The beat goes on, but who really cares?

This article ran in thursday's paper:	
	Aren't you tired of hearing drummers playing it so safe, so straight?
	When John Bonham drank those 40 shots of vodka that ended his 
life in September 1980, little did we know that innovative, flamboyant 
drumming would die with him.
	Keith Moon had already died in '78.  Ginger Baker is technically 
alive somewhere but has been all but invisible except for the Cream 
reunion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in '93.
	These were drummers whose sound defined a band; drummers who were 
just as important as the singer or guitarist.  Not just some guy slapping 
along with the beat.
	Moon and Bonham were just as distinctive a part of the sound of 
The Who and Led Zeppelin as Pete Townshend and Jimmy Page.  So was Ringo 
Starr and his work on Beatles tracks such as Rain, A Day in the Life and 
Ticket to Ride.
	Name a drummer past 1980 who was that influential in his band's 
sound as a drummer.  Stewart Copeland's work in the Police is the only 
thing that comes close.  Neil Peart is at the heart of Rush, but his work 
as lyricist and conceptualist is equally as important as his drumming.  
Max Weinberg's work in the E Street Band stood out at times - check the 
fade-out of Be True - but Bruce Springsteen kept trying to rein him in.  
Same with Stan Lynch's work in Tom Petty's Heartbreakers; you have to go 
the B side Casa Dega or to T-Bone Burnett's Stunned to find Stan cutting 
loose.
	And those are the drummers with any discernable character at all.
Keeping time
	Pearl Jam changed drummers about two years ago. Did anyone 
notice? Does it matter, really, who's keeping time for Soul Asylum or Goo 
Goo Dolls - both of whom switched drummers recently? Too often they're 
just interchangeable and merely competent.
	Even in those shows where a drummer makes a spectacle of himself 
- - remember Motley Crue's Tommy Lee flying high overhead on an airborn 
drum kit, dressed only on a jockstrap, beating out a drum solo? - what 
they're actually playing isn't interesting enough to keep you glued.
	More and More, drummers are little more than time keepers - for 
those groups who even bother to have them. It's easier to buy a beat 
machine than pay a drummer to imitate one.
	"You're seeing the machine work its way through music. Welcome to 
the digital domain, my friend," said Mickey Hart, ex-Grateful Dread 
drummer and a rhythm fanatic whose new album, Mystery Box, comes out this 
month on Rykodisc. "Get used to it. That's all I can say to you.
	"What you're hearing is clock time. That's what people are moving 
to because it's efficient, not necessarily reaching your innermost 
feelings and making you dance," Hart said. "It's because it's even and 
regular. It's become normal. When people hear the other stuff, they think 
it's sloppy. It's too human."
	It's all about the perfect beat. Not the beat with heart.
	"I was thinking about it recently. It has become so embedded now 
in the psyche. Studios all over and bands all over go right for this," 
Hart said. "They don't realize what they're missing. But it's hard to do 
the other one right. Most people can't do it. So this is a surefire way 
of getting your groove. You just don't have an idividual marking on it. 
You've got the same thumbprint as 40,000 other people for this particular 
groove."  By Mark Brown  Orange County Register

Luke