KORN with Ray Luzier were the highlight of this year's Sunset Music Festival. Organizers shut down Sunset Blvd for almost a mile from the Key Club and Rainbow all the way down to The Whiskey and Viper Room. All of the famous clubs hosted bands performing all day long with the big stages out in the middle of Sunset.

KORN rocked the main stage with all the hits including Blind, Got The Life and Freak On A Leash. Ray has so much prowess on the kit he's able to attack it at will just punishing the groove.

If you still haven't seen Ray perform check him out live at www.drumchannel.com with Yael on Tuesday 9/22 at 6pm PST.

Edited: 09/21/2009 at 02:02 PM by ChristianS

Steve Ferrone put on a clinic and concert at West L.A. Music. Known mostly for his legendary groove demanded by Tom Petty, Eric Clapton and many of the world's best tonight we got to see him perform an extended drum solo courtesy of a tardy vocalist. Needless to say Steve employs the same instinctual phrasing and groove into his solos and we all considered ourselves lucky to hear him do it. He also performed with a new band he's been recording with.



The mighty Dream Theater finished their Progressive Nation 2009 tour in L.A. Mike Portnoy hand picks the opening bands for this tour and we were lucky enough to see him sit in with Big Elf and Zappa Plays Zappa. The Greek was packed and Dream Theater greeted them with a song from their new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings. The crowd was in for even more treats when Mike shared his kit with each of the opening drummers and then all 4 together on his giant drum kit! THEN, Steve Vai and Dweezil Zappa joined Dream Theater on stage for one amazing jam! What a show and I'll never miss D.T. when they come to town.



Rx Bandits with the ferocious drumming of Chris Tsgakis and Cliff Sarcona with his ethereal band As Tall As Lions played the El Rey. These are two important up & coming drummers you'll want to check out. Something special there ya'll!



One of the biggest tours of the summer came through next with Nickelback, Hinder, Papa Roach and Saving Abel. That's right, Daniel Adair, Cody Hanson, Blake Dixon and now...drumroll please...you heard it here first- Tony Palermo with Papa Roach has joined the SABIAN family of artists and we're happy to have him. You want big rock and nothing but SABIAN on stage? This tour has got it!



-Chris

We had a massive invasion of top artists come through LA recently. Vinny Appice hit the Greek with Heaven & Hell playing classic hits from their self titled album, Mob Rules and from their new album The Devil You Know. Vinny has one of the most spectacular drum kits as you can tell from the pictures. He's got columns of toms on a rack held in place by bungee cords so that he can grab them and throw them around. Very Rock 'n Roll and there's no mistaking Vinny's distinctive style on the kit. Coheed & Cambria are opening this tour with Chris Pennie on drums. Coheed's is music that you just can't put your finger on. I've seen them play at Staple's Center with The Killers, eclectic festivals like Coachella and then I've seen them play with the heaviest of metal bands like Sabbath or Avenged Sevenfold. This band crosses boundaries and Pennie is a monster on the kit.



Tony Royster Jr. held a clinic at Musician's Institute and also a trio performance to mark the release of his new DVD Evolution. They showed some footage of him playing when he was 12 years old that you just can't believe. Tony is all grown up now and is just as impressive. Currently touring with Jay Z he's been playing to massive audiences all over the world. Drum Channel webcast the event at M.I. that also included a panel of Tony, Terry Bozzio and Ray Luzier who took questions from the students.



I stopped by KORN's studio in Hollywood to get a taste of their new record. They have a huge space to record in and I was surprised to find all four members set up in a tiny side room where they are recording the whole record as a band in the same room. Producer Ross Robinson is bringing them back to the garage for this one and the tracks are HEAVY!



With an hour to kill I stopped by my friend and photographer Neil Zlozower's studio who just happened to be shooting Orianthi and Steve Vai. Orianthi you might have seen playing guitar with Carrie Underwood at The Grammys this year. She had also been hired to perform with Michael Jackson in London. I hope now she'll go back to her solo career with Scott Reeder on drums!


