Standup for Drummers

Armisen is a funny guy and this comedy special is different and entertaining. He's also a decent rock/pop drummer. The premise is that most of the show is related to drummers and drumming, and the audience is composed entirely of drummers (and, no doubt, lots of wannabes. Everybody's a drummer in his own garage, right? These are the people who carry a set of sticks everywhere so everybody knows they're drummers.). However, there are a couple of things that I thought brought the level down a notch or two. Armisen starts off with a smirking dismissal of jazz, with which his rock-oriented audience of sycophants heartily agrees. Then, throughout the program, he brings on guest drummers who are apparently well-known in the rock or pop genres he favors, but none of them does anything impressive. One, whom he introduces as a "master technician", doesn't drum at all (until he returns at the very end); instead, he joins Armisen in an odd, pointless dialogue that they read from scripts. It sounds like it was written by a ten-year-old. Maybe that's the joke. One of the best parts of the show is when Armisen does a presentation of drumming through the decades, in which he demonstrates styles and techniques on vintage drum kits from the 1920s to the early 21st century. He seems to know the history he's talking about, but when it comes to the 1940s and he attempts to replicate what he calls "the Gene Krupa style" of swing drumming, ironically he demonstrates his shortcomings in the technical execution of the jazz style he put down a half hour earlier. It seems to be just beyond his capability. At the end of the show he brings all of his big-name guest drummers back, and he and they take up positions behind each of the kits on the stage. In view of their purported talent and mastery, I expected a mind-blowing display of percussive pyrotechnics along the lines of the Buddy Rich-Gene Krupa-Max Roach-Louis Bellson battles that were occasionally seen in the 1950s and 60s. Instead, all they did was hack away at bump-bump-BUMP-bump, bump-bump-BUMP-bump, bump-bump-BUMP-bump, bu-da-bu-da-bu-da-bu-da, over and over, as the audience howled its approval. Is that all the "legendary" drummers of today can do, and all it takes to impress their fans? Fred, drummers, and drum enthusiasts--use recordings and video to go back in time to the jazz/swing drummers of the 1930s through 60s. Guys like Webb, Catlett, Tough, McKinley, Krupa, Rich, Bellson, Manne, and Lamond. Google Joe Morello, watch and listen to everything he did. If you're not moved, you probably have no soul.