Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Kent says...I thought the best part of the show were the interviews with the EMI staff, especially the one dude (cant remember his name) who recounted having asked Pete to do something special on Love Me Do which Pete couldn't perform.

I think you might be talking about Norman Smith. he was the Beatles engineer.

Actually it was not Smith... the other guy... the one who said (with a bit of a smile) that he hope Pete had "forgiven him" for asking Pete to play in a certain way on Love Me Do.

Kent,you should have gotten Ringo for your band because the band he was in broke up.Can't remember their name.

Haaa... yup, I think you're right. It was the Beagles, or the Beatals, or something like that.

The more I get to know the new guy the more I think that he might actually be related to Mr Starkey. It wasn't easy or fun to pull the trigger on the old drummer but we're instantly a better band and it's more fun to boot.

Ok, I'll admit yesterday at Costco I bought Cynthia Lennon's new book. I'm not far into it, but I am into the section where they acquire Pete for the German gigs. She says he was a guy with a drum set (a rarity) who at the moment, was not in a band. She also mentions his personality was quite different than the other three, and he made no effort to partake in the humor of his comrades. Sounds like from day one he wasn't quite the "best" fit.

yup. "made no effort to partake in the humor of his comrades" is a good description of how I see that situation. I was going to get the Cynthia book on Amazon but backed off. I can read the important parts the next time I visit Costco.

So far our new "Ringo" is working out great. Our first gig with him is on Friday. The old "Pete Best" did not take the news well. As we all know, this sort of thing is never easy or fun.

Kent,

That is a strange but often repeated phenomena. Switch out drummers and presto the band is re-fueled and raring to go. The strange thing is that usually the overall performance of the band has become so lack lustre just before the event that the new drummer only really has to show a burst of energy and the band is back on track.

Good luck with the new guy. I'll bet that hindsight being 20/20 vision and personality aside that the old drummer will be perceived in the future as not being that bad really.

When are they gonna rerun it? You guessed it I missed it.

Brian... interesting take on the drummer thing. You could be right as this is the first time I've been party to a drummer sacking.

Even now we dont perceive the old drummer to be all that bad, although I do think that going strictly by ability the new drummer is significantly better... and he can sing great backup harmonies which is something that the old drummer could do none of. This will be a big help.

But you are certainly right that part of the new enthusiasm has to do with the "burst of energy" and simply the fact that the newness of it is refreshing. Its also going to take some work to for us all to get comfortable playing the current setlist together. Already we've seen some of the songs "come to life" as a result of the new drummer. "Black Magic Woman" is definitely an example of this.

One of the (many) bottom_lines with the whole thing is that the old drummer WASN'T all that bad. If the choice had been ONLY drumming ability then there is no way we would have made the change, lesser ability or not. But there were (as there always is I'm sure) a whole bunch of other things involved.... personality, schedule availability, a non-desire to play anything but recognizable covers (which put a damper on any originals that the rest of the band wanted to bring in)..... all the way down to sense of humor. Thats why .... while I dont want to even BEGIN to compare my band with the Beatles... I still related so much to the situation the Fab Three found themselves in in the first half of '62.

Anyways, I do appreciate your thought on this. I may be on the downhill side of 50, but in some ways I'm still a rookie in all this band stuff.

Yea, I wouldn't mind a rerun of the Pete Best special either.

I had always heard that George was the most enthusiastic about replacing Pete Best with Ringo, but the way I read it, it was more that George wanted Ringo "in" than that he wanted Pete "out". Also, all the other members of the band came in through some friendship connection. John brought in Paul, who was a friend of a friend. John brought in George, who was a friend of Pauls. John brought in Stuart who was a friend of his. It seems like the personalities, especially in the beginning, of the members was much more important than the musical ability.

Pete was never a pal, he was just someone with a drum kit who happened to be available when the Hamburg opportunity arose. As long as he stayed outside the "inner circle" of the other three, he was going to be at risk of being replaced by someone who "fit in" better.

When I started playing in 1965, we formed our band in much the same way -- my friend played drums, another friend played guitar. We didn't know any other guitar players, but we convinced another friend, who played bass, to switch to guitar so that I could play bass. It was friend-based, but that friend also had to have equipment. I'd like to say that I avoided having people in my later bands simply because they owned equipment -- or a truck -- but I can't. It probably wasn't until I'd played for about 20 years that I got back to the "business" of playing with friends again. It was much more fun.

yup, well stated .... if the people in the band aren't mates something (or someone) will have to change or the whole thing will likely fall apart.