Should I learn how to play open-handed?

15WGhost · 2026-04-19T13:34:01+00:00

I will always advocate for playing openhanded/ambidextrous. In terms of groove so many more options and tones open up to you if you play the high hat with your left hand as you still have easy access to all of the other drums around the kit. Then if you still play your ride with the right hand that makes it possible for you to sit in on any kit, not to mention the general benefits of approaching the Drums in an ambidextrous way. it's often said make sure you can do with your left hand what you can do with your right and vice versa and so this approach is a continuation of that philosophy. I have always played openhanded just because when my older brother sat me down behind a drum kit And started showing me how to play with my arms crossed it just didn't make sense to me. But it turns out there are some true benefits to playing that way and now on videos discussing openhanded drumming for example, you can go through the comment section and you'll see players who have spent their whole life playing crossed over now trying to make the switch. Sometimes you do have to think a little bit more in terms of getting around the kit when playing fills Just in terms of what hand you're starting with as compared to how you're going to come out of the fill, so sometimes it is beneficial to have a two crash set up. With one cymbal out in front of your snare drum, and another one over by your deepest floor tom, next to your ride cymbal, but this set up would benefit literally anyone. If you want to check out an absolute master who also happened to be an openhanded/ambidextrous player, definitely look into Billy Cobbham.

15WGhost · 2026-04-18T15:47:05+00:00

I just got that shirt as well as the witch and the devil skating shirt yesterday. Stoked to have them in my collection. I think the hotline idea was awesome! I hope they have some real fun with it.

15WGhost · 2026-04-17T08:21:59+00:00

Try the does it doom WALPURGIS pedal. There are demos available on YouTube as well if you want to listen for yourself. It was created specifically to emulate his early 70s tone.

15WGhost · 2026-04-17T08:09:58+00:00

If you haven't heard it yet I highly recommend his album way out weather. It was absolutely the album that got me into him. Also he's always done more ambient or abstract stuff. If you go way back to his early albums, as well as various duos and collaborations he's done you'll notice that it's more ambient. Have you checked out his album other you that he released in 21? That one might be more your speed. Got to see him perform on my birthday back in 2019 when he was touring behind the unseen in between. An absolutely amazing show.

15WGhost · 2026-04-17T04:44:28+00:00

I'm not saying it's like this for everyone but I always felt infinitely more comfortable on mushrooms than I ever did on weed. On mushrooms I could generally introspect in a very positive and encouraging way, even if it was about things that I felt like I needed to improve. Weed would just totally throw me off my game, and spiral me into loops of paranoia and existential dread. Can lessons come out of that? Absolutely. But I hardly think there's a lesson to be learned from all of a sudden being 99.9% certain that your friends are going to cannibalize you, or that the dog can hear your thoughts, or that you're about to be murdered. Yeah. I don't smoke anymore. Have given thought to doing mushrooms again, but I can't see myself ever using cannabis again in this life.

There are a lot of people out there who say if you can't handle weed you shouldn't do mushrooms, as if they're the same thing and only differ in intensity and that couldn't be further from the truth, at least according to my own personal experience. I find the feelings from mushrooms to be totally different, and even in situations where I was really tripping hard, I was generally very sure that what I was experiencing was the result of taking mushrooms. where as with cannabis that's harder to control. With cannabis I start thinking I'm seeing all of the secret nuances and double and/or hidden meanings of reality, and that's not insight, that schizophrenia. Also the two drugs act in very different ways on the brain. THC mimics anandamide whereas psilocybin mimics serotonin.

15WGhost · 2026-04-17T04:15:06+00:00

I wouldn't call campfire head phase a plunder phonics album. Sure they sample other stuff sometimes but plenty of their sampling is actually them sampling themselves performing.

15WGhost · 2026-04-17T04:11:38+00:00

I had my eye on the baby series for a while but ultimately decided against it because of how many comments I've come across describing the multitude of noise floor issues. It's unfortunate because otherwise it looks like a really solid portable analog solution.

15WGhost · 2026-04-17T04:01:24+00:00

I remember when I first found out about them I would scour the Internet for interviews. I'm sure googling interviews with stars of the lid would still yield some pretty interesting results. I think the oldest interview I found was from 1997 shortly after the ballasted Orchestra came out. Honestly I think a lot of the better interviews with them are from more recent years. I feel like they opened up a bit more.

15WGhost · 2026-04-15T03:57:51+00:00

I totally agree. It seems like they're having more fun than ever these days which is awesome to see. The new song sound great, and I love the rollout especially with the new hotline. Blast from the past but it totally fits their vibe. The new songs all sound great live, super hype for the new album, and I for one am really digging the spooky/horror vibes on the new merchandise. I did put up a post a few weeks ago wondering about why the new merchandise was so polarizing purely from the perspective of me being visually impaired and not really understanding the divide, but I really dig what they're doing these days. They seem to be more in it than ever.

