Drum Cover Video - Frank Zappa - Don't Eat The Yellow Snow 

Cheers Tim, Happy Xmas :)x

Thanks Bill, I really appreciate your support :)

:)

Thanks very much. I gotta confess this is one of my favourites :)

Cheer James. Really appreciate you watching :)

Indded! Cheers, Harry :)

Ah, thanks man. I've always wanted to do St Alphonso... I might have to get my chops together a bit first! Watch this space :)

@@PhilMinal Awesome - and one more challenge - Hunting Girl by Jethro Tull :)

@@SideshowFX I've been looking at Songs From The Wood.. would that do? :)

@@PhilMinal Yeah that one would be very cool.

Thanks very much. Glad you liked it. There's a few more Zappa tunes on my channel, largely ignored by the RU-vid algorithm!

Thanks very much. I really appreciate you watching and liking it :) There's another 100+ videos on my channel, including some more Zappa if you fancy checking a few out. Thanks again 👍

Thanks Roger. I really appreciate your comments. I love this track.. I think I'd just heard it so many times the parts had engrained themselves into my subconscious.

Hi Kelsey, I really appreciate you watching and taking time to comment. There's a load more covers on my channel if you fancy some more :) This is one of my personal favourites and I'm so glad that you find it inspirational. Good luck with your drumming :)

Hi Roger, I have done a few other Zappa covers.. Joe's Garage, Catholic Girls and Broken Hearts are for Assholes. You'll find then on my channel. Thanks again :)

@@PhilMinal thats nice but we want MORE zappa! ffs!

Thanks for digging it :) Great to hear that you are getting into Zappa. Jim Gordon was on the album, but side one of the album had Ralph Humphries on drums. I'd love to do St Alphonso but it's still a bit beyond me! As for more Zappa albums, everyone has their favourites! As a snapshot of just a few of Zappa's massive body of work, around this era you'll find Over-Nite Sensation and One Size Fits All. Next came the era with Terry Bozzio on drums which would include Zoot Allures, Live In New York, Baby Snakes and Sheik Yerbouti. Then with Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, Joe's Garage Acts 1,2 & 3 (my personal favourite - check out my videos of Catholic Girls and Joe's Garage) Tinseltown Rebellion and Shut Up N Play Yer Guitar. Lots more after that too, but that should keep you going for a while :)

@@PhilMinal ahh I see. Google misled me with Gordon lol. Is the Jack Bruce thing true or did I make that one up as well? 😂😂 I’ve heard the O-NS album was basically released near the same time as Apostrophe as a sort of sister album, so I think I’ll probably start with that one next. I hear good things about Joe’s Garage as well as it being a more rock/guitar-forward (guitar is basically my whole life lol) album, so that also piques my interest. I must admit, though, I’m a bit scared of Bozzio and his dang entire marching band drum line-worth of tenor toms on his kit lol. I’ll save that era for a later date. Idk if you’re into the whole jam band genre or not (jam bands are also a big part of my life, and considering that jam bands and Zappa were both heavily influenced by jazz, there is definitely a lot more overlap between those two things than you might first imagine), but Phish has several tunes pretty heavily inspired by Zappa, so if you ever feel like catching a vibe for half an hour, maybe give them a try. Any RU-vid upload of Phish playing You Enjoy Myself live in the 90s (live recordings are the only way to go with jam bands, and Phish was soaring super high in the mid 90s) would be a pretty good place to start as a Zappa fan. Divided Sky also has some very Zappa-esque elements, including a wild musical palindrome lol. I could recommend jam bands and song pretty much all day, but I’ll just leave it at those two for now lol. So yeah, you might actually enjoy some of that stuff too if you’ve never given it much of a listen!

