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In late May, I had to finally "shoot the horse and move on" by switching, after nearly 30 years, to matched grip from traditional grip as there were some nerves in my thumbs and index finger that couldn't cope with my too many failed attempts at it anymore.

Anyway, about a week later, my friend Andrew wrote to me to ask if I'd like to open for Benny Greb's only Sydney clinic in August. Feeling like an absolute beginner, I nervously said yes, and then he said, "well, I'll have to run it past Benny and Sonor, so I'll get back to you." I thought, then, that there'd be no way they'd be into it, and so I went about my business practicing matched grip as there was a long way to go...

A couple of weeks later, Andrew wrote back to me and said "Benny's into it!" And so it began. I had to practice like crazy to get my matched grip together as I didn't want to disgrace myself in front of his 300+ audience, nor him.

What helped me get prepared enough was to have had the good fortune to have found Chad Wackerman's course on the Murray Spivack Method on Drum Channel, as well as to have found the Open/Close Technique as taught by the great Gordy Knudtson. Here's my playlist of all his amazing videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KINRsm0yhQ&list=PLhTVsDPOH5EH_6MDs3mPk24Aal17YpNab

To cut a long story short, it was a great night, and we had a great time. Benny was very cool and, when we had about half an hour alone together back stage before I went on, he was very helpful for calming my nerves, and in helping me to feel good about being myself, and doing what I do.

Here's one of the three tracks I played that night, and instead of coming out with a solo at the beginning of my set (which I've never liked doing at clinics), I made a cadenza into a solo at the end of this piece. The solo starts at 3:59, and I hope you enjoy it:



Here are a couple of pics from the night too. It was really inspiring to finish my set, and to sit with my wife and daughter side of stage while Benny played. What an amazing guy and phenomenally gifted creative artist he is on the drums!

Fuck yeah, Dave!

Bravo Dave. Traditional grip is not kind to aging drummers. Good thing you came to your senses earlier in your career.

Nice job with the music too.

Merry Christmas!

What a way to end the year. Congrats!

great Dave....beautiful sounding ride

Also like this one here... Really nice musical display...

Great playing Dave! Heard your podcast interview recently and loved the Morello and Jim Chapin stories! Good call on the Wackerman course too I just got that - aside from making things easier in a mattter of days/ weeks (especially getting my closed roll starting to sound a lot less crap - still a long way away there) I’ve seen a reduction in drum face. Don’t know why but I’m obsessed with the fact that none of the Wackermans have drum face when they play

Dang, great solo with a nice build! I really like that ride cymbal too. What a cool opportunity.

Thanks very much for your lovely, warm responses to my video(s). It’s very encouraging!

Happy New Year to all!

Julián Fernández wrote:What a way to end the year. Congrats!

Thanks Julián...well, I’m so late in posting a reply because, whilst I was interstate just before Christmas recording drums for an EP I’ll be finishing soon, my home was absolutely pummeled by 15 minutes of hail stones the size of baseballs (no exaggeration here - I saw them in the freezer when I got home!). This shattered all the tiles on our roof, which let massive amounts of rain in, which ruined our ceiling, allowing the house to be flooded. The hail also wrote my wife’s car off! Fortunately, she and my 5-yr-old daughter were home at the time, and inside, so they weren’t injured, and were able to tend to the flooding, and to work with the State Emergency Service to cover the roof with tarpaulins until about 2:30 AM. As bad as this may sound, we actually didn’t suffer as bad as some of our neighbors whose had their roof collapse, this having to be evacuated before Christmas and so on.

It’s crazy to think how things can change so significantly in just 15 minutes - many of the homes in our whole suburb were pretty much destroyed! It was surreal to see the extent of destruction as I drove home in the aftermath. Fire engines and tarpaulins everywhere! The weather was looking so good when I left home that morning that I’d even hung some washing out to dry! Fortunately we’re fully insured with a great company. My wife will be getting a brand new car, and we’ll be getting a new roof, and new ceilings, etc.

For what it’s worth, this is part of what I was doing at exactly the time the hail hit. I’ll be putting the music tracks up later in the year:

chrishitsthings wrote:Great playing Dave! Heard your podcast interview recently and loved the Morello and Jim Chapin stories! Good call on the Wackerman course too I just got that - aside from making things easier in a mattter of days/ weeks (especially getting my closed roll starting to sound a lot less crap - still a long way away there) I’ve seen a reduction in drum face. Don’t know why but I’m obsessed with the fact that none of the Wackermans have drum face when they play

Hey Chris, I must really insist upon checking out the great Gordy Knudtson too - I’m having another Skype lesson with him later today. I think the guy’s a genius, and, truly, he’s an unsung hero. Check out his amazing stuff here: