Peter Erskine: Oops mp3

I remember trying to figure out what in the hell he was playing...very tasty stuff! I like the short, to the point drum intro.

Oops

I think Steve Smith put this on one of his earlier videos, as to how he played it when he was with Steps Ahead. The main groove was just a 5 beat pattern repeated (2+3). Pretty cool tune! I also enjoyed "Pools" from the album called Steps Ahead. Great playing by Erskine on all of them!

Mike

I love that tune. Thanks!

Agreed, what a great tune. I also have the SA Live Tokyo '86 version w Smith also, which is great AW, & a little brighter in tempo...

Ahhhhh...Ersko's playing on there is like kickin' back on a mediterranean/island beach, light-aqua-colored clear water, toes in sand, cool breeze, umbrella overhead, sippin' a 'bev of choice'...[& every N&T the natives will run up on ya or you'll get shanghai'd on a pirate ship] [img]wink.gif[/img] ...

Or a convertable ride in the mountains of Wyoming/Montana/Dakotas... [img]cool.gif[/img]

...I "wax romantic-poetic"... [img]graemlins/sure.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img] ;c)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 20, 2004 01:12 PM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

Yeah, Steve Smith explains it and plays it live in Steve Smith Part II. Very cool. The main groove is basically a grouping of five sixteenth notes. It sounds particularly weird because he's accenting the fifth stroke on the left hand: R-L-R-L-L, repeated. For a further explanation on "fives," see Steve Holmes' video [img]wink.gif[/img]

Thanks for posting that ... fun to listen to that song again! That album "Modern Times" was always one of my favorites; Mike Mainieri write some great tunes. Steps Ahead was a cool band ...

The story behind that intro: we were rehearsing for the album in some barn in Woodstock, NY, and at the first playing of "Oops," I was pretty much just playing time with backbeats on 2 + 4 ... Mike commented that the beat I was playing sounded and seemed "too ordinary" ... so, I came up with "well, how about something like this?" (the repeating pattern of 5s) which came about/was inspired by

1. a Don Ellis rhythmic idea (where he uses repeating groups of 5s within a 7-based meter!)
2. it seemed like something Bill Bruford might have done! (King Krimson had just played a concert in New York, and we were all pretty impressed, as I recall)

To be honest, I didn't think that it was such a clever solution and thought that Mike might regard it as a tad too obvious ... but, he liked it, and we cut the tune shortly afterwards ...

Cheers,

PE

PETER
[img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 22, 2004 02:35 PM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

I loved that album.

I saw Steps play when they came into Cleveland (twice?).

Peter...I wanted that Gray Yamaha Recording Custom Kit!...I don't know, just something totally cool about gray Yamahas. [img]wink.gif[/img]

You were very nice in talking with me and the other drummers.

Your style and finesse was a big influence on me.....thank you.

I've never heard 5s groove so deep!

Peter, when you play that, are you ghosting the spaces on the snare? If so, are you playing it like this:

RLRLL RLRLL RLRLL RLRLL

where the last L of the 5 is accented for the back beat?

Or are you leaving the spaces open? Sorry, listening on a computer an can't hear all the detail.

Thanks!

Danny

Danny,

Exactly ... RLRLL RLRLL, etc.

Kind of like a 3-dimensional chess board, keeping the bigger-picture backbeat in mind while plugging away at the 5's, and so on ... this kind of stuff can make music-making really interesting and fun.

The other reason it works is that it only goes on for a (relatively) short while ... provides a nice bit of tension-release ... a few more bars of that, and everyone would wind up hating it.

[img]wink.gif[/img]

PE