The purpose of and skills involved in being a drummer in a rock band. Told through interviews with some modern day drummers plus a few legends of the profession. They talk about what got them into drumming, who their idols were and why they do it.

An interesting documentary on rock drummers and drumming in general. Shows the evolution from jazz drumming to rock drumming and some more modern variations on it.

The interviews are generally quite illuminating, especially when the drummers, some of whom are legends in their own right, discuss who their heroes were and what made those people so good.

However, it does often degenerate into a mutual back-slapping session. Rather than giving constructive input on other drummers they just parrot how great they were.

Coverage of the greats is pretty good, but with two notable exclusions. The documentary mentions drumming as an "orchestral" musical form and gives examples of drummers who exemplify this, e.g. Keith Moon. However, no mention of Neil Peart who would be the first person to come to mind when thinking of multi-dimensional, "orchestral" rock drumming. Similarly, funk gets covered but then only to the extent that it influenced The Clash and The Police. How about covering some of the great funk drummers, e.g. Clyde Stubblefield?

Overall, not brilliant or entirely comprehensive but still quite interesting.

I'm not even a drummer and I was asking, where is he?

I thought this was a good documentary for technical reasons but where is Neil Peart? Seriously? You covered all the greats, but where is he?

Rolling Stones list of great drummers:

Stewart Copeland Al Jackson Jr Mitch Mitchell Gene Krupa Clyde Stubblefield and John Starks Hal Blaine Neil Peart <--- number 4 on their list!

Ginger Baker Keith Moon John Bonham

And most of the talking heads they threw in the documentary, I had no idea who they were or what band they played for until the posted it on the screen.

There is something wrong with this documentary. It's very biased. I'm giving it a 1/10 because they didn't include Neil.

Its interesting but if your going to be inclusive of drum innovators / legends you can not miss a important beat . Neil Peart of Rush . Too bad .