As long as we're on this drummer topic, I thought that you all might enjoy a story that drummer Bob Moses told regarding a workshop led by drummer Stu Martin at the legendary Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York. (Anybody remember Stu Martin?) It appears in the book Music Universe, Music Mind (http://www.arborville.com). "Bob says that this particular incident stands out in his mind because it was 'hilarious, but kind of cruel. . . . One of the people who studied with me,' Bob recalls, 'was one of the drummers playing in Stu's ensemble. I was watching them play, and it was maybe ten or twelve people--wailin', just full-out, free-form chaos. It was a couple of drummers, maybe three keyboards. You know how the instrumentation never really made any particular sense [at CMS workshops]; it was whoever showed up--like, four violin players, two keyboards, maybe two drummers, a bass clarinet, and a couple of acoustic guitars, which you couldn't hear. There had to have been maybe ten or fifteen people, and it was completely just [at this point Bob vocalizes over the phone, quite accurately, what ten or fifteen people playing total chaos might sound like]. I couldn't make out what any one person was playing; it wasn't like there was any separation. 'And I remember, Stu stopped the whole group in the middle and, like, went off on this guy who was playing drums, saying, 'you tasteless motherfucker!' In that context, what would constitute taste? What could the guy have done that was so wrong? What was right and what was wrong? This poor guy was traumatized for weeks trying to figure out what he had done. I thought that was really funny, even though it was kind of cold. I mean, I don't know what Stu was thinkin'. . . . But that cracked me up-- 'you tasteless motherfucker.'" Copyright 1996 Arborville Publishing Bob Sweet bsweet@umich.edu