Vindication

I had several reasons for being excited about the debut album of the group Drummer:

1.) It involved Patrick Carney, my favorite active drummer (of The Black Keys), and was being released on his label, Audio Eagle.
2.) It was an intriguing sounding project- I had only heard one track, "Diamonds to Shake," but it had a particular vibe to it, hard and shiny and shimmering. It's a bit difficult to give the impression in words.
3.) It was a project only involving drummers. That's right- despite the consistent failure of solo projects by drummers to do well at all (I'm looking at you, Keith Moon), here was a legitimate band composed entirely of men who made their living drumming. In addition to Carney on bass, Drummer features Jamie Stillman on guitar (Teeth of the Hydra), Jon Finley on vocals and second guitar (Beaten Awake), Stephen Clements on keyboards (Houseguest), and Greg Boyd actually drumming (Ghostman). Now, I hadn't actually heard of any of these bands, with the exception of the Keys, but it was still a pretty awesome concept.

I think of it as a musical Revenge of the Nerds: the drummer, consistently the least known and least respected member of bands (although bass and keyboards sometimes claim that position), finally gets his own band... with four other outcasts.

There's an old joke about drummers:
Q: How did the drummer get fired?
A: He said, "Hey guys, let's play one of my songs."
Well, guess what? Those are the only songs in this band! And not one of them is as goofy as Ringo's masterpiece, "Octopus Garden."