Travis Barker

Hey Buccaneer, welcome to the forum. Thank you for some perspective on this issue. I for one, am glad that Travis got you into drumming, and I'm also glad you've sought to move on to other, more developed styles of drumming!
 
shuffle said:
Whether his grooves are musical or not is very debatable. Here is a small sample that shows what I like from him, and by the same token actually what others may dislike…

0-20s Nice opening tom groove.

20s-40s More conventional groove. He inserts some ride accents through the washy hi-hat. Again, I like it, but could be judged overplayed by others.

40s-56s Nice hi-hat work

1.15 - 1.23 Open rolls in the groove. Pretty tight, and fits well IMO

1.33 Back to the tom groove. I think adding the second hi-hat gliss was too much here…

Quite a lot of stuff going on in that sample. Overplayed ? May very well be to some ears. But in many portions of that small sample, he is actually holding most of the song all by himself… The guy is trying pretty hard to come up with new stuff, and I would guess he is fairly aware of the "rules" he sometimes breaks while doing so. This "boldness" fits pretty well the essence of what I think punk rock should be all about anyway.

The hi hats are pretty sick he has some nice drumming in not now.
 
ewanlaing said:
on listening to some blink tracks i can see what stu is saying. the drums often seem to be their own seperate entity and not really involved enough with the rest of the music. the only exception i can find to this is the slightly beat-skipped snare in "all the small things". other thna that, it seems he keeps to his own thing for most of the songs.

i think thats what he tries to do.. i mean just think about it this way. would you rather have some bland beat playing over and over and a few interruptions for a chorus rhythm?
Or would you rather have a drum solo with a guitar and bass added in?
PS im no diehard travis fan, but i do respect the guys chops
 
why do lots of people rag on him....if you dont like a drummer it doesnt mean you have to come in here and tell everyone why he is bad which is stupid because you have to be better than someone else to judge them which i GARUNTEE ( if thats how you spell it) that no one in here is a better drummer
 
travis barkers #1 fan said:
why do lots of people rag on him....if you dont like a drummer it doesnt mean you have to come in here and tell everyone why he is bad which is stupid because you have to be better than someone else to judge them which i GARUNTEE ( if thats how you spell it) that no one in here is a better drummer
Since Stu has been taking up some of the slack for these answers, I will try to help out if I can.

Again, I don't mean to be disrespectful here, but this is the drummerworld site. Not some crazy sight from the dark side of the Internet. Drummers are discussed on these threads from all sides so we can all be better drummers. Travis is always an interest and bringing up somethin' negative doesn't mean anybody hates the guy.

Of course, a person with the right ability to see detail, can judge ANY other drummer . Also this person doesn't even have to be a drummer. If they have a good knowledge they can judge. I mean look man, you probably have ideas about movies or television shows. But it doesn't mean you know how to make one.

And about your guarantee, I really don't think you can do anything of the kind. As I said in my last Travis post, there are some monster players on this forum that I have alot of respect for. I think there are probably several drummers on this forum with Barker's talent or skill, and there are probably a handful of more skilled ones. And I think its time some of his fans on this thread were told this and tried to get that. He's really good and very entertaining, but the drum world is a great big place.

And before anybody makes the challenge, nobody has to shuffle out a video of themselves to prove their point on these fan issues. You see people use that as a comback on these fan threads and maybe its time that some just draw the line on that by not responding to it. All that ever happens is that the fan people pick it apart anyway even if it was the second coming of Tony Williams.

I'm sorry to get a little irritated, but I guess I am. Everytime this stuff shows up, it looks like everybody our age is like this and they're not. And I bet all of you are nice guys, but I just wished you would listen to more music. Travis is a good musician, but I'm starting to get what some of the others are sayin' about this blind fan stuff coming from guys who have only heard a tiny bit of the whole picture of music. Man, why don't you hang around awhile, check out some threads on some other subjects and try to learn to respect these people before you come on here all puffed up.
 
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Thanks Matt. Since I just can't make these guys understand the difference between criticism and hate, I'll just let them keep thinking the way they do. Obviously they don't read the previous posts with any type of critical thinking skills.

