Drum Extravaganza is an event for everyone - percussionist, musicians, and the general public. This year, apart from performances and tutorials given by distinguished local musicians and bands, Hong Kong's audience also had the luck to see a full-length clinic by internationally renowned drummer, Keith Carlock. Such entertaining yet educational event was set in the outdoor Piazza area of Hong Kong Cultural Centre on Sunday, 5th November, 2006.

Band Sound: 100% Made in Hong Kong

Infinity and Nuclear, two grand-prize winners from Yamaha Asian Beat Band Competition 2004 and 2005, gave their stylistic and blood-pumping performances for the large crowd sitting at the stairs connecting to the Cultural Centre's entrance. Blended with speed, power and fury, Nuclear's music fits our young audience's taste. Whereas Infinity, an instrumental group had a style that is less progressive. The foursome won applause with their polished melodies and arrangement.

Punk Rock and Hip Hop Dance Crossover

What is like when Punk Rock meets Hip Hop dance? Dear Jane, a local Punk Rock band collaborates with local artist EO2. As the band plays EO2's song with exceptional upbeat energy, EO2's dance moves syncs with their accents and beat. If hip-hop is all about the flavor you bring to the dance, certainly EO2 has it all. In additional to this title, Dear Jane played a few more original works from their album too. While anger and discontent seemed to be the universal theme for all Punk bands, Dear Jane is a cool exception. Their theme were infused with intense local flavor, day-to-day topics like the life of the working class were fresh and local. Their vocalist's natural and primitive presentation was one of the hints that Dear Jane is not just another young pop band you see.

Jun and Ray's Drumming 101

Jun Kung, the renowned drumming talent from Macau, invited his buddy Ray to give an open lecture about drumming and its influences and variations in various styles of contemporary music. Ray is a bassist, and with Jun, they are a solid team. As the educational part of the program, they introduce the history of drums, how they were made and the roles of drums in Reggae, Rock and Roll, Blues, Funk, and all sorts of music genres. This part of the program was highly interactive. As he went on with the session, he would ask audience questions about drumming and the audiences were very responsive. As he moved onto the skills of drum making, he explained with his hilarious demonstration, 'In the past, as we beat on the drum, the drum would move around in all directions. Drummers can't help but keep pulling the drum to its place. Think about you're actually playing in such horrible condition, Oops!' His funny and lively demonstration was well loved by the audience and his fans.

Later, Ray joined him to demonstrate short paragraphs of various music styles. Although these were not full-length songs, yet they were very well prepared and professional. Jun's playing was in-the-pocket, and Ray, who's very experienced, were finest in terms of both skills and musicality. His choice of note and cleanliness in playing were the best accompaniment to Jun's art.

Session players shared their secret

Guests in this year's extravaganza came from sectors of the music industry, allowing audience to learn and understand the art and culture of drumming from different perspectives. Zildjian's Hong Kong endorsee, Marco Leung paired up with Bassist Siu Ming to show everyone how important it is for drummers to lock into the bass line, vice versa. To make the event fun and impressive, they intentionally played several musical excerpts with mistakes. However, to these pros, when asked to hit the wrong notes on the wrong beats, it could be still be challenging. The duo received great applause from the audience. Why? Just imagine, how often do you get to see these pros make mistakes in front of you?

Keith Carlock's Clinic

This is Keith's very first drum clinic in Hong Kong. As compared to the audience who attended Modern Drummer Festival Weekend 2005 in the States, Hong Kong's audience was a lot luckier, because Hong Kong's audience could observe Keith's playing from a short distance, and Keith had actually more time to demonstrate in the clinic.

The songs that Keith demonstrated in this clinic were mostly fusion pieces, infused with elements from Soul, R&B, Funk and Rock. With simply just one snare and a bass drum, Keith could come out with a lot of musical ideas and variations. His precise control on his sticks was shown through the series of tones produced with the snare. In one of the songs, he started with hitting the snare with gentle strokes. As he moved on, he included the toms and crash into his playing, increasing his volume and complicity, gradually bring the sound of a full kit into the background track. At some moments, when his crashes became dominant in his playing, he was able to keep the drum kit in balance with the music.

Keith's approach to the kit is unique. He treats his kit as another pitched instrument with tone. And this is most obvious and prominent in Wayne Krantz's 'Honey Loves Sugar'. Just like the rest of the songs he played in the clinic, this is another song in which musicians put their emphasis on musical ideas, instead of melody.

The audience was attracted by the funky Wah-Wah guitar sound at the backing track. Yet later on, as Keith's kit became bold, it was obvious that Keith had been trying to mimic the guitarist's licks and chops, both rhythm-wise and pitch-wise at the end of each short musical phrase. His attempts to unison with other instruments was energy-pumping, and made people wanna groove and sing along with it. He's creative, and he's definitely not the boring type of drummer who would be happy to settle with dull and repetitive patterns.

When he finished two songs, he had already soaked through his T-shirt, although it was autumn already and the breeze from the harbor was quite chilly. Despite this is just a clinic, in which the audience all came from different backgrounds, Keith paid his full energy to make his clinic a good one. Speaking of hard-working, how does Keith feel about being voted by readers as the 2nd best all-round-drummer《Modern Drummer Magazine》in 2006? "It is quite flattering. I didn't expect that. I've done a lot of really, high-profile gigs lately and I think that helps to get my name out. It's kind of a fast thing that happened over the past three or four years. I didn't put a lot of work in before that you know. It's really flattering to be accepted by the peers and fans."

In the clinic, Keith had provided some great useful tips and advices for drummers. "As a drummer, you have to make you. You could learn from other musicians, and influenced by them, but don't copy." He also suggested that you have to be open to all kinds of music, even that kind of music is not your cup of tea, because that could inspire you too. An autograph session was arranged after the clinic, and Keith, who had already been playing for more than an hour, took pictures and autographed friendly for his long queue of fans and supporters.