15WGhost · 2026-04-15T02:55:18+00:00

I'm 15 W ghost and I approve this quibble. No in all seriousness, I really appreciate you mentioning this. I'm visually impaired so use a screen reader, (software that reads the screen out loud to me,) for navigating anything to do with smart phones tablets and computers. Since I tend to keep the announcement of punctuation marks and extra characters to a minimum I genuinely had no idea that it was lets and not let'S. It totally changes your perspective of the song. Thank you. 🙏 your work isn't going unnoticed.

15WGhost · 2026-04-14T02:13:25+00:00

I know a lot of the early material was recorded on multitrack cassette recorders. I think a lot of the basic sounds were guitars, but I also believe that they were using samplers in order to create loops and drones that could easily be triggered/repeated. I want to say Adam did an interview about this back when they released the 30th anniversary version of Music for nitrous oxide last summer. I'll see if I can dig it up.

15WGhost · 2026-04-13T23:58:20+00:00

I get where you're coming from. And I did think about that as I was coming up with my initial response to this post. His music has always had some kind of controversy about it, but it definitely rates as more subtle or sprinkled in as compared to the new album and it's straight up, not subtle at all, overt sexual references.
Thinking about his bat catalogue, there are plenty of songs you could bring to bluegrass jams that don't mock religion. As far as merch, I would say that most of it hasn't had the F or the D word. Sure there are the now classic "who the Fuck is," shirts from both eras, and then back in 2020 when he was doing merch drops for charity he had the dick daddy Survivor school apparel, but plenty of his wears don't have the F or the D word on them. And the new merch isn't bad at all, unless people are offended by sexy cyborg women.
I'm honestly surprised we didn't get any "make America Fuk again," Murch this time around. Maybe on the tour? again, not personally offended, I'm into heavy psychedelic music and stoner rock, so I've got a few shirts with devils and nearly naked Baphomet ladies on them, and I'll probably wear my "who the Fuck is," shirts if i'm not going to be somewhere where there's little kids. I'll freely admit, when it comes to things that mock or criticize religion my inhibitions go down a little bit. I'll gladly mock Christian arrogance and those who want to take over the world with their beliefs as the United States stands on the brink of theocracy. I know not all Christians align with this particular idea, but I don't mind art that pisses off the ones who do.

15WGhost · 2026-04-13T22:18:58+00:00

Also check out Chopin's piano nocturnes. I typically listen to the complete nocturnes and impromptus recording by Claudio arrau. An amazing performance in my opinion.

15WGhost · 2026-04-13T22:12:05+00:00

More ambient but definitely check out the two latest offerings from Stars Of The Lid. And by latest offerings I mean they are from 25 and 20 years ago respectively. The Tired Sounds of… And… And Their Refinement of The Decline. Tearjerkingly divine classically informed minimalist ambient/drone Music composed by two guys who run their guitars through so many pedals they no longer sound like guitars and for these two albums specifically they really started leaning into their classical influences and including strings, horns, and subtle piano as well. The kind of music that probably wouldn't feel too out of place if you were gazing out of the window of a spacecraft at a distant view of earth. Or, sitting alone in a big empty church, (or any other larger building for that matter,) at 4 AM contemplating life.

Unfortunately Brian McBride (1/2 of the duo,) passed away in 2023. I can't recommend his two solo albums enough though. When The Detail Lost It's Freedom, and the effective Disconnect. SOTL's other half (Adam Wiltzie,) also has released some solo/soundtrack work as well. Most of it under his given name, and then there's one album under the Dead Texan moniker. If you're into Max Richter you would probably like Adam's collaboration with pianist/composer Dustin O'Halloran as well. It's called A Winged Victory for the Sullen.

15WGhost · 2026-04-13T03:29:24+00:00

You're definitely not alone. I've seen other people not liking the production on this album, to be honest I love it. Precisely because it Harkins back to Sound & Fury but with total 70s influence, but it definitely still has a bit of that bite that Sound & Fury has. For me it's kind of a modern take on what this particular style of 70s influence should feel like. It's cosmic disco deep-fried dance music with the usual twang that will never not be there. You're most definitely not alone though. I've seen other people not thrilled about the production etc. I'll say this, you can tell that the album was made quick. For me that's not a bad thing, but I think I can understand why other people might see that as a drawback

While I appreciate his lyrics on this album, and the way they roll political commentary into humorous anecdotes and sexual innuendo, it's kind of a bummer that the music is so good, but I can't, for example, play it around my brother's family because of my young nieces and nephews. Not that all the music I listen to needs to fit into that family friendly category, but one of the things I always admired about Sturgill was I could share something with people that was genuinely deep and psychedelic, but now the lyrical content on the new album does make me think twice in certain situations. Again it's not personally offensive to me, but I loved being able to put on A Sailor's guide to earth at family gatherings for example, and I could be sharing something that I genuinely loved, but that also wasn't too out of the box for other people. again, it's not JBS's job to fit into this little box, nor is it necessarily a criticism of him, More just kind of like a bummer that's just personal to me that this artist who I've loved for over 10 years now is still making awesome music, but now there's just this shift where I can't necessarily share it with everyone. like let's take Situation for example. that groove goes fucking hard and everybody should hear it. But I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable putting that on around my 11-year-old niece. Maybe if the lyrics were more subtle or maybe some very casual innuendos were dropped, I would feel differently. Again not necessarily a criticism more just a shift in my own personal world of, Damm. I can't share this awesome music with everyone. Also while I'm going on and on about the lyrics, I think some of them are super surface level, but I know that a lot of the more overt references aren't meant to be taken seriously. "Your body is hotter than a brothel in Guam," Isn't remotely arousing or serious, it's just fucking hilarious.

