STEVE SHELLEY

Steve has always been a very imaginative drummer, incorporating tools such as mallets, maracas and brushes into his percussion style. He's been using mallets since "Tom Violence", and more recently on "Theresa's Sound-World" "Female Mechanic Now On Duty" & "Heather Angel". Maracas have been used to shape entire songs, such as "Dirty Boots" and "Bull in the Heather". He's banged on metallic devices in songs like "Beauty Lies in the Eye" "PCH" and "Stil", and spends the entire first half of the latter song tinkling away at a small chinese bell resting on his snare.

In 1997 Steve really began to experiment with additional percussion devices onstage. The "A Thousand Leaves" era material saw Steve using a gong (Stil), various Moroccan clay drums (Anagrama, Karen Koltrane), bells, cracked cymbals, and supposedly even saw blades during the improvisations that closed most 1998 shows. In 1999 he began using a Groovebox programmable synth, featured heavily in "Lightnin", the end of "Small Flowers Crack Concrete", and of course, "Campfire", a Sonic Youth track composed entirely on the device. According to the Destroyed Room liner notes, they accidentally left this at the airport in Paris (possibly at the May 25 2000 gig?). For the 2000 tour, Jim wrote a program on his laptop that would emulate a Groovebox effect, which Steve would use onstage.

If you have more information on Steve's gear, past or present, please contact me.

DRUMS/PERCUSSION

1987