This coming Monday at 7:30 p.m., Terry Bozzio—originally Zappa’s drummer, now a soloist with a distinctly maximalist approach—brings his drum clinic to the Pour House in Raleigh. And while some may roll eyes at his virtuosic flurry of sticks and kicks, one thing is undeniable: Holy shit, this guy can drum.
Bozzio’s setup is a thing to behold; he has more bass drums than most drummers have pieces in their kit, not to mention dozens of toms, snares and various other percussion bits precisely tuned to various tones. This absurd kit could easily take up the entirety of the Pour House stage and, particularly from behind, it has all the appearances of some elaborate sci-fi control mechanism.
The draw here is similar to that of the Olympics, though, as the spectacle at hand is one of a super-specialized virtuoso in peak physical condition for the task at hand. What’s the practical use of jumping hundreds of feet in the air on skis? And what’s the point of shooting down an ice tunnel at 90 miles an hour on little more than a cafeteria tray? Like the Olympics, this is all perfectly ridiculous: Bozzio’s kit is incredibly impractical and nobody but him can even play it—not without years of intensive training, that is. Bozzio’s drumming has more to do with his dizzying abilities than whether or not they’d be useful or even practical to everyday musicians.
This is the same draw that’s had untold numbers of people, worldwide, tuned in to the Sochi games—or any year’s Olympics, for that matter. Enjoyment of either requires a healthy suspension of disbelief and an admission that the skills on display are, frankly, not all that useful.
So if you haven’t had enough of superhuman feats, go see Bozzio at the Pour House the day after the Olympics end. If that’s not your scene, though—well, you don’t need me to tell you that.
