From: (Tim Gadd) lupercal@geocities.com
Subject: Re: Hello Seancers!
Date: 12/8/1999 11:14:52 PM
To: 

At 08:52 PM 12/8/99 EST, MBaroneO@aol.com wrote:

>Here's another thread to follow:
>
>Drummers.  Church drummers....that is
>
>Nick Ward, Richard Ploog, J.D.Daugherty and Tim Powles all had/have quite 
>distinctive playing styles.  
>
>What are your thoughts on the different styles and "chops" each player 
>possessed?
>
>Any Church drummer incidents that particularly stick in your mind?

Well, I'm probably going to get slagged off for this, but hey, he asked.

I recorded with Nick Ward, and I suppose it makes for an amusing anecdote.
I was living in Canberra briefly and answered an ad which a band had placed,
looking for a member. I played with them, decided they were nice folk, but
there music wasn't my style, so I declined to join. They asked me if I'd
play session on an ep they were recording though (they were called 'Asia
Rain'. I've got no idea if the thing ever came out.) I said sure. When I
turned up it turned out Nick Ward was the session drummer, and also the
producer. This led to a great deal of tension between him and the sound
engineer, over who had ultimate control over the mix, and they were
basically at each other's throats all the time.

Nick's drumming style was very plain and unadorned. The band members were
constantly at him to play some fills, or do something other than just keep
time, and he steadfastly refused to do any such thing, on the grounds that
it was 'too fussy', or something like that. I began to get the impression
that he was refusing to do it because he couldn't. Also, since they were
paying him, I would have thought he could have attempted to play the way
they wanted him to, but he seemed to be of the opininioin that he was a
professional and they were just kids, and he knew better than them.
Personally I agreed with them, and thought the drum track needed somethig to
liven it up a bit, but I was 21, so maybe I was just a kid, too.

Nick, or at least the Nick that I got to see, was quite an abrasive person,
who tended to insult everyone any chance he could get (he was especially
vitriolic about Kilbey and The Church in general, if I remember rightly, for
sacking him just when they were on the point of breaking into the bigtime).
But I should add a disclaimer that my memories from these sessions should
not probably not be entriely trusted, because on the second day the engineer
got arrested on the way to the studio (I can't  remember why), making him
about 6 hours late, and by the time he turned up Nick had gone down to the
pub and bought a bottle of scotch, which I think we'd finished by the time
the engineer finally arrived.

Personally I like all three of the other drummers' styles. 
--
Tim Gadd
Hobart, Tasmania