| CD REVIEW Travis Barker |
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Band : Travis Barker “Rock” loving people will probably know Travis Barker best as the drummer of Melodic Punk Rock act Blink-182, but there's a chance they also know him from Alternative Rock acts +44 (alongside B-182 member Mark Hoppus) and Box Car Racer, or from Rap Rock act the Transplants. But besides that he also formed a band with DJ AM called TVR$DJAM, played a good deal of the drums on Avril Lavigne's 3rd album the Best Damn Thing, and as producer he's helped out plenty of Rap and Hip Hop artists giving remixes of some of their songs a Rock injection. The Drummer Get Some is the man's first solo album, and to record it he's found an army of people willing to help him out...these including (hold on for the extensive list) Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Swiss Beatz and Game on the album opening Rap Rock track “Can A Drummer Get Some”...Pharell and Lupe Fiasco on the guitar-less “If You Want To”...RZA, Raekwon and Tom Morello on the Rap Rockin' “Carry It”...Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, E-40 and Dev...the Cool Kids on “Jump Down”...Slaughterhouse on “Devil's Got A Hold on Me” (these latter three all guitar-less Hip Hop)...Yelawolf, Twista, Busta Rhymes and Lil Jon on the typical Busta Rhymes track “Let's Go”, but with some guitar additions...Travis' own Transplants collaborates with Slash on the somewhat bluesey Rap Rocker (or what would you've expected from the latter) “Saturday Night”...”Cool Head”, in which the guitar is more etherical,features Kid Rudi...Hip Hop tracks ”Raw Shit” and “Just Chill ” were done with Tech N9ne and Bun B, and Beanie Sigel, Bun B & Kobe respectively. Album closing “Beat Goes On” sees a great Rap Rocker in collaboration with Cypress Hill. After a couple of minutes you get a 1-minute hidden bonus track entitled “I Play the Drums”, which was probably done with some of the MC's doin' their thing through a vocoder: although it seems like it's 6 year-olds doin' the vocals, there's a scream towards the end which could not be produced by one so young. Anyone interested in the lyrics on the album? In three cases you get the guys rappin' about their collaboration with Travis, in a couple other of 'em they play the hoodlum-having-gotten-caught, in a couple of other cases the texts are socio-political. End of the day, this is a reasonably nice album! I mean, I've enjoyed the mixture of Rap Rock tracks alternated with pure Hip Hop songs and a couple of in between diddies (where the guitar was not used to come to the fore but rather as part of the background) quite charming...even more refreshing than some artists I know in the Rap Rock genre! Indeed, it's a credit to Travis that he's dared to step out of the strict confines of the music he is more generally known from...but than what could we really expect from a guy who confesses listening less to Rock music than to Rap, Hip Hop, and Drum 'n' Bass? Wanna get some of this drummer's music? Just mosey on down the Internet highway to Travis' own website (www.) travisbarker.com (the music section holds 12 out of the 13 tracks – not counting that hidden song – on the album). 94/100 Tony. |