Russell Buddy Helm

In the distant future, the greatest contributing factor to evolution of consciousness and enlightenment in the Twentieth Century will be the invention of Rock n Roll. It will surpass the scope and effect of the first Atomic bomb and any other inventions or events of the Twentieth century as the greatest evolutionary force that has propelled humanity forward and upward toward a sentient beinghood. Long live Rock. Why? It reinvents itself on a perpetual cycle of death, stagnation, new flame, growth, maturity, decadence, shallowness, mortality, then the flicker of a new idea with the right beat and it starts all over again. Never ending. This art form has shattered our old concepts of what it is to be human. It has forced us to evolve. The basic groove is necessary, but that is not the whole story. There has to be intent. Rock n roll anthems are always a staple of the next generation of headbangers. Back when music had died, I moved into video and film work in LA, and found myself videotaping a young intense sweating girl in her dressing room at the Whiskey Ago go. She had just finished a set of blazing authentic rock. This was Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.  She was the future of rock n roll. “I don’t give a damn about a bad reputation.” put her on the map of rock lexicon for eternity. She pointed her hairdryer at me like a gun and sneered into my lens opening with disdain that bounced around the humid graffitied walls like an ancient curse uttered by the Syble of Delfi. She didn’t like me shooting her in her private dressing room full of her close friends, mostly girls. Tough girls. It felt like a moment hung up outside of time. It could have been Cleopatra’s bath or Lysistrata; women having their say. I felt the power that these girrrrls were expressing. I really liked it. It was the future. But it felt like I was defiling her sacred chambers, surrounded by her vestal virgins. This was not my world. Yet it was being born; the new female consciousness; and it was different. The groove is an evolutionary instrument looking for ways to motivate energy, sometimes having to overcome repression, in an upward movement. Put another dime in the jukebox, baby. The sacred feminine redefining itself.

Wear your blues outfit

1977. Buerk Neidermeyer called me and told me to show up for a gig at McCabe’s guitar shop in Santa Monica. “Wear your blues outfit.” He said enigmaticly. It was the ruling high class dive for top name folkies and blues guys on the road. I got there and it turned out to be Mike Bloomfield. Mark Napthalin played piano and Buerk was on bass, who was a piece of work. Ask anyone. He could play. He was first chair double bass in the LA Phil and top of the call list for Quincy. Only his personality was beyond abrasive; insinuating, cynical, bitter, articulate, well educated, genius, overbearing, demanding. The first thing he ever said to me was, “You’re funky for a white boy.” I let it ride. Where I come from that would have gotten him killed. He was a snob, but he liked the way I played, so I had to like him. I knew other assholes in the music world and a lot of them are bass players. I suspect there is a certain affinity for borderline personalities in the low tones of the electric bass guitar. Of course Mingus was no walk in the park and he probably never even played a Fender. Low tones do something to the personality, just like high tones do things to singers, violinists and trumpet players. Music that makes the player crazy. Forget drummers…I got an eight by ten glossie from my previous bass player in Bethlehem Asylum; straddling a full dress hog with extended front end and ape hanger handlebars which he drove through flaming walls of pine boards at the Saturday night drag strip in Pinellas Park, Florida. He was wearing a cape and black tasseled spandex silver super hero outfit, autographed; “Captain James Danger says, ‘Eat more possum!” He suggested I submit this to Herb, Frank and Tim’s manager. I thought that was a bad idea. But who knows maybe they would have understood each other’s madness. Doug Kinney, the Harvard movie brat immortalized Buerk in Animal House. I wasn’t the only one with this perspective on bass players.
Excerpt: “History of the Groove.” Russell Buddy Helm ©2015 all rights reserved

Its time to talk about the good fortune that befalls the erstwhile drummer. When we get into the drumming trance state, our negativity gets sidetracked and the good energy comes through into us, manifesting in really good luck. Getting what we want, even. I see this as a function of energetics and not morality. Although they go hand in hand, especially on a drum that is powerful enough to either create war or healing, peace and cosmic consciousness. The good luck brings wealth; richness in spirit but also hard currency. If this was not a money making process, it would have been abandoned as a tool for survival. Drumming is the second oldest profession in the history of the world. You want to make money? Get the girls to dance.

