Since when did we have to stick up for Instachops? When did flashing a little chop swag on the 'gram become a crime?
Love-them-or-hate-them, Instachops are here to stay.
And haters miss the point.
For decades, the most exposure to great drummers people in far-flung corners of the world, like my home town, could get was a VHS tape of the Buddy Rich tribute concert, a Steve Houghton seminar, or the occasional live concert.
As such, drums moved at the speed of snail mail. People in Wisconsin were just learning about Bill Stewart the first time I traveled to New York in 2000. Nobody had heard of Ari Hoenig.
In my 20s, living in Astoria, I remember wanting to put some video of myself playing on the internet. Just what we'd now call a drum cover!
My best option to book a studio, and spend several grand. In 2006, I got a canon power-shot, and a zoom mic, and started using iMovie to splice them together. It took a week to produce a single clip.
Then, almost overnight, smart-phones arrived, and Instagram start allowing video. First 15-second clips (the #VF15 era), then, one-minute.
Take an entire world of drummers studying their Dennis Chambers DVDs and recording with their camcorders, and tell them they can now record something higher resolution with their phone, and put it up for tens of thousands of people to see ...
...and you don't think they're gonna chop?
So of course the arms-race started. And good Goddamn thing, because it gave us Andy Prado, Maison Guidry, Joel Turcotte, and plenty of others. I've written and video'd elsewhere that if you're looking for somebody to cry for the end-run of the "gatekeepers", don't look at me.
How much of Insta-chopper hate is because they didn't have to "pay traditional dues" (i.e. deal with a system intent on taking their money for the promise of gigs it can't deliver), and how much is because they're just...better than us?
Regardless, I'll plant a flag that Instachoppers are awesome.
And, in this week's video, I've decoded some hotlicks from three of my favorites.