By the way, there are plenty of drummers on here better than Barker. Unfortunately, none of them are as FAMOUS as Travis Barker, which is the whole point I've tried to make in this thread.

Instead of bickering about it, why won't more people just post audio files then comment about what is good and bad about the piece? I find this much more constructive.
 
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Raymond Bloom said:
Travis is a good, well trained drummer, that's all. End of story.

He is just more popular among non drummers (and young drummers who were non drummers :D ) than, for example Billy Cobham (who is, no doubt, genious)...

Actually I liked what Bernhard sayed in some of his posts... (not precisely what he sayed, something like that)''if people start playing drums because of him that is good!'' They eventually sooner or later will go into complicated stuff

Travis Barker is a disaster . He is a very ignorant , poor in your grooves and solos and your music is #$@#$ . True rock'n roll drummers is John Bonhan , Chad Smith , Tré Cool , Ian Paice , Neil Peart , John Dolmayan and others . Not Travis .
 
Two other samples... I'm trying to stay away from the obvious songs...

I like the first one. Not an easy song to build a drum part on, and I think he made a fine effort. I like the cross-stick portion, and he introduces a good groove at 0.50s, nice hi-hat/snare combination. A good fit.

He sorts of recycle that same groove idea on sample 2. There was a previous comment in the thread mentionning that he sometimes seems to play by himself, not listening to the tune. I think it is pretty much one of these here. Doesn't blend very well in my opinion, and draws too much attention to him.

He often comes up with great stuff, and not being a very fast drummer, I admire his ability to play along all the fast tempo stuff. Among punk-rock drummers, I think he stands very well. But you'll NEVER catch one of the many great studio players sounding so out-of-place in a song as he does in sample 2.
 

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  • sample1.mp3
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  • sample2.MP3
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Yes track two is another Groove Killer for sure. The last 2 seconds are what I would expect for the song though.

Track 1 is a nice little reggae feel, maybe a little drum 'n bass sounding.

Thanks for the clips...never heard the Transplants before.
 
Stu, lets just face the..."music" shall we?

When jazz drummers get creative, it flows beautifully and is oh-so 'musical', is it not?

When rock drummers get creative - whoopsidaisy, they just 'killed' the groove. Damn. And by the way, that phrase 'groove killer' is so unbelievably lazy and dismissive - you kinda need to qualify just why a fill kills a groove, and don't forget, Travis creates those grooves that he later 'kills', so what, is his drumming suicidal?
 
"Groove Killer" is borrowed from Tommy Igoe. It is neither lazy nor dismissive. Actually, if you understood my reference to Tommy Igoe, it would show you possessed a broad based experience in drumming.

"Groove Killer": It is any type of beat that is misplayed technically, or applied in the wrong situation. Most technical groove killers are commited by new drummers who don't know better. Things such as flaming the hands when hitting them together is correct (like 8ths on the hi hat and snare on 2 and 4). Playing with a bad sense of time or playing really tasteless parts that don't fit the song is another groove killer that pertains here.


Dead horse has been beaten, however, the groove in #2 doesn't fit the music, as it is too busy and shreiks "LOOK AT ME CUZ I'M REALLY BORED!" There is nothing technically wrong with his playing (although I did post a bunch of songs with tempo issues).

And for the record, I'm not a jazz drummer, so I guess you applied the wrong stereotype to the wrong drummer.
 
T-1000 said:
When jazz drummers get creative, it flows beautifully and is oh-so 'musical', is it not?

When rock drummers get creative - whoopsidaisy, they just 'killed' the groove.

Nope. Jazz drummers are quite capable of killing grooves too. Go watch some locally, you'll probably see a fair bit of it. And rock drummers are capable of being creative without killing grooves too - look at Matt Chamberlain or Tim Alexander. Creative, flowing and musical.

This isn't a jazz-vs-rock thing, it's a drumming well versus not drumming well thing. And I'd tend to think those two clips below are an example of both.
 
