Prompt: "A song with complex drumming"
Selected by Pat
"Heroes"
All Time Low
Dirty Work, 2011
I once went bar hopping with my cousins in Fells Point, Baltimore. If your only frame of reference for Baltimore is The Wire, then let me explain two things. First, there are other movies and shows about Baltimore. Go watch Hairspray and lighten up. Second, Fells Point is the trendy part of the city with all the bars and restaurants and youths. There were a lot of places to go that night, but someone insisted on checking out The Rockwell, the club co-owned by All Time Low guitarist and problematic Maryland native Jack Barakat.
Pop-punk is weird. Clubs are weird. This pop-punk club was especially weird. The walls in The Rockwell are decorated with giant screens that display slideshows, and on this particular night the décor of choice was hyper-sexualized drawings of Pokémon. Everyone in there, my family included, was fucking hammered. But in this sea of annoying chaos, on a stage between the big-titty Charizard and yoked Jigglypuff, was a live drummer who accompanied any song played on the dance floor. I don't know if you've ever seen a guy on drums keep up with a dozen songs by a dozen different bands up close, but it's astonishing. This dude was giving it his all. At one point, a very, very drunk woman—my sister—pointed at this man and yelled "It's the drummer from All Time Low!" This being Baltimore in 2016, everyone started cheering for the hometown boy who made good.
Now this was clearly NOT Rian Dawson of All Time Low. To this day, I have no idea who that guy was. But he rocked. And rightly or wrongly, I now associate All Time Low with good drumming. I'm sure that opinion is filling some readers with white-hot rage. Well go ahead, eviscerate me in the comments. Today's my birthday and any attention is good attention.
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