Brian Thomas Griffin

Jon Solo record release

briangriffin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:15:38 +0000

The new Jon Solo record that I played on was released today. Go to his bandcamp site to check it out. I’m pretty psyched about it. Jon wrote some great songs and I think we captured a great vibe for them in the studio.

Steve Ferrone

briangriffin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:27:31 +0000

Here is a great interview courtesy of mikedolbear.com with Steve Ferrone about his experiences with Eric Clapton and Tom Petty. I’m hoping to catch him with the Heartbreakers this summer.

The funniest thing I’ve seen all week…

briangriffin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:17:22 +0000

The Drummers Cometh

briangriffin — Fri, 28 May 2010 03:00:42 +0000

During this past New Orleans Jazzfest, legendary New Orleans drummer Zigaboo Modeliste hosted “The Drummers Cometh” -an evening of great drummers live at the Howlin Wolf. Here is a clip I took of the band playing the Meters song “Africa” with Stanton Moore, Herman Ernest and Zigaboo Modeliste on drums. The show also featured New Orleans greats Johnny Vidacovich and Terence Higgins.

“Africa” – The Drummers Cometh – New Orleans – 2010 from Brian Griffin on Vimeo.

Drum lesson with Terence Higgins

briangriffin — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:52:08 +0000

While on our last tour to New Orleans, Terence Higgins invited us over to his house for some tasty crawfish monica and taught me a few hybrid drum rudiments. Terence is a master New Orleans drummer who tours with many artists including the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and John Scofield, and is also the founder of the Louisiana Drumline Camp.

The first rudiment is called “Book Report” – and is a paradiddle (R L R R – L R L L) with some flams and doubles added as some spice: lRR L lR RR – rLL R rL LL

The second is called the “Cheeze” – and its a flam followed by a drag and played as triplets: lRR L R rLL R L. Terence also played this as “cheeze – diddles” – meaning that you cheese the first note of a regular paradiddle:
R L R R becomes lRR L R R etc.

I hope to post actual music notation for these in the near future. In the meantime…

a little drum improvisation this morning…

briangriffin — Thu, 06 May 2010 06:12:42 +0000

This was just a chance to check out a new point and shoot camera which happens to feature some decent sound and HD video. Not bad!

New Orleans

briangriffin — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 07:11:42 +0000

Just arrived in New Orleans yesterday to play a few club gigs with the Jamie McLean Band during jazzfest. Caught the legendary Johnny Vidacovich on drums along with Luther Dickinson on guitar, James Singleton on upright bass, and Skerik on tenor sax at the Maple Leaf. Looking forward to lots more music…

Jimmie Fadden’s Kit

briangriffin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:30:45 +0000

Jimmie Fadden from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and me

I caught up with Jimmie Fadden of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band the other night when we opened for them in Peekskill, New York. Here is his custom painted Gretsch Kit.

Jimmie Fadden's Circus Kit

They are old gretsch broadcaster drums and a gretsch field drum which he converted to a floor tom. The band calls it “the circus kit”. Dig the custom paint job! Jimmie told me that since two of the drums have center lugs, he was able to chop the edges way down and route some
sharper edges on the tom and the kick drum. I believe the snare is by the Precision Drum Company.

My favorite youtube of the week…

briangriffin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:12:19 +0000

The Record is finally out!

briangriffin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:07:35 +0000

Completely – The new Jamie McLean Band album that we started working on in January of 2009 is finally available for download.
Name your own price until April 13! We had a lot of great experiences recording this with Stewart Lerman at Water Music in Hoboken.
Get it here: http://www.jamiemcleanband.com