Favorite Pete Thomas drum moments

[robertchao]

Chelsea, especially the beginning.

No Action, especially the fade-out.

[pophead2k]

Pete's hungover one take performance on Beyond Belief is......well, Beyond Belief.

[Miclewis]

There is a drum fill about 2 minutes into "Home is Anywhere you Hang Your Head" that is one of the best Ringo imitations ever.

And, the end and fade-out on "13 Steps Lead Down". Great!!!

[Mr. Average]

Feverish banging and restrained articulation on "Lipstick Vogue". Great to hear his work captured live on the bonus disc commemorating "This Years Model".

And I second the motion for "Beyond Belief".

[SkaDan]

and i Second "Lipstick Vogue" and "No Action", the live/peel session version of Mystery Dance(particularly the intro). love the delicate but complicated symbol work on New Lace Sleeves. and if works other than Elvis' count, the light energy he has on Nick Lowe's "American Squirm" is great aswell. and anything on Get Happy.

[wardo68]

I'm awfully fond of his use of the crash cymbals on "Pretty Words". It's something like once every three seconds, but it never seems overused.

[BlueChair]

Definitely "New Lace Sleeves" for me, though I guess that's an obvious one. I also really like his drumming on "Tokyo Storm Warning."

[DeathWearsABigHat]

Pete's a brilliant & very underrated drummer.
He plays a blinder on the Brutal Youth album, particularly Sulky Girl & Pony Street.

[terryhurley]

I like his work on "Tokyo Storm Warning"...even though I dislike the rest of it!

[burgundy breakfast]

I like his work on "Tokyo Storm Warning"...even though I dislike the rest of it!

How can you dislike that song!? Lyrically, one of the (many) highlights of Blood & Chocolate.

[srsch]

Well, he is my very favorite drummer, so besides what's been mentioned so far...
-the complete drum tracks on Lovers Walk
-live versions of Either Side Of The Same Town (those beutiful rolls on the snare)
-Peace, Love, and Understanding-just a stellar performance always
-early live versions of You Belong To Me-controlled mania
-Bedlam-still can't figure out how he plays this
-Almost Blue-holding this slow tempo is very hard to do, especially with style
-the end of 13 Steps-how he didn't rip through his snare drum head, I don't know
-double tracked drums on Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do)
I could go on and on.
What makes Pete my favorite drummer overall is his consistency (I've never heared him have an "off" show), he plays off Elvis' vocals with such a great feel, never overplays, knows when to hold back and when to push a band forward. Let's not forget his drums always sound great too.

[krm]

No action and Lipstick Vogue.

and New Lace sleeves

and the whole blood and chocolate album.....

[Neil.]

Wow, too hard to say. Chelsea is a classic opening, and kinda makes you think it's gonna go into the horn section from Hawaii Five-O! But practically any track you care to mention will have something special. I too have a fondness for that drum fill in Home Is Anywhere... - something about it that really catches the melancholy and weariness of the track, taking the song into the final strait.

Like Bruce and Davey, it's amazing how melodic his playing is, despite being a rhymthn section man. You can almost hum the tunes of his work, if you see what I mean. I too love the opening Tokyo Storm Warning - proper, organic drum sound rather than bloody cannonfire you were normally getting in the 80s.

All of Brutal Youth has amazing stuff - fadeout of thirteen steps? Rocking Horse Road - the brush work on All The Rage.

And I still can't understand just how he managed what he achieved in Beyond Belief. Apart from the weird cymbal effects, I swear there's like a heartbeat thing going on with the pedal that palpitates from time to time, taking the beat to all sorts of strange places. Incredible.

[thepopeofpop]

Every song mentioned above, plus:

You'll Never Be A Man

This Year's Girl

Pony Street (ok, that's already been mentioned but I just wanted to mention it again)

Stella Hurt

[Otis Westinghouse]

And I still can't understand just how he managed what he achieved in Beyond Belief. Apart from the weird cymbal effects, I swear there's like a heartbeat thing going on with the pedal that palpitates from time to time, taking the beat to all sorts of strange places. Incredible.

I'll have to listen to this again! Don't recall any of that. Like a quick double beat on the bass drum? Will have to listen with headphones.

Most of my faves have been covered (great list, srsch - and welcome!). I was about to add Rocking Horse Road, but it's been done.

He's been accused of overdoing it in the past, being too full on (I recall a sarcastic quote from somewhere 'why play one beat when you can play 12?)', but I like a lively drummer, not overly restrained. I love the sound of his kits. I love to watch him, lips clenched in concentration. I enjoyed the close up detail that memorable 2005 night at the Hammersmith Apollo of seeing him in a slow song tapping out the beats in between those played on the kit gently on his jeans.

[Jeremy Dylan]

The bridge of Monkey To Man. Knocks me out.

[woz]

Seeing Pete and his daughter, Tennessee, on stage playing together at the El Rey during the "surprise" midnight show after Elvis opened for The Police at the Hollywood Bowl earlier in the evening. Watching Pete and Tennessee play together and seeing how in synch they were was just beautiful.

You can catch some of it on the videos on Elvis' website, but the entire show was video'd by Elvis' people (just wish they'd post the whole show somewhere).

Cheers.

[And No Coffee Table]

Pete is #73 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists ... s-20160328

In under a year, Elvis Costello moved from the wiry pub-rock of My Aim Is True to the bilious punk frenzy of This Year's Model, and he couldn't have made the great lurch forward without Mitch Mitchell fan Pete Thomas behind the kit. On those earliest Attractions records, Thomas played how Elvis sang, with a pent-up-then-spurted anger, a hesitant stutter of kick or snare suggesting a failed attempt at restraining an inevitable explosion. (Cue to the thrilling intro to "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea.") As Costello's songwriting came to demand greater nuance, Thomas remained his ideal rhythmic accomplice, playing with an intuitive sense yielded by long-term collaboration. "Pete Thomas is the rock and roll drummer of his generation by some considerable distance," Costello tweeted last year, "and that you never read that in polls tells you everything you need to know about 'polls' and nothing about drummers."

[sulky lad]

Almost anything he plays live but the switch to floor toms on the second verse of PLU almost makes me swoon - I'm not sure if its because we're coming to the end of the show but I love it so much. I also love the fact that he doesn't overplay the snare and hi-hat - it's one of the annoying distractions on Wise Up Ghost that ?uestlove uses to excess imho.
Oh, and the subtlety of Almost Blue -it only needs an upright bass to be pure 40s jazz !!!

[docinwestchester]

Let's not forget about his vocals:



EC summons him to the mic at 2:18

[FrankieJ]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say I really like his ending of Room With No Number. Pretty simplistic, but it gets me.

[sulky lad]

Yeah-hay, me too , I love that and the way it sidles into Bruce's bass for Inch By Inch