A Game of Musical Drummers

If you want steady work as a musician, playing the drums well may be one of your best bets. Of course it also helps to be versatile and able to learn songs quickly because you never know when you may be asked to sit on someone else's proverbial stool.

Here are just a few recent notable switcheroos you may or may not have noted:

- As Peter Anderson was also drumming for The Ocean Blue at SXSW, Charles Gehr of Ouija Radio filled in at one of Mark Mallman's gigs at the Austin music festival.

- This past weekend (Friday, March 25th)Anderson was back on the stool as Mallman's regular drummer at the Mallman/Melodious Owl show at the Triple Rock, for two shows. On a side note, in the late show, the drum-free Melodious Owl had some "drum" issues you'd think they'd be immune from when but the iPod that included the drum tracks as well as additional instrumentation came unplugged during two or more songs forcing a couple of re-starts. (Melodious Owl had also pulled a switcheroo of their own in this show, substituting a "Faux Joe" in place of regular guitar player Joe Berns, who was in Paris for Spring Break. Faux Joe, looked much the same as the regular Joe, wearing his clothes and even copying his swivelling side to side moves.)

- Saturday night, I noticed Eric Fawcett of Spymob had replaced Matt O'Laughlin at the Olympic Hopefuls show as they opened for the Honeydogs at First Avenue. (I understand this is a permanent move, so I guess it's time for some new publicity shots.) Peter Anderson was drumming for the Honeydogs tonight (though Noah Levy was on hand and still played on a few songs.) Anderson being in Minneapolis for the Honeydogs show meant that Sean Hoffman was holding down the stool for Mallman in Duluth.

- After the Honeydogs, I went to Lee's for a bit where Chris Koza's drummer Luke Anderson was drumming with Joanna James new band. Later, Dave Russ held down his normal spot as Dan Israel's regular drummer.

As I complete this collection of notes on the drummer shell game, I just received an email from Sarah Khan of the Violettes that Pete Rex (of Dander, Jim Crego & Friends, and Jehovah's Shitlist to name a few) will be sitting in again on Thursday March 31st (playing percussion and running samples along with Scott Haughawout)at their Turf Club show.