Was just having a conversation with a friend this past weekend about Bonham, and he mentioned that one of the cool things about Bonzo's playing is how it sounds so simple in the grand scheme (eg, "BOOM, BAP, BOOM-BOOM, BAP") and yet there's
so much little stuff going on "in between the cracks".
I opined -- and mind you, we weren't listening to any Zep at the time so this armchair analysis was based more on memory rather than actual empirical listening -- that a lot of that little stuff can be attributed to
1) a
huge discrepancy in volume between his snare backbeats, and all the other snare accents; his backbeats are bonecrushingly massive, yet the syncopated chatter in between backbeats is just that: chatter, barely elevating above the level of the hi-hats; and
2) the room sound is so prevalent that there's a natural acoustic slap-back echo on his hi-hats, such that when he's playing quarter notes you get almost an eighth note feel from all that "chick(uh) chick(uh) chick(uh) chick(uh)"
meh...conjecture is a wonderful thing, no?
