Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
This is a first on my channel – a full video comprising all the footage we have available from this concert. As I’ve noted elsewhere, it captures the final Earthworks at its best, I think, with Gwilym Simcock on piano, Laurence Cottle on bass, Tim Garland on saxophones, and myself on tubs. You get the full flow of the concert, with audience reaction and applause and the bits inbetween songs - so kick off your shoes, take an hour for yourself, and enjoy.
Hard to believe for me; this is already 20 years old. So much has happened so fast. Elderly jazz married youthful hip-hop while I wasn’t looking. Women play the drums very well - of course! We musicians are now obliged to spend hours on social media platforms ‘washing up’ after the gig and telling folks about the next one. Who imagined that in 2005? The ‘fight for ears’ shows no sign of abating. Deresiewicz’s ‘churn of continual disruption’ churns away remorselessly in an age of perpetual distraction.
Someone asked me recently if I had any pointers or suggestions about the way he might go about doing things. I said, no; but on reflection, a few handles have stood me in good stead over the years - something to hold on to in choppy waters and continual disruption. Here are Bruford’s Seven Lessons Learned. I’ve probably chatted about some of these somewhere before:
• First survive failure, then survive success. Of the two, I’ve seen more rancor and disaffection caused by the latter than the former.
• that music does not exist to serve you; you exist to serve the music.
• that it’s not what you’re able to play, it’s what you are able to think up to play.
• that it’s not where you take it from, it’s where you take it to that matters.
• that we all have strengths and weaknesses as performers: my pleasure lies in helping a small group of people to collaborate to maximum effect.
• that, to paraphrase the Marquis of Halifax from a couple of hundred years ago, popularity is a crime from the moment it’s sought. It’s only a virtue when you don’t care whether you have it or not.
• that I need some sort of emotional connection to the music if it is to have any meaning for me. I’m not a good session musician, or gun-for-hire.
None of those are immediately connected to this Earthworks concert, but all have firmed up in the back of my head as part of what makes me the musician I am, for better or worse. It all come out in the music.
That’s enough philosophising. Enjoy the show!
#music #drummer #livemusic #drums #jazz #drumming #yes #drumming #kingcrimson #tamadrumsofficial #paiste #billbrufordsearthworks #musicimprovisation
00:00:00 Libreville
00:07:37 Highland Games
00:17:12 Youth
00:24:34 Song
00:33:29 White Knuckle Wedding
00:42:01 The Wooden Man Sings And The Stone Woman Dances
This is a first on my channel – a full video comprising all the footage we have available from this concert. As I’ve noted elsewhere, it captures the final Earthworks at its best, I think, with Gwilym Simcock on piano, Laurence Cottle on bass, Tim Garland on saxophones, and myself on tubs. You get the full flow of the concert, with audience reaction and applause and the bits inbetween songs - so kick off your shoes, take an hour for yourself, and enjoy.
Hard to believe for me; this is already 20 years old. So much has happened so fast. Elderly jazz married youthful hip-hop while I wasn’t looking. Women play the drums very well - of course! We musicians are now obliged to spend hours on social media platforms ‘washing up’ after the gig and telling folks about the next one. Who imagined that in 2005? The ‘fight for ears’ shows no sign of abating. Deresiewicz’s ‘churn of continual disruption’ churns away remorselessly in an age of perpetual distraction.
Someone asked me recently if I had any pointers or suggestions about the way he might go about doing things. I said, no; but on reflection, a few handles have stood me in good stead over the years - something to hold on to in choppy waters and continual disruption. Here are Bruford’s Seven Lessons Learned. I’ve probably chatted about some of these somewhere before:
• First survive failure, then survive success. Of the two, I’ve seen more rancor and disaffection caused by the latter than the former.
• that music does not exist to serve you; you exist to serve the music.
• that it’s not what you’re able to play, it’s what you are able to think up to play.
• that it’s not where you take it from, it’s where you take it to that matters.
• that we all have strengths and weaknesses as performers: my pleasure lies in helping a small group of people to collaborate to maximum effect.
• that, to paraphrase the Marquis of Halifax from a couple of hundred years ago, popularity is a crime from the moment it’s sought. It’s only a virtue when you don’t care whether you have it or not.
• that I need some sort of emotional connection to the music if it is to have any meaning for me. I’m not a good session musician, or gun-for-hire.
None of those are immediately connected to this Earthworks concert, but all have firmed up in the back of my head as part of what makes me the musician I am, for better or worse. It all come out in the music.
That’s enough philosophising. Enjoy the show!
#music #drummer #livemusic #drums #jazz #drumming #yes #drumming #kingcrimson #tamadrumsofficial #paiste #billbrufordsearthworks #musicimprovisation
00:00:00 Libreville
00:07:37 Highland Games
00:17:12 Youth
00:24:34 Song
00:33:29 White Knuckle Wedding
00:42:01 The Wooden Man Sings And The Stone Woman Dances
