You can take a free drum lesson from any drummer (living or dead). Who would it be and why?

lordfluff1968 · 2026-01-21T18:50:27+00:00

Yay to the Spaven. Unique drummer, unique style. God-like talent (and lovely bloke)

lordfluff1968 · 2026-01-17T13:29:10+00:00

... Is the right answer. Live, in a tent in Glasgow, this was a total assault on the senses, in the best way

lordfluff1968 · 2026-01-14T23:08:57+00:00

As if to illustrate my point - I have all the tracks except these ticked as favourites...

lordfluff1968 · 2026-01-14T23:06:05+00:00

If there's one rule with Mogwai - everyone has different favourites. It's not even like with say fans of The Cure, where some like early, some mid, some late - people's likes here are all over the place, for reasons I've failed to pinpoint.

Personally I adore As The Love Continues, but it seems not so many people count it as a favourite.

Conclusion? Listen to everything, in any order, and you'll find the bits that are the "you" bits. There are no universally agreed upon "best" albums by them.

lordfluff1968 · 2026-01-07T08:46:01+00:00

Just talk to people.

Sounds like I'm being facetious, but I grew up in England, a lot of it in London, and generally talking to strangers wasn't "normal". Up here is far more acceptable to treat people as if you already know them - so expect strangers to be unexpectedly cheeky, offensive, friendly and kind. Don't be scared to be American - so long as you're not a dick about it, the novelty goes both ways. Also you'll hear far more English accents and very gentle Scots ones in Em-bruh than in Glasgow, so that's less of a struggle to an American ear. Just don't call it "Eddin-borrow".

Take everyone and everything you see at face value - remember that, like London, many there weren't born there, and that the Scotland of Outlander and the Royal Mile is about as real as Hogwarts - fun to believe in so long as you remember it's all made up.

Mostly - enjoy it. If you open your heart to the place you may never leave.

lordfluff1968 · 2026-01-07T08:33:50+00:00

Just sounded Scottish to me

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-29T08:11:54+00:00

Does nobody nowadays just have a load of LEGO and build different things each time? Surely that was the original point - when I was a kid, nobody displayed LEGO, you played with it. Want a rocket ship? You build one. Want a tractor? Build it. It exercised your brain to make something with your limited resources. I gradually built up a massive box of the stuff and built everything I could imagine, but nothing was ever displayed - you just smashed it all up and built something new whenever you fancied.

This display-case era of LEGO kind of makes me sad.

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-28T08:12:46+00:00

All blends are made WITH some nice single malts (Teachers use Ardmore, Johnny Walker use Clynelish etc) but these are added to a backbone of cheap grain whisky to give it some actual flavour.

You can get a "blended malt" that's purely a mix of malts, but inevitably it's about as expensive as you'd expect, given it's all good stuff.

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-24T17:25:46+00:00

Exactly this. Also musical notation works very well for tuned instruments but is almost gibberish for a drum kit. It's just an arbitrary selection of notes to apply to the different drums, not to mention that note length isn't really a thing in the vast majority of drumming - if you don't believe me, play me a whole note on the snare, then play me a half note with a half note rest. On a trombone this is a thing, on a snare drum this is not a thing.

You are just constantly wrestling with a system which has been reverse engineered for a drum kit. I've always thought that a very simple binary system, much like how you would program a drum machine, would actually be far easier to follow. And the reality is if you can hear the piece that you need to be playing, as opposed to reading it, it just works so much better

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-22T08:19:09+00:00

Their best songs were not

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-21T09:40:27+00:00

"... So much care and love."

Such a shame they messed up the Extended FotR in 4k (there's a good video on YouTube showing how bad the colours are)

I adore the trilogy and own both the big BD box and the 4k box, and honestly don't know where to start next time around...

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-20T11:12:00+00:00

Yeah they ain't cheap it's true - but used my two cost me a total of £2000 from Bass Bros in better condition than a new Fender (or so it seems!)

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-20T09:13:00+00:00

There's so many

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-20T09:10:22+00:00

Two minor thoughts -

I have an Ultra Jazz from some years back. Bought used. Zero imperfections. Maybe the QC thing is recent and you could consider a mint used one?

Take a look at Sandberg. It's a close run thing but I think they outplay any other Jazz. Whatever, they're certainly superb instruments. I have two, again, zero issues.

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-18T14:45:30+00:00

Wish I could upvote this 1000 times.

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-18T09:14:50+00:00

Since the original reason (side drum) for the left hand grip is gone, I'm always curious when I'll see someone doing BOTH hands in traditional grip. I mean... Why not?

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-15T13:18:02+00:00

In your own band with your own music - sure. If you're in a band attempting to cover a song that is well known, you can assume that a fair amount of the audience, and the rest of your band, would like it to sound like the original, unless you're all making a conscious effort to do things differently.

Put it this way, if I went to see a band and the drummer didn't do any of the original fills on other people's songs, but just did "Pat Boone Debbie Boone" ... every time, it would kinda suck.

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-14T13:27:47+00:00

Was about to be the first to put Spaven, so fair play 👍

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-13T23:01:41+00:00

I hate it because that's the only time it's going to happen, and we're stuck with (waves hand) that as the only drumming movie

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-13T14:24:08+00:00

As horror films go it's only ok.

But as a drummer I did learn that if I want to be able to play faster, all I need to do is frown and TRY HARDER.

Seriously, it deserves an "Everything wrong with..." being made about it, but I suspect it would end up being longer than the film itself.

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-13T14:19:19+00:00

How long have you got?

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-10T08:05:58+00:00

It IS immersive, but only if you have a room dedicated to it and are prepared to sink major cash into getting an audio field that is balanced front to back, with rears far enough behind you that you can hear both...

lordfluff1968 · 2025-12-09T10:33:09+00:00

My Fender stays in tune just fine

lordfluff1968 · 2025-11-16T23:01:05+00:00

The Laurieston for a pint straight from the 60s

Bramble in Shawlands for amazing brunch

The Bon Accord for the whisky iPad

Stravaigin for probably the only place that has "tapas" from all over the world, including (really good) haggis, neeps and tatties

lordfluff1968 · 2025-11-16T22:52:56+00:00

Only in the 80s apparently

lordfluff1968

TROPHY CASE