More Cocktail Angst Videos

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jmettam
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Posts: 610
Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2002 10:53 pm

More Cocktail Angst Videos

Post by jmettam »

Hey All, Just thought I'd let people know to keep an eye out on YouTube and MySpace for more Cocktail Angst videos. A freind taped a show we did at Joe's pub in NYC. The sound is not bad, a little echo-ey but you can here how the Cocktail kit works in there. Unfortunately the bass is a little low on the entire thing so you can't here the kick as well as it sounded on the gig!

Enjoy!

- John

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OWQftndMqiA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed>

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... 4fc2026cea
multiperc
Posts: 241
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 3:14 pm

Post by multiperc »

Very cool, John.
Wish I knew about this gig - I'm close to NYC... gigs listed on the CocktailAngst website I presume?
Very nice video, sound and group performance. And your playing is excellent as always. Especially love the snare sound and the variety you get out of it - is anyone else able to get this kind of sound from a single cocktail drum, live? Wow. Makes me want to explore cocktail snare (in addition to my popcorn snare) even tho doing that seems full of headaches. Bass player has a great feel too.
Kinda missing the bald head and eyepatch...
jmettam
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Posts: 610
Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2002 10:53 pm

Post by jmettam »

Hey Multi,

Thanks for the nice comments. Yeah, someday I'll go back to the bald head and eye-patch (probably sooner than I want!)

The snare thing is not that hard. it's just a matter of finding your different sonic zones and really sticking to them (pardon the pun). On the main drum snare there are a lot more possibilities than a regular snare. And don't forget to try a rim shot on each zone. I find that, in general, rim shots on the Cocktail drum have a more significant tone change than on a regular snare. So immediately you have 6 different sounds.

1 - edge (right on the edge!)
2 - edge rimshot
3 - halfway (between edge and center)
4 - halfway rimshot
5 - dead center
6 - dead center rimshot

Spend a little time paying beats with each of these positions alone. Then try different zones for different song sections. You can emulate recordings were they actually use different snares on the verse and chorus, etc. Then try and work the different hits into a single beat.

For this tune I like to play the ghost notes more in the center zone and then the back beats are heavy hits on the middle zone with an occasional rim shot thrown in for that bubbly-techno accent!

- John
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