have the least amount of information in here or the you know, the smallest amount of vocabulary but Utilize that vocabulary in the largest amount of ways if that makes sense, you know milk milk it for everything Yeah, because I think because I've never really seen a book do that So that was I thought an interesting idea. No and it kind of goes to the concept of like how drums can be Very very simple if you look at it just a paradiddle But the amount that you can pull out of like like it's just like how you know the the two four kind of money beat You can play that and just be fine You can play that for the rest of your life But how you can just do so many things from a simple concept literally to fill up, you know, 250 page book or whatever Yeah, we I also think that's where the creativity comes from totally. I think too. It's it's you know, it's one thing I always say this with my students. It's one thing to like be able to play a paradiddle It's like, you know, whatever you can play the sticking but to make it feel good and to use it musically and in the right moments Is not easy to do so the whole point of this is You know to make it so you have to repeat this thing a ton of times more times than you probably want to But in doing so you're gonna get a good grasp of it and it's gonna be more musical and it's gonna sound cleaner It's just you know the same thing you take, you know You teach a student like a basic eighth note rock beat and they're like this is easy I'm like well try playing that on a recording session for four minutes, you know Exactly feel good and in time and you know, it's not easy and that's a room full of people staring at you Yeah, if you get off your yeah, yeah, the best drummers in the world can make a simple beat just Feel amazing and you know, you want to hear that for hours. That's yeah, so yeah, it's like Steve Jordan I mean, there's another ism right there or something simple. You can just feel the way he's playing and Totally and it's specifically him, but it's on paper. It's probably not that hard, but it's very cool Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you Make your living as a working drummer Is there any tips or tricks or maybe things that people? You know don't think of if they if they want to commit if they want to go from working You know a nine to five and gigging on the weekends and they want to take those steps to to make this more of a career You know, maybe some things that they wouldn't think of or they should you know Like things that you've learned over the years of doing this. Yeah to make it a career Yeah, well first thing I'd say is don't give up like if you really want to be doing it It took me so long and I and I did other jobs I thought a lot and I worked at a coffee shop and I lived in LA for a bit The first job I had out there was working at Halloween club selling Halloween costumes and you know, so there's a lot of ups Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of ups and downs and it's it's a grind and you kind of just got to keep going But I'd been asked this before I came up with a thing I called it's kind of cheesy But my rafts system are a FT s and it's like those And they stand like our stands for reliability You know, I think that's seems obvious to a lot of people but not a lot of people are reliable Especially in the musical world. You got to show up with all your gear You got to be prepared for the gig and then the the a of rafts is attitude You have to you have to have a good attitude. You you want, you know And I remember people telling me this when I was younger and I didn't really buy into it But when you're touring on the road living with people if you have a bad attitude It doesn't matter how good you are at your instrument. No one's gonna want to go on tour with you Yeah, it sounds miserable. It's awful to be around a person like that. Yeah, you so you've got to be you know You got to be easy to get along with and you got to be excited to be there and then the F of rafts is feel In my opinion, you know You know, there are drummers out there who maybe have all the chops in the world But when they ask to play a groove and make it feel good, maybe they're not the best at that In my opinion, if you want to make a living as a drummer I would focus more on feel than any of that other stuff and then the T is time like keeping good time Which connects with feel as well But you know that that takes a you know a lot of time to work on but the I think one of the best ways to get better at that is one practice with a metronome to as I mentioned earlier film all of your gigs Because you'll see oh shoot. I rush when I do this or I drag Why am I dragging there and you know, that's gonna help get your time better And then the last one the s you could call social media or networking. Yeah, unfortunately in this day and age, right? It's like, you know, it's Not really my personally my favorite thing to do but you you got to do it, you know got to have a website Yeah, go out to shows and meet people, you know network It's a it's a kind of a dirty word But it doesn't have to be because you know, I love going out to see music So make an effort to do that and it's a good way to meet people in the music scene that you're in Yeah, and make it fun. I mean I agree completely where I Get it why I feel it to where I mean I have to work on social media stuff to promote the podcast Mm-hmm all the time every day every night There's something but it's also like I've met some of the coolest people in the world and I like had the chance to like have Oh Interact with someone I never would have before and I mean like I don't know you probably found me through Instagram originally or something Yeah, totally a hundred percent. I've been listening to the podcast for a while Yeah, and it's it's because of this and it leads to that and it's mm-hmm Oh, they seem like a cool person and let's connect so so you know I agree that it can be a bummer But like like you said make the best of it go to the shows make the connections I mean again I have people that I've been friends with for five years now because of doing this total and it's incredible and it's Thanks to that so yeah, and that is the beauty of the social media stuff is like personally like I love Drum podcasts and I listen to them all the time me to I still you know discovered yours I listened to the big fat five podcast working drummer podcast. I'd hit that all of those I did that was my first I heard that was mine too. Yeah. Yeah mine too. Yeah, which I still don't really know his name I think it's Dave, but I believe yeah, I think so But there's some amazing, you know, and then you get to hear you know I love hearing from drummers that I you know idolize. I love hearing their thoughts on things So it's a real yeah, it's a cool platform for sure. So yeah, yeah And and one thing just to jump back with with how you've categorized this raps Reliability attitude feel time and social media the brain of a teacher is like alright I'm noticing that I'm doing something and I'm having these things happen. How can I? Put this into a simple way to then teach it to other people Yeah, clearly you've got the brain for this and I think that's important to be able to it's It's fine if people don't have that brain, but if they Can receive that and learn from it, but clearly you like to kind of like put things in a nice orderly Box for people to get taught. I think that's really cool and very powerful. Oh, thank you, man I appreciate well my mom's a teacher. I think for some reason that's I probably got that from her You know, it's how I like to I like to organize things like that. So yeah, it's helpful I mean there's all kinds of things that you can the the acronyms and things that are very helpful to remember and Help you keep things in track, but so let's talk about your work with your band-band I mean you guys are you guys are awesome. So ga 20 I heard about you through Bruce Becker originally. I was trying to put my finger on it But so you multiple things to talk about here, but you have worked with Bruce Becker He turns me on to you guys just in passing saying that he was working with you and You're the real deal. I mean you're awesome. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Well first of all I want to say I love Bruce Becker and he's one of the best teachers I've ever studied with and I'm not he didn't tell me to do this but in all honest honesty like his his technique lessons Changed the way I play drums and if anyone is listening and you want to be able to relax while you play Go study with Bruce Becker. He's a guru and yeah, so just wanted to say that because yeah The guy's a funny guy. He's a funny dude, too. Yeah, he's great. I love him. Yeah, but yeah He so I'm glad he introduced, you know GA 20. I appreciate that. Yeah, we're GA 20 is we're relatively new band We you know that the band is made up of three people Pat Faraday Matthew Stubbs and myself those two guys started the band in 2018 And then I joined like shortly after that And it's basically like a Chicago. We call ourselves like heavy blues. It is yeah inspired by Chicago icons like How dog Taylor and stuff like that So it's it's an interesting lineup too because it's two guitarists and myself and one of the guitarists things So we don't have a bass player. It's you know the way they do it though We're pretty loud Basically the drums are set up in the middle and then to my right We have Matt and Matt has two guitar amps that are set up and both of those are miked and on at all times Wow, and then to my left Pat has the same setup two guitar amps miked at all times So I'm getting like blasted by man guitar. Thankfully. They're both incredible guitarist So yeah fun, but yeah, we pack a punch when you see us live for sure That's awesome. The the use of I did that on a recording session once I was working as an engineer on it, but my my old boss was the one who Set this all up, but I did the recording of some of it But it was five guitar amps in the studio through one So it'd be like a Mesa or Mesa. Yeah, three Marshall's a Vox all this at one time and the power of combining multiple amps Yeah, through like a Y splitter or whatever you're gonna do exactly is like Very cool, so I'm sure live. That's even more impact. Yeah, it's sweet and and we have it figured out where You know, they'll say you we don't have a bass player, but they cover the bass parts They'll trade off song to song. Yeah, who's covering the low end and who's covering the upper register. Yeah It's a blast man and Pat plays slide guitar also So we have that element to it and yeah, we were we are on the road basically non-stop We're you know coming up this fall I think we're out all of September October and November just all over the country and we were in Europe twice this year already We just came back from Italy recently and so it's yeah, it's crazy. We're really busy. Wow. That's awesome, but it's good. You're Able to like use I guess whatever downtime you have to like work on books