Hahaha what the heck? Can't believe you guys think Travis's Latin influence, half time feel beat in DJ DJ (yes, that is the name of "sample #2) is a groove killer. Some people here criticize the "travis rulez" people of not expanding their listening base,but, however I see that some of you are so into everything except Travis that you mock his progressive beats/style that is giving him publicity in every other page in Modern Drummer, Drum Magazine, MTV, Fuse, Z TIMES, etc,etc, etc,... the list goes on.
 
Travis gets publicity every other page in magazines because he sells stuff. Lots of American kids with plenty of parentally-sourced money to spend buy stuff because Travis Barker endorses it. Look at OCDP and tell me that success story was one of merit. What you don't seem to realise is that magazines need to sell too. If they put Travis Barker in the mag, kids who love Travis Barker buy the mag. Then they can say to the advertisers that kids who like Travis Barker buy the mag and the advertisers will give them five-figure sums to take out regular full-page adverts to convince said kids to buy their latest drum/stick/whatever that Travis happens to use. That keeps the magazine in business, and lets them write about the stuff that they really, really want to bring to the fore in the industry. Or it just keeps them in business, if they're a lazy mag with nothing to say.

Now, none of that actually reflects on his merits as a drummer at all. He could be the next Milli Vanilli for all these people care - it's just business.

Personally I think Travis is a good drummer. Nothing earth-shaking, but he's capable and entertaining. Thumbs up from me. But I do find he's a bit over the top at times, and I don't think his playing shows much sign of musical maturity. But since he's playing to the teenage market I don't honestly think that hurts him any in terms of how his audience appreciates him.

What *does* rile me is when people start trying to hold him up as some kind of paragon of drumming virtue over the vast majority of guys on DrummerWorld. OK, so he's a good player. But really, the only reason he gets so much adulation is because of his background and image, rather than his ability. The only reason he's better loved than even other drummers for big-name pop groups (like, say, Aaron Spears - or indeed anybody who has played a live gig with Beyonce, Destiny's Child, the Spice Girls etc over the years) is because he's a punk drummer, and punk is cool with the teenagers. There's no way he'd be getting all this attention if he was playing offside with a pop/r&b act, because teenage boys would rather be seen dead than admit they went to see Beyonce so they could watch the drummer play.
 
im gonna disagree with the punk being more popular than rap/ r and b... while there may be more people into drumming in the punk genre there are definitly more fans of rap and r&b than punk music..
 
beatsMcGee said:
im gonna disagree with the punk being more popular than rap/ r and b... while there may be more people into drumming in the punk genre there are definitly more fans of rap and r&b than punk music..

That's true, but who cares about the drummers? Even the more well-known producers are still relatively unknown by the majority of people who buy the music, and most hip-hop/r&b acts aren't bands as such and don't have a full-time drummer. They have sidemen they hire. And in all honesty, even as a drummer I'd be hard pressed to name which particular guy is working for which particular act on a given tour.

I mean, seriously. Name a hip-hop drummer who's actually in an act people have heard of. I'll get you as far as ?uestlove...

As such the hip-hop/r&b guys don't tend to sell as many drum kits or signature sticks to young players. It's just the way things go. Punk is the popular "band style" with the kids these days. So it should be fairly unsurprising that a punk guy will get a lot of love and attention from that direction.
 
finnhiggins you have a good point

but i've seen some weird and crazy stuff he's done that will never be seen on MTV or any "big" concert

for example- his snare technique in the live version of "there is" at the jay leno show, and i've seen him play a intricated but catchy technique based beat in "i miss you" live in some European show

i think the problem is that since blink-182 is/was a big catchy pop-punk band, everyone bases travis's drumming off of that- for example- when the show "cribs" is on MTV and "the rock show" is played in the back ground, or "all the small things" people bass his drumming off of that

i've seen him live in two guitar center drum offs as a special guest and thats where he pulls out more challenging drumming

and another thing, travis can't control how much publicity he gets, he has a very professional attitude, and he never critcizes anyone and he is very quiet in person, just because he gets a lot of attention doesn't necessarily mean he brags about it
 
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