Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

In their heyday, who was the better drummer, Dave Clark or Chris Curtis??

I always thought of Dave Clark as a 'bang, crash' drummer although as I never bought any DC5 albums I don't know if this is a fair description or not. But I never thought of Chris Curtis as anything other than a competent drummer either. I guess that at the time I was more into the guitar and vocal sound than anything else.

Curtis by a mile. I still remember Dave Clark bouncing up and down on his drum kit like a demented bobblehead doll- and he couldn't do a roll worth a damn. Plus, Chris would change patterns (Saints and Searchers), instruments (bongos on What Have They Done to the Rain), and could do great drum rolls (Tricky Dicky, Some Other Guy). I thought he was the best of the first wave drummers I saw.

Curtis actually played on The Searchers recordings as far as I know , whereas Mike Smith, who was tragically seriously injured last year, when asked in a magazine interview some time back, about the rumour that DC did not actually play on most of their recordings, basically didn't answer the question.

What is not in question though is that the one with the better business acumen was clearly DC.