Jon Theodore and Thomas Pridgen

The Mars Volta played at the Hordern Pavillion two weeks ago and it was quite a show. It didn't blow me away like the first time I saw them, but maybe that was to be expected. I've only just started listening to a shoeleg and I'm already picking up things I didn't notice. I think I'll be savouring this for some time.

Jon Theodore played drums on all three of their albums - deloused in the comatorium, frances the mute and amputechture - and the first time I saw them, which was at the Enmore theatre. He is an amazing drummer, technically proficient but absolutely mesmerising at times. He's fast and powerful. I read once that his mother was Haitian or something like that, and that that had informed his drumming style. Ever since, I feel I can detect something tribal in some parts that he plays, but that's probably just me being a douche.

I could tell you ten different theodore drum parts that have sunken into my soul, and from all three albums. Usually when I remember bits from songs, it's the vocal melody (shins, split enz) or a great guitar riff (led zeppelin) and I do remember these bits from TMV songs too. But the drumming is just on another plane. I've told people that the singer, Cedric Bixler-Xavala, uses his voice like an instrument, and i suppose the drumming is like that too, in that it's not just the back drop or the beat, but a voice in its own right too. He just does friggin cool things with the drums.

So I was aghast when I found out he'd left the band, and wasn't going to be playing at the Hordern. I didn't expect too much, but suspected that a band as creative, driven and musically impressive as the mars volta would come up with someone to do their songs justice. I still wondered whether the new drummer would sound the same. Surely not! But then classical music to me seems built upon the premise that it don't make a lick a diffrince who's playin, so long as they're playin it right. Is drumming the same? Was theodore a one of a kind genius, whose unique combination of power and zeppelin-meets-haiti style could not be duplicated? Or could any old session muso step in and do the same?

It turned out to be a moot point, because the replacement, Thomas Pridgen, had no need to play just the same as theodore. Pridgen turned out to be a freak too. He has a different style, perhaps not hitting the drums as hard, but technically amazing, constantly peppering his drumming with accents that leave you trying to back-calculate just what the dickens he'd done, but he'd already started a new one so you have to keep rewinding and playing again. which you can't do at a live concert.

There's a whole big debate on a mars volta forum, the comatorium, about who's better - Theodore or Pridgen. It misses the point really, which is that they're both mind-grindingly good. How the hell did TMV organise two such awesome drummers? And how lucky are the fans to lose someone as good as Theodore and gain someone like Pridgen? I hope Pridgen plays on their next studio album, and if so I can't wait to hear it.

Hearing cedric sing on the hordern shoeleg, he really was in fine form. i think the more i listen to this band, the more i appreciate them. and i been listening for months now, and hardly anything else. course, they do get a wee bit intense and hectic at times. but there's always the shins to fall back on.

I've tried to find people game enough to cover a mars volta song, but without success. someone's done The Widow, but it pretty much sucks ass. there's a dude on youtube who does just the drumming, and he's actually quite good. there's a chick who sings the beginning to meccamputechture and the fact that she's even close is really impressive. but she just doesn't mean it like cedric does.

where are the great bands of today? who is ambitious enough to take a volta song on??

i hereby nominate beck. he's stretched his vocal chords out since midnite vultures, so he could actually handle some of their songs, at least in his own beck way. he's also cool enough to do something interesting with one of them. it can't be just a carbon copy, although i think i can safely say that'd be pretty much impossible anyway. i'm not sure how to pass this message onto him or his people, but i like to think he'd be open to it.

caveat emptor
to all that enter here.....