... more to come!

-Chris

Edited: 09/21/2009 at 09:14 AM by ChristianS

Most of us were/are professional drummers to certain depths and it's pretty amazing to now be working with some of the biggest names in the biz. If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would be going on motorcycle trips with Neil Peart I'd have said they're nuts! There I go with the pretentious name dropping, which is one of the reasons I've avoided writing blogs, tweets and other oddly named "look at me's!" Most are self serving at best and defaming at worse. Bands using them for promotion and getting their name out there are exceptions of course. Plus the nature of our job requires sensitivity to the privacy of celebrity's personal lives. So, what do we do besides give away free cymbals and take cymbal orders from drummers? How about I give you a snapshot of some of my recent activities from the last month or so? Just the fun stuff...

I went to The Tonight Show a couple times to see Cora Coleman-Dunham perform with Prince and Andy Hurley with Fall Out Boy who were a bunch of kids riding around in a van playing every gig they could when I met them about 7 years ago now. Cora only won the Drum Off a few years ago and now look at her. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

I attended the Revolver Golden Gods metal awards for a hang with Vinnie Paul, Ray Luzier, Travis Smith, my buds in Valiant Thor (love those guys!) and got to see Shawn Drover play with Megadeth and a couple of rising stars: Alex Lopez with Suicide Silence and Jason Costa with All That Remains.

Roy Mayorga, his wife Kaz, Seven Antonopoulos, his wife Anna K, Ray Luzier and I went to see Xavier Muriel and Jimmy Sullivan play on the Avenged Sevenfold/Buckcherry tour.

I saw Chad Smith play twice, once at The Baked Potato (we just call it 'the spud' in LA) with his band The Bombastic Meatbats (go to www.drumchannel.com for a taste) and with his new little project with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani and Mike Anthony called Chickenfoot. They played The Roxy on Sunset Blvd as part of a promo tour they just finished only playing tiny places before heading to Europe to play the huge festivals. Amazing to see those huge personalities in such a small place. There's something so special about Chad's groove. Another famous drummer I took to see him play said, "he's like a Bonham for our generation." I can get down with that.

Visiting Godsmack in the studio is always great. Sully and I watched some Youtube clips of this 4 year old kid playing entire Who songs almost note for note. He looked like he should still be in diapers and instead we're watching him rock out on the web. Shannon Larkin is absolutely one of my favorite players because he plays like a man possessed. Watching him rock out is a pleasure and turned me on to some other great players like Roy Mayorga, Seven Antonopoulos and Jamie Miller who also have a great recipe of chops and entertainment.

I haven't watched American Idol since the first season, but Kevin Ricard invited me down to the finale a couple weeks ago to see him play. He plays percussion in the house band. Where else but Hollywood are you going to see Santana, Keith Urban, KISS, Queen, Rod Stewart, Cindy Lauper, Queen Latifah, Black Eyed Peas and more in 2 hours?

I also caught Todd Sucherman with Styx, Martin Axenrot with Opeth, Gene Hoglan with Meldrum, Jordan Richardson with Ben Harper and Relentless 7 in concert. I visited Jimmy DeGrasso at Mate's studio with Alice Cooper and got to watch them rehearse for a 6 month world tour coming up. Alice is the original baby! He's been doing his thing since the '60's! Jimmy and I went down to Sexton's drum shop to get some gear and then on to Pro Drum in Hollywood where Drum Channel was doing a webcast for their 50th anniversary hosted by the man who is everywhere...Chad Smith. Terry Bozzio, Tiny Biuso and many other great drummers were hanging out for that. Check out the crazy gong & ring we made for the Alice Cooper tour. A local artist up near the factory did the artwork for us.

Cool gig right? It's been a crazy summer so far and is only going to get better because the big tours haven't even come through town yet! Looking forward to sharing it with you. Those in the know tell me this is pretty long for a blog so I'll speak in tweets from now on

-Chris Stankee