Aye, Charlie is and will always be a thoroughly unique player.
One more aspect of his style is evident when you watch him play: Charlie never plays the back-beat note on the hi-hat phrasing. On a standard 4/4, he'll play all three full notes in the bar but not the one that lands on the snare. To sing it would be:
Hi-hat
Hi-hat
Hi-hat
Snare
I've come across a few players who do that and it was always my thinking that they're self-taught players, because as a teacher myself, I would have stopped the pupil and asked what the fuck they thought they were doing. Play all four notes, and if the tempo offers a little more space to create 'air' then play all eighth notes and play them evenly and consistently. Charlie's been doing his thing since day one. That's several decades of a bad habits to eliminate for the teacher, but in Charlie's case he has nothing to learn from any teachers out there: he set out with a style and like a cute little furry animal in hibernation, he refuses to change it, update it, approach it differently, or try to do it 'properly'.
Because Charlie wasn't interested in doing anything by the book. Look at the size of his kit? It's a standard four piece: snare, rack tom, floor tom, kick. His tuning is also insane using half tones across the toms and his kick is dead with a pillow inside and a port-hole in the centre. These are all the same tricks jazzers use for small clubs. The little kit in the corner, trying to keep the SPL in check and the dynamic fluid. Most of the time they're flipping triplets on the ride cymbal at high tempos and the roar of a quality lightweight jazz ride cymbal (it's very hard to find 'the right one' for most players) which is essentially what Charlie's doing up on his little riser surrounded by clear perspex with his set list written on in dry-board marker, his hanger for his jacket behind him, and his open/closed sign above that again. That little round-badge Gretsch kit is apparently on the market for sale just now. Charlie's Missus says she doesn't want to have Charlie's things around as it's too sad for her broken heart.
I doubt Charlie has more than two or three kits. He's been playing that Gretsch since the mid-to late sixties, rarely changes the heads, and replaces his crash cymbals when they're so fucked up they can't be used any more. His choice is Ufip, an Italian brand who produce awesome cymbals but who aren't exactly a market leader. Jazz players use them mostly, it's in the the way they're made: high quality metals first pressed into rough shape and then lathed down to as thin as possible without cracking it. The objective is to get that 'roar' of undertone matched with the 'bark' of crashing it, the decay takes like two seconds and is gone. Playing a double-time triplet shuffle gives a 'wash' under the bass line. I use their 14'' hi-hats from around 1965 but mine was showing a small crack which I knew would only get bigger if I let it, so I took it to a metal-shop and took off around 3/4 of an inch from the outer rim and then gently sanded the finished new outer rim. They've been with me ever since and everyone fucking LOVES them.
Charlie's main crash is a fourteen inch Ufip Chinese cymbal mounted upside down/in reverse. He says he goes through one every two years or so, but will always wait until it's breathing its last before signing it and giving it up for auction/charity/collector or whatever. The characteristic of the china is a short and loud 'pash' that dies almost instantly. His ride is a flat ride, no bell in the centre; very clean sound, has different characteristics to a regular bell ride. Soft, very clean, it can be heard under the crash wash. Then he'll maybe mount a third small crash over the floor tom to add colour and choice. For many of his last gigs he took to using a huge crash with these big huge gaping holes in, a very loud cymbal but rarely used unless it's for the outro 'rall'.
He had the Gretsch kit serviced one time after a tour. He went with the kit (he doesn't like to leave her alone, she goes EVERYWHERE with him) and the drum tech was removing his old heads (likely a few decades old heads) and out fell some colourful party confetti. The tech looks at Charlie, Charlie looks back and deadpan says: '
Mick's first wedding, 1971, the after party in Highgate' without missing a beat. Hilarious bloke to be around but he doesn't suffer fools gladly - not in the slightest.
I'm playing a Gretsch Catalina series, birch, five piece, a choice of five different snares, and a range of around thirty cymbals between here and Dublin. The Gretsch is a beauty, most of them are, I've never heard a 'bad' Gretsch kit ever. Mine was built around 1997 in the USA, was shipped to Finland for use at Dunker's Blues Club (where I was house drums) and wen the club closed they signed it over to me for an endorsement lasting only two years. So I wore the t-shirt, talked them up, handed out cards, offered it to two jazz/blues clubs for a few months until I had space for it, and it's paid for itself multiple times over. now it's here in my lounge area. It makes me happy just looking at her.