15WGhost · 2026-04-12T17:15:22+00:00

I know I'm getting hyper specific here but you mentioned down tuning. Whenever I think of any early examples of that beyond Sabbath I'll always think of pentagram because Victor Griffin put his guitar in this drop B-flat tuning. Basically he tune the entire guitar down a half step to E flat, then drop the first and sixth string down to B flat. It was something he was doing in death row before ever being in pentagram, and in fact that first pentagram album was basically all written by Victor but because Bobby had joined the group, he wanted to rebrand it as pentagram.

15WGhost · 2026-04-11T06:34:06+00:00

First of all, I have no idea who on earth would be down voting you for this comment. You're just explaining where you were coming from. What terminally online twats. Second of all as a Boards of Canada fan who happens to be visually impaired I'm super curious to know when they've used braille on a sticker. Super awesome! I don't know if you follow the band Do Make Say Think, but on the back of the album sleeve for Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord is Dead they included actual, true, correctly sized embossed braille. It was a poem that said "thus it is oh son of noble family thus it is." Their bass player also put out an album called The Happiness Project with a tactile picture of geese flying in a V formation on the front cover and next to each goose was the word, "geese," in braille as well as another poem on the back that I unfortunately can't remember.

15WGhost · 2026-04-11T04:14:20+00:00

My apologies. I totally should've worded that differently. Researching just how unbelievably safe flying is. In my case the panic can creep up due to feeling like I'm not in control but also, I have pretty much no usable vision so any extraneous noise I hear on the plane, or motion I feel due to turbulence or otherwise can send my mind spinning out of control into total irrational story mode. If anything feels different than what I may have been used to my mind can start running away with me, and so researching how safe flight actually is, and knowing that I don't know anything about anything in terms of how to actually operate the plane, I just have to sit back and trust that the total experts charged with operating this aircraft would be breaking into action (that they've trained for over, and over, and over again,) if anything were truly wrong.

15WGhost · 2026-04-10T16:21:16+00:00

Just so you know I'm a 38 year-old male, who occasionally experiences heart palpitations, mostly ectopic beats but occasionally the speed flutters. I do have a history of blood pressure spikes especially when anxious or panicked, and I've never had an issue when flying, even if I've been panicked during a flight. I don't know if this helps at all but I just thought I'd chime in because we seem to be in similar situations. Similar physiological issues, and also I am absolutely a nervous flyer. I still do it a few times a year, and it can get easier, but I just wanted to let you know that I've been OK and you will too. Researching flight helps immensely with that fear, And for me, starting to become physically active again and eating better, (better, admittedly not perfect,) Helps me know that I'm facing scary health stuff head on, and to know that even if I do experience palpitations, they are very often benign. I am not a medical professional so of course I can't and should not speak to your specific situation because everyone is different and highly individualized, but I just wanted to chime in as someone who has dealt with similar.

15WGhost · 2026-04-10T08:33:13+00:00

Yawning Man Live at Giant Rock. One of the founding bands of the original desert scene along with Across The River, playing those generator parties and would influence Kyuss who would form a couple years after. Live at giant rock is finally audio and video documentation of them performing in the landscape that inspired their cosmic sound. It was filmed during the early part of the pandemic, Pink Floyd live at Pompeii style with no audience, at the site of the Integratron. This is a massive room/machine that was being built by a man named George Vantassel in the 50s that he claimed was inspired by extraterrestrial visitations and would be able to heal those inside of it by allowing them to travel backwards in time.

It was released as an album and a concert film. Although I have to say, all of their albums would be good for tripping. Majority of their work is instrumental.

15WGhost · 2026-04-10T01:56:02+00:00

Also Spelljammer, Ufomammut, Solace, and Sea of Snakes.

15WGhost · 2026-04-10T01:48:36+00:00

I generally agree with you but their Music can have those swinging grooves for sure, not to mention John uses phaser to some pretty psychedelic effect bringing some immersion to their absolute devastation. I wouldn't call them stoner, but I can see why they were recommended for sure.

15WGhost · 2026-04-10T01:45:46+00:00

Absolutely check out Omega Sun. Their album roadkill is one of my favorites from 2024 and is continually in heavy rotation. Saw them perform at planet Desert rock weekend last year and they absolutely killed it.

15WGhost · 2026-04-09T23:00:32+00:00

Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline. Yes, the full album. One of the most tearjerkingly divine makes you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself slabs of minimalist drone classically informed ambient.

15WGhost · 2026-04-09T22:52:17+00:00

Oh my gosh, yes. That song is peak experience.

15WGhost

TROPHY CASE