The Petra Zone

I am a drummer and have enjoyed watching Louie play over the years. What I noticed is in all other videos Louie has played the hi-hat with his left hand and the snare drum with his right. On the TBN concert vid he is now playing "normal" with the hi-hat being played with his right hand and snare drum with his left. Doesn't mean anything just noticed it and thought it was different. Loved seeing louie playing again.

WR1U wrote:I am a drummer and have enjoyed watching Louie play over the years. What I noticed is in all other videos Louie has played the hi-hat with his left hand and the snare drum with his right. On the TBN concert vid he is now playing "normal" with the hi-hat being played with his right hand and snare drum with his left. Doesn't mean anything just noticed it and thought it was different. Loved seeing louie playing again.

I knew it! They replaced the real Louie with a look-a-like! They almost got away with it too. Thank goodness someone here was on top of things.

I noticed it too. He's not using the open handed technique as much as he used to. He has an odd style, but I like it. Louie is a big Rod Morganstein fan. Rod has done alot of drum instructionals on limb independence, and is a lefty. Louie plays a right hand setup but usually leads with the left. Who is Rod Morganstein? He played for the Dixie Dregs and later for Winger in case anyone didn't know.

He played hat with his right and snare with his left for me on a dw kit, double pedals on a single kick. He is also a huge Jeff Porcaro fan. When he was tracking he was playing some Toto. He absolutely would not play a larger kit, with more than three toms, and would not play with three of the largest toms, as a result. He was in pop mode, so I had to edit him a bit, which he did not mind. It was hard to get hard rock out of that smaller pop kit. Thank God for samples.

Brent, out of curiosity, why the insistance of using a small drum kit. If he was hired for a job why limit himself? I don't know much about it, it just sounds like ego to me for some reason (and I love Louie, just trying to understand is all). Thanks!

This might be a reason for him being benched in the studio on so many Petra albums. In defense of Louie though, I have come to find that drummers are very specific to what they will and won't play.

He just had some non-negotiable things that made sure the Louie shown through. He knew and told me that he knew I would slice and dice it if I didn't like it. He was cool, just didn't want to date the music. Since he is not in the genre I am in, or want to be in, he did not understand that bigger for me is better, more aggressive, lower, etc.

PDC really did captured what Louie can do, kind of like WUC.

Thanks dude.

Not to hijack the thread, but I checked out some of Jeff Porcaro's stuff. Awesome to say the least. I've heard of him, but didn't know he played for Toto. I only knew about Simon Phillips. l also didn't know that he (Jeff) has been dead for 20 years. Great talent.

I know. He was a sweetheart of a guy. Toto played as session musicians minus a vocalist. There are many stories told by the guys and producers that said Jeff was key to getting everyone through a bad song and session. Steve Lukather has some videos detailing these stories. Toto played on The Imperials "Stand By The Power" album.

Oh yeah - Jeff Porcaro.. when it comes to drummers who can really lay down a groove that you can feeeel - he is the man. My dad's a drummer and also a big JP fan and introduced me to the Toto stuff many years ago - if you haven't heard him just look up Toto's "Rosanna" - the drums kick off the song with one of the most snakey and groovin drum beats out there.

The Toto guys also did some session work with a little known entertainer named Michael Jackson.. infact, Jeff's brother Steve Porcaro wrote "Human Nature" which appeared on the "Thriller" album.

Jackson....Is he related to the great theologian Rev. Jesse? I will Google him and see if I can find some of his music.

Haha! This is where the zone needs a 'like' button.