Lay Down Stay Down

Hi Everyone!, Here's my latest installment. I'm actually dedicating this tune to my dear friends Michael & Francine Barile, owners of Sweet Fire studios, formerly, Purple Light Studios. Michael’s favorite band is Deep Purple. He's THE ONLY person I've ever known to play Blackmore's licks note for note! Really, I'm not joking! It's truly an amazing thing to watch him do! We've played in several bands together, including some live shows, and a Deep Purple cover band. We've lost touch over the years; you know how it is, marriage, kids, job, move out of the borough, etc... I hope everyone enjoys this tune, and I hope Michael & Francine get to see this video as well :)

By the way, some technical notes... Ian Paice, Purple's drummer, was and is one of my founding fathers of my drumming career, he ranks high amongst those like, Carl Palmer, John Bonham, Neil Peart, and about 100 other drummers I've meticulously studied throughout my life. (Plus all the jazz guys, Buddy Rich and company). On this tune I took a little artistic liberty. Ian plays the hi-hat here for most of the tune during the verses, whereas, someone (?) or later dubbed in, is the cowbell. I liked the cowbell a lot, but didn't want to lose the hi-hat effect. So I decided to emulate the "Open" hi-hat effect, by simply loosening the top hat a little, and bringing the bottom hat low enough so that when I close the hats they don't close all the way. This produces a constant "Swooshy" sound. it looks crazy too when you watch it in the video. It takes a little practice controlling it as it could get out of control and have some unwanted effects.

Also I decided to keep it "Alive Sounding" by using my cymbals for all the accents instead of going back to the hi-hats on the fast drum breaks. If you watch carefully, I actually hit the cymbal one extra time to cover the missing hi-hat hits. It's very subtle and if I didn't mention it, you would never know. I hope you don't mind :) I like the fluency of this technique and it less work for me to do by constantly cross sticking to the hi-hat.

A good work around would have been to have an extra hi-hat to my right, near my ride.

Everything else as far as the fast drum breaks/licks and performance was spot on perfect as Ian would have demanded and appreciated (I hope?).

I did this song by memory. As I remembered and practiced it years ago when it came out in the Seventies! With only a few listens before I actually recorded it as you see it here.

This holds true for EVERY classic rock tune recording I do on YT.