Damn Wolf, Mattacks is a GREAT drummer, one of my favorites. He has also worked with Richard Thompson, who was of course in Fairport Convention. He not only plays real well (musical, tasteful, ensemble-style), he also knows how make his drums sound good for recording. Not everyone does. He plays like a studio drummer, not a Rock Band member. I view him sort of as the British Kenny Buttrey (Nashville studios; Dylan, Neil Young’s Harvest album, thousands of other recordings). He plays the way songwriters like drummers to play---complimentary.
My sister was in the Navy, and in the late-70’s/early 80’s was stationed in Hawaii. For my birthday in 1980 she paid my air fare to fly over for a week and stay with her in her off-base apartment. One night I went to a nightclub to drink and see/hear some live music, and there was a singer backed by a 3-piece band. They played current hits plus Classic Rock, and were okay. On a break the guitarist came over and asked me my name. I told him, and he said "I thought that was you!". I had no idea who he was.
Turns out he was this kid who lived near the house the band I was in in 1971 practiced, a kid who would come over and watch and listen to us work on our all-original material. Small world! He told me playing his band’s material, and with that singer (singers are often not musicians, and are a different kind of guy. They are not singers for no reason ;-) was a grind, but that he was making 3 grand a week. In 1980. I was pissed! He said getting musicians to come to the islands was so difficult that clubs were willing to pay that much to get them to.