Tonight she'll be used at the studio laying more tracks for this American/Finnish composer I've been working with. The engineer has some radical ideas and I always let him design the mic inputs and balancing because I'm using ONLY plastic brushes for this band sound. My cymbals (Medina Series Chinese design, very light long sustain, machine lathed and hand-hammered, I drape them with Christmas style chains of little 7mm balls that tinkle like the rain - in fact, Erkki calls my sound 'the wet drums' and they came with that cheap set I bought last winter) but you can also see that all of my cymbals are facing 'away' from me rather than the standard toward or flat style. This means I have to lift higher to get to the central bell but while doing so, I create a 'wash' that roars under the bass-lines. Sizes are:
20x20 kick
5x4 snare
10x10 rack tom (not used for this gig)
12x12 rack tom (as illustrated)
14x14 floor tom
Medina Regular/Light series cymbals, China
14 hi-hats
16 crash
20 ride
Sabian Signature 'Saturation' series
17 crash/ride
No muting, the entire spread is wide open, lots of sustain, they sing very well with the plastic brushes. These I formed myself from a pair I bought twenty-odd years ago. I opened the tube sections, removed the weights, shortened the hand-grip, shortened the brush length, and Jesus-taped them back together. They sound un-fucking-believable and Erkki makes me sound like John Bonham. The singer mentioned last week that one drummer pal of his heard a few of our tracks, loved my drumming, said he could hear me channeling Bonham and asked what rig I was using. Mark said it's a small jazz cocktail kit by Yamaha, then showed him a photo. He asks what kind of sticks does he use? Mark says: 'none, he plays only with brushes due to my tinnitus and his spine'.
Dude apparently rolled over laughing.
Have to say, if it were me hearing someone make that sound with that gear? I'd be blown away. That doesn't really happen often. But I'm having so much fun with these tracks I can't imagine doing it any other way. So a lot like Charlie in my own stubbornness and the will to find the 'right' sound for the right songs. I can take my time too, as the songs I've finished I finished with several various takes he can choose from, or simply go with one full take of live drums.
It's a challenge, yes. It was hard at the beginning, yes. Over time it got easier and I began to play with the 'idea' of this sound, trying to conjour as many dynamics and and feels/grooves out of it all. But in general I'm extremely happy with what I've put down and it'll be even more fun mixing after a few overdubs of simple percussion parts.
Every drummer has to find their place in the music. Sometimes they simply can't. That's why drummers and bassists come and go. Each duo has to be able to gel seamlessly and play off each other as well as into each other. Lio and I go back twenty-odd years. His style and mine are quite different but we do have some common ground in sonic terms. We both have excellent hearing (drums can damage the ears quite badly) and it seems that over the years we've both weathered well and kept most of our hearing range - no tinnitus either. The objective now is in trying to replicate the sound we created in the studio with what we're going to do on stage. As the drum booth is tiny, I use a small amount of reverb and use only three mics for the whole rig: two ribbon tapes at 1100 and 1500 and one Shure SM58 in the kick port. Three mics, but a massive sound when played just right.
I'll have to use overheads for live shows - not for volume, but rather for additional spread and a touch of reverb. Large halls would be mic-ed differently, smaller rooms I can manage myself.
So Charlie had his way of doing things.
I have mine, but I'm still wide open to suggestions.
There are drums and there are drummers - I play songs, not 'the drums'.
I like my parts to elucidate the lyrical content and the meandering guitar parts Erkki creates, kind of like Robert Fripp's style of pushing notes until they're out of pitch with the song itself. Erkki's a jazz man at heart, so he knows what I'm looking for and how to achieve it. When the tracks are ready I'll post them to a few friends via email. You're on that list, Cap'n. As are the rest of the gang on here.
Man, but music truly is a gift.
It would suddenly 'roll' as much as rock. I hear a 'fattening' effect on their liveplaying.