Shave and a haircut, two bits

“Shave and a haircut, two bits” is an aural folk rhythm of American culture. Anyone born or living in the US knows that rhythm. But when we look at its origins, we can see that there are discrepancies. The second note of the rhythm is where our ears let us down. If we were to count out the rhythm, the word ‘and’ is where mainstream culture gets rhythmically lazy. Our ears are the laziest part of the human body. They hear what they want to hear, putting the second note on a downbeat instead of an upbeat which is where it belongs to make it swing like Bo Diddley or any Afro Cuban band. “Close enough” is what our ears are telling us. This may work when we were listening to Ozzie and Harriet, but now ethnic grooves are saturating our technological culture in so many ways that our personal sense of what is rhythmically correct is being questioned, resulting in a certain level of uncertainty and even anxiety in our perception of the world. I work with this rhythm as a therapy with drumming and the results are fascinating. We have a survival trait that eliminates unnecessary date inflow, in order to keep us from info overload. Our senses are filters allowing only certain levels of sound, taste, touch, sensations of any kind; including rhythm. But with rhythm sensing, we have a disadvantage based on what our ancestors allowed us to feel; which was not much, considering that morality had a big say in just how little folks were allowed to shake their bootie. So we do not hear the subtle syncopation in the Clave rhythm, or Bo Diddley beat and put the second note on a “safe” downbeat. And it sounds lifeless. If we can hear the sixteenth note BEFORE that safe downbeat. One de and DA; and put the second note there, suddenly the world changes. We are swinging. It is an adventure in rhythmic healing, taking a chance; putting the littlest note in that spot pushes the groove into another realm, and that is where the trance really is. The combination is referred to as a ‘three two clave’ meaning that the five note signature lick is grouped into first three notes, then two notes. Firstly we need to get the three notes into a tripolet form. They are evenly spaced where the second note is pushed to hit just before the humdrum downbeat. Then comes the last two notes as the mop up crew. When someone finds this rhythm in themselves, they light up like a Christmas tree; it makes my day. We are discovering that we can psychologically shift out of trauma patterns by learning new rhythms with our hands. This is momentous stuff in this new field of rhythm therapy and we can thank the groove makers like Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Willy Dixon and the rest for their innate survival wisdom that comes up into our busy minds from a deep well of understanding that does not use the intellect so much as soothe it, or rather puts our critical mind into neutral for a while so that we can experience the truth and soulful wisdom that does not exist in words, but in our hearts and bodies. Take a chance and dance for true romance!

excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©2014 all rights reserved

The recent documentary, “Beware Mr. Baker” on Ginger Baker was illuminating for anyone curious about what it takes to be a rock star drummer. He was the first. He was also arguably the first drummer to depart from the mainstream of rock and delve into the more shamanistic music of Africa. He played drums with Fela Kuti in Nigeria before anyone knew who Fela was. That footage alone is worth the price of admission. But Ginger, possibly the most famous of all the rock drummer legends, had a discerning sensibility about what he was willing to do with his life. Obstreperous, outspoken to a fault and a consummate banger, he willed into being the most innovative trio; Cream. Sadly, drummers do not get royalties for good ideas, unless they are either a lyric, or a melody.The pull of the drum on drummers is inexorable and unfettered by morality. The drum drives the drummer. Ginger was awesomely dangerous to witness live. We would bet on when he would drop dead. He looked like a skull with wild red hair and played like a banshee on psychedelics. He redefined what a drummer should play, particularly in the song, “Sunshine of your Love”; instead of hitting a backbeat which is the tradition in rock and roll, meaning that you hit the snare drum on the ‘two’ beat and the ‘four beat’, he smacked the drums on the downbeats; on ‘one’ and ‘three’ which turned that song into a neanderthal opus of carnal ferociticity. This seemingly minor change in drumming styles rendered previous rock n roll drumming obsolete in the span of the song’s running time. On the car radio we became aware of the environmental rhythms that matched that unrelenting beat; pile drivers pounding concrete pillars for freeways matched Ginger’s beat. But he was true to his first love which was African drumming. When no one would play with him anymore he went to Nigeria and played with Fela Kuti’s big band. This is not an instance where the African drummers were tolerating a white man hitting the drums. They were playing together and it was great. He lost favor with that group too, but in the process he opened up the avenue for drummers to expand out of their conventional roll as timekeeper behind crooners into the shamanic realm where drumming has always been a large part of consciousness work. Ginger Baker is not an easy morsel to swallow but the fire in his gut still burns. He was the first and may well be the last of that era to forge new rhythmic roads into the expanding realms of rhythmic enlightenment.