and drumming and and Teaching I mean is that do you work on the book on the road or yeah? I did I did work on the book on Philly isn't quite a bit while it was on the road, you know listening transcribing and writing In whatever downtime I had unfortunately, I you know, I still teach a little bit but because my schedule so nuts I can't really teach as much. I do some virtual lessons. Yeah, but yeah, I try to make the most of Any downtime I have I also have some side my own side projects that I that I do stuff with too So cool like other bands and things around town. Yeah, well, I have a I have a trio under my own name It's called the Tim Carmen trio. We actually just released our second record It's out via f-spot records in Los Angeles. It's so the concept for that group It's it's a soul jazz group. It's like organ Guitar and drums kind of like a Jimmy Smith Big John Patton Hmm type of type of thing so sure and I get to use some of you know Some of the concepts that I work on with Philly ism and Hanes ism I can use those in that setting a little bit too, which is nice Cool. Did you go to school like college for drumming or yeah? Well, yeah, I went to I went to Hamilton College, which is an upstate New York And I got a degree in music and history there Okay, so that degree in history definitely helped me with the writing aspect and then after Hamilton I went to Berkeley just for two years and I studied I was doing the performance major, but I Essentially started gigging and it was too expensive and so I I left and just started teaching and gigging full-time pretty much So it's almost cooler to drop out than to finish, you know Everyone's like on the fourth year is like dude. Don't say that. Yeah. No, it's I mean, it's a crazy place Yeah, it really is I looked at it to go to school I ended up going for like audio engineer video stuff, but I went to Berkeley and looked and you know, it was awesome Just didn't go that route. I mean, yeah, but it all works out So totally I mean you can there's a lot to be learned at that school and I hear mixed things from different people But I think you can get out of it what you put into it for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, awesome Tim Well, this is like a really cool episode man. It's it's cool to talk about like a Younger guy who's writing all these books who's a working drummer who's out there doing it Who's using his spare time, which is not very much to create books for the drum community That's kind of in a history, you know studying the great sort of thing. It's it's pretty cool. You're obviously a very busy guy So I appreciate your time with this. Oh, where can people find you? Let's talk about your social website all that stuff Yeah, you can you can go to my website, which is timcarmendrums.com You can go to my Instagram, which is T Carmen drums and then head to the GA 20 Pages well on any of those pages you can find my tour schedule. I'm quite busy on the road So definitely come out and say hello Yeah, yeah for sure if you come to Cincinnati, I'm gonna keep an eye on your oh, man We'll we'll be in Cincinnati soon actually. Okay, cool. Yeah, then we got to connect me and I'll be awesome I will I need I'm looking for literally any excuse to get out of the house and not be around kids Yeah, we're gonna be playing You know that place motor. Oh, yeah, I used to play at motor all the time So I know there's a place across the street from it. That's like a word theater. We're playing woodward theater That's what coming up like in a in a couple weeks I'll put it on my calendar and I will be there But kind of a side question is do you know coal mine records at all if you're out in Cincinnati? Why does that I'm not sure if I'm familiar with it so it's current record label. It's a record label That's what a GA 20 is is on coal mine and I have another project coming out next year That's on coal mine and they're based in Love Land, Ohio. So oh, yeah I've heard of them and don't they have a record shop or something. Yeah, Pladrum records. Yeah, that's right. Okay Shout out to them that places. Pladrum's awesome. If you have to go out there Yeah, if you like it buying and shopping for records check out pladrum for sure Yeah, I've been meaning to go Loveland's not super far, but there's the Loveland castle if you're ever around there. There's yeah a castle you can go I just did a photo shoot at that castle. Okay. Yeah, I have a project coming out next year called parlor greens is the name of the group It's it's a trio with Jimmy James from Del Vaughan Lamar organ trio and this guy Adam scone on organ That's gonna be good. I'm looking forward to that next year on coal mine records. It's coming out Very cool. Awesome. I'll have to do more, you know, I'll find him on social media and everything I mean, we're both we live like 20 minutes. We're 20 minutes apart. Yeah, are you in Boston now or where are you? Yeah, I I live in Western mass. I'm in Springfield, Massachusetts. So like an hour and a half West of Boston. Okay. Gotcha. Very cool. Yeah. Well, you're always on the road. So it kind of doesn't matter where you Are so Awesome. All right. Well, I will put everything for Tim down in the description be sure to check out Philiasms, which is the latest through Hudson music and find in the description I'll put all of his stuff down there and I'll be sure to come to your show man at the Woodward and Hang out there. So Tim Carmen. Thank you for being here, buddy. Man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it