@@STSGuitar16 Thanks for that, I'll check out some Phish, that sounds really interesting :) More Zappa geekery... Overnite Sensation was Sept 73 and Apostrophe was March 74 so they were certainly released pretty close together. Jack Bruce was only on the title track on Apostrophe, which is also the only track with Jim Gordon on. That track was edited from a jam session in 1972 so it pre-dates the rest of the tracks on the album. Bozzio's monster kit thing was very post-Zappa so the Bozzio era is worth checking out too :)

@@PhilMinal please, feel free to geek out all you want, man lol. Who doesn’t love being able to geek out about something they love, ya know? But yeah, I think there’s a good chance some Phish stuff might be up your alley. I mean, you clearly already have a tolerance for songs longer than ten minutes, so that’s half the battle figured out right there lol. If you enjoy live music and bands that aren’t afraid to experiment, improvise as a group, and branch out and get a little wacky at times (things that I think phish/jam bands in general and Zappa both have in common and utilize a lot), I feel pretty certain you’ll be able to find at least something that strikes your musical tastes. And thanks for the info. That makes a lot more sense about Bruce and Gordon. And I’ll definitely work my way through the Zappa catalog and give ol’ Bozzio a shot at some point lol. One more thing; are you into Rush at all?

@@STSGuitar16 Yeah, Neil Peart was a big early influence :)

Thanks very much! One of my favourite tunes so I'd probably been practicing on my steering wheel for years :) There's some more Zappa on my channel if you fancy checking some more out :)

Hey Tom! Thanks man :) I really appreciate you watching and digging it! And thanks for noticing the pounding of the lead filled snow shoe! 😂 There's a few more Zappa tunes on my channel and a bunch of other vids if you fancy a look. Thanks again 👍

@@PhilMinal Oh...cool...gonna check the other vids out! BTW - If you don't mind me asking, did you learn from just listening or sheet music. You nailed it so perfectly.

@@tdenham735 Hi Tom, just from listening. Been a big Zappa fan for a long time and had been tapping this on my steering wheel so thought I'd give it a go. Pretty proud of this one :)

@@PhilMinal That's amazing...you should be proud! I remember first time I heard heard Zappa (Yellow Snow) back in 1976 or maybe 1977...can't remember exactly. Anyway...keep hitting those drums. I'm still mesmerized. LOL.

@@tdenham735 Thanks again Tom :) I have no idea how the RU-vid algorithm works and there are so few views on a lot of my videos, I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment. Feel free to spread the word :)

Thanks Diogoe, if you love Frank's music I have a few more FZ covers on my channel too :)

Damn right! Viva Zappa! :)

Thanks Cleto... ahh Saint Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast might be a bit too tough to do a good version of! :) At the other end of the Zappa spectrum, I'm putting up Broken Hearts Are For Assholes

Ahh, but St Alphonoso's is a mission!! ;)

@@PhilMinal I believe that was both Ralph and Ruth on drums and percussion. A mission is right!!

Thanks Mike.. Ahhh, I LOVE those tunes! ..if only I was good enough to do a decent cover of Keep It Greasy and Packard Goose, maybe I'd be as famous as Vinnie! :) I've got a few other Zappa covers on my channel though ... Catholic Girls, Joe's Garage, Broken Hearts Are For Assholes and Goblin Girl.

Hi Roger, you are absolutely right, there are an almost infinite number of variations when you combine rudiments, sticking and voicing. I don't consider myself to be particularly accomplished when it comes to such things. Finding some variations that you like (and that also sound musical) then working on them a few at a time might give you some achievable goals without it seeming too daunting. I don't know if that helps? ;)

I think it was Ralph Humphries on all of side one of the album Apostrophe, so on this track. Jim Gordon was on the track 'Apostrophe' on side 2 :)

@@PhilMinal Cool. Thanks for the Info.

Hi, thanks for liking this. I haven't been able to find the drum stems from this, but if this lockdown ever ends I'll try to do another drums only take for you ;)

Hi Roger, thanks so much for digging this and taking the time to comment. To be honest most of the covers I put on are indeed just me playing the root of the song and ad libbing. Some of the Zappa ones I've spent a bit more time on but I think tunes like this one, I've just heard so many times that I've absorbed them without realising it. Played endlessly on knees and steering wheel over the years! Sometimes I'll sketch a few notes to remind me, but I don't read drum scores as such, I wish I could! I don't think that you necessarily do need to learn songs as recorded. There are very few drummers that play the same song the same way every time. If you can catch the spirit and the vibe of the tune and maybe a few key fills and be in the moment with it I think that's totally valid. Unless it's The Black Page! :)