Pete Thomas on new Jake Bugg album

[Otis Westinghouse]

http://www.nme.com/news/jake-bugg/72823

Realised this watching Later tonight with Bugg playing an uptempo number, and I thought the ageing codger at the drums was doing a decent job of holding down a tight backbeat when I realised it was none other!

[Man out of Time]

Jake Bugg's appearance on "Later with Jools Holland" available on the BBC iplayer in some countries for seven days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b03d5qcs/?t=4m14s

"Accompanied by one of the world's great drummers" quoth our host..

MOOT

[Otis Westinghouse]

Nice one - I missed the opening of it. Good that Pete was acknowledged that way. Good combination of age and youth there.

[Otis Westinghouse]

And on Friday's edition Jools asked about the story with Pete playing with him. Something about a passport issue with the original planned drummer and Pete stepping in. When asked about playing with Bugg, Pete quipped it was nice to play with people his age. Annoyingly Bugg's second song was drum-free.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sDFdOoMAmg

Jake Bugg - What Doesn't Kill You - Later LIVE Jools Holland - 8th Oct. '13



Compare this with a performance , not featuring Pete, on Conan O'Brien a few days before - Pete's sheer class wins hands down!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Nc2mVkr3Y

[Otis Westinghouse]

Interesting exercise! The drums are mixed brighter and clearer on the Conan show, the sound's a bit murkier and meatier on Later, and maybe has suffered a bit on that clip. There are several things that make Pete's performance trademark Pete and where you'd know it was him if you were just listening, but the Conan one doesn't do badly at either, I'd say. How would you describe the things that make you say Pete's 'sheer class wins hands down'? As a keen amateur drummer myself, it's interesting to now what impact the details of what you do have for a listener.

[johnfoyle]

To my non-musician ears there just seems to be looseness and a vibrancy to Pete's performance. The cleaner mix on the U.S. tv show is, I'll accept, a factor in the comparison in this case but it only emphasises the difference. Pete is capable of adopting a basic, no frills style if necessary. When he did the MAIT shows in San Francisco in 2007 he imitated the Mickey Shine's performance from the Clover recordings. An account mentioned he had a quick listen between songs , on headphones, to bits of the 1976 takes just to be sure.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Good adjectives - looseness and vibrancy. The Conan one is very unloose. It's interesting because 'tightness' is generally regarded as what you should be achieving, but in many ways the opposite 'looseness' is more desirable. I guess it's the yin and yang of the two at once that really does it. Interesting how a drummer can impress by feel, not doing anything flash. There's nothing Pete does there technically that I couldn't do, but it takes a lifetime of being a top musician to get that feel right.