Mother Nut Drop

Norm

As I had nothing better to do last night, I had this great idea that I would construct a rhythm for the 24 hour challenge. This would be different: a 24 minute drum solo (I mean, who wouldn’t love that?). I even had a perfect bass riff: the “Mother Rhythm” an ancient, simple but magical African pattern in 12/8 that legend states all other rhythms in the world emanated from (^OO^XX^OO^XX). So I pulled a cork and everything was going fine. I opened the pattern with a deceptive Cuban Abakwa clave (which lends itself nicely to patterns both in 4/4 and 6/8) and 6/8 cowbell, to which I later add a low cowbell that IS played in 4/4, making this a true 6vs4 polyrhythm. After another glass of wine, I even allowed myself to crash my own party with BONGOS (who let him in?) playing mostly in 4. (Never look a bongo player in the eyes - it will only encourage him).

But then it happened.

Things started to fall apart at 4:00. Literally. I was playing that Mother Rhythm like a mother - so hard, in fact, that one of my nuts fell off. Fell off right onto the floor mounted bass mic. You can actually hear it hit the mic @ 4:09. It totally wrecked the groove. (Whaaaa? Hey! I’m talking about a nut from my conga stand! Did you think…? Oh man, that’s just wrong!)