Vinnie Colaiuta on the cover of Modern Drummer?!

Next up: What the heck is wrong with Modern Drummer Magazine??

When's the last time Vinnie has been featured on the cover? I have years and years of back issues, but none of them with Vinnie on the cover. WTF!? What's the last issue he was featured in anyways? You'd think it was when he was with Sting, no?

They go on to feature guys like Tre Cool, Lars Ulrich, etc when Vinnie is playing his ass off with some MAJOR names and 100x the drummer than most of these fools. The only excuse I can think of is that he is way to busy for a feature, but still!

I'm going to write them.

I think they go for the mainstream drummers just because more people know Lars then Vinnie.

How many people would buy the magazine with Vinnie then how many with Travis Barker on the cover? It's sad to say but I bet more with Travis just because every 12 to 24 year old knows who he is.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 27, 2004 10:34 PM: Message edited by: Kurt R ]</font>

Good point, Chris. Vinnie was featured in 1987 and 1993. He's overdue, IMO. I thought I read somewhere that the most featured drummers were Neil Peart and Dave Weckl, with 4 covers each.

I've been reading MD for almost 20 years, and I think the quality of the interviews and product reviews has steadily declined over the years. It seems that you only get a couple of interviews per year that you really want to read. The majority of the drummers featured really don't seem to have much to add. They are just whatever drummers happen to be playing with the popular contemporary acts.

On the other hand, I can see how it would be difficult/boring to have Vinnie once a year, Weckl once a year, etc. and just keep rotating through a list of the top 10 or 15 drummers.

I am especially disappointed in the product reviews in recent years. They read more like Guitar Center ads than honest, objective, legitimate reviews. It's a different roster of writers these days over at MD.

That's one reason I hang on to my back issues so closely....I'd rather go back and read Narada's interview from 1987 than most of the issues of this decade.

Hey, mja61:
Vinnie's was on MD cover in 82 too.

yeah, I agree that the product reviews are just marketing fluff and essentially useless now.

Vinnie has had 3 MD covers:

November 1982

May 1987

October 1993

It used to bother me about the MTV posers getting the majority of the covers, but now I've grown[?!] to understand that this is a business & it's a business tactic.

Having these guys on the cover is understandable...but they should at least have the "secondary" big-names on the cover [right after that fact] be that of the real groundbreakers in the field, & also the active working guys, like the session-&-touring-guns, with a smaller but yet still-substantial photo of them overlayed on the larger cover shot...[or are they still doing that?!;c)]

If anything, look at it like, someday, some kid who lstens to nothing but eMpTyV clone schlock may chance stuble upon one of the other articles & be exposed to Weckl or Vinnie... [img]wink.gif[/img]

Actually, I think it's meant to be, that there's a ["dumbed-down-"] "majority mob," & then the "hipped-out underground" [img]wink.gif[/img] ... this prob actually works both IN "our" favor [AWA against it...the "Ultimate & Perennial Paradoxical Irony" as it were]...yin & yang... [img]smile.gif[/img] / [img]frown.gif[/img] [-"theatre masks"] :cp

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 28, 2004 02:56 PM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

Quote:

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Originally posted by neber_dude:
[QB]I wouldn't mind so much MD interviewing these new, one-hit-wonder MTV guys if they actually had something to say, but each interview seems to follow the "started drumming on my mum's pots & pans...played along with Nirvana in my bedroom... yeah, the new album's going fine...[instert big name drum company] are the best..." blah blah blah routine.[QB]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hahahaha! That sounds like me! Now I have to work on inserting that big name drum copmpany.
Oh yeah, and a cover feature too! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I wouldn't mind so much MD interviewing these new, one-hit-wonder MTV guys if they actually had something to say, but each interview seems to follow the "started drumming on my mum's pots & pans...played along with Nirvana in my bedroom... yeah, the new album's going fine...[instert big name drum company] are the best..." blah blah blah routine.

Yet I find most MD interviews are great, and compared to other interviews in magazines such as Rhythm, are very informative and at least last more then two pages. The Bill Stewart interview was really good, and for some reason the last David Garibaldi interview still stands out for me as being one of the best interviews I've ever read.

Duh! How could I have forgotten about Vinnie's 1982 issue??? I don't have that one, but it falls under "common knowlege" for drummers! I've seen that interview posted online....it's a good read.

Well said, Derek and Neber.

My humble opinion is that MD's "heyday" staff of writers and contributors (the usual 1980's names....W.F. Miller, Robyn Flans, Roy Burns, etc.) served the magazine much better than the current roster.