I played in about 8 "dance" bands. Every one had a drifting drummer. The worst was the older orchestra guys. Real curmudgeons, everyone of them. Except for 3 of us 'younger' guys. Man they eat drummers for lunch.

"What part of 120 bpm's don't you get son!", watch the baton. You are in an orchestra,not some rock and roll star now. I'm not up here to make a breeze..they can't dance if you don't keep the beat constant....", drummer starts packing up.....LOL.

I played with a really good group, except it was the drummer's group and man that guy was everywhere. As soon as the singer got near a long note it went 2 1/2 measures instead of one...and it was worse because he had a mic. The did me a favour and found a guy with a B3. 5 50 year old guys trying to find gigs and split what? 400 bucks. Setup by 10 and take down at 2 a.m. NUTS! Terry Clarke stays right on tempo and not one septuagenarian has complained about his tempo or lack of chops. In fact I played 4 hours with 2 breaks on Saturday aft. and a couple, both slightly hunched over and in their late 80's got up and NEVER sat down. Even through the faster Elvis tunes they swung hard. Twice a week all their lives.

John Conley
Musica est vita