Drum loop for the Meters' "Hey Pocky A-way"

[HSS]

I'm looking for a drum loop for Meters' "Hey Pocky A-way" for my solo act which I just do with piano and singing. 

 

 

 

Having lived in New Orleans during the 80's, I know there's a lot of variations of N.O.-style second lines and rhumbas but I can't find a drum loop on the internet that captures the Meters' Pocky A-way funky loose swinging feel.

 

I'm cheap so, if possible, I'm looking for something free.  Any help / advice would be greatly appreciated.   

 

[Docbop]

Just hang out in front of a school and you'll find some future DJ that could sample and chop that into a sample for a couple bucks. 

 

Kind of like when the WWW got big people wanted a website and couldn't program HTML.   We'd tell them for $20 you can get a twelve year old to write you a hell of page.   

[Bill H.]

Yeah you've got a clean two bar drum beat at the beginning just ripe for a loop. 

[El Lobo]

I was just on a family vacation with my brother, 2 adult children, 6 grandchildren. Most of the family are musicians. We were jamming on Cissy Strut without drums. My grandson, 18 yrs. old, does beats. We asked him if he could do a beat for Cissy Strut. We played him the Meters version. He said there are web sites that take a recording and strip out the beat. He went off to his bedroom and an hour later he came back with the drum part from the Meters recording. We jammed on Cissy Strut with keys, guitars, bass and the beat playing out of one of those small bluetooth speakers. I don't know what web site does this or how to strip a beat off a Hey Pocky Way recording (my main band does a version of that tune). My advice, as with many of these things, is to ask a teenager. See if you can find one who does beats. Or search online. There's probably a youtube video that shows you how to do it. 

[KuruPrionz]

7 hours ago, HSS said:

I'm looking for a drum loop for Meters' "Hey Pocky A-way" for my solo act which I just do with piano and singing. 

 

 

 

 

Having lived in New Orleans during the 80's, I know there's a lot of variations of N.O.-style second lines and rhumbas but I can't find a drum loop on the internet that captures the Meters' Pocky A-way funky loose swinging feel.

 

I'm cheap so, if possible, I'm looking for something free.  Any help / advice would be greatly appreciated.   

 

Short term, the suggestions above should get you there. 

Long term, if this is something that will come up more often over time then consider learning to program your own beat loops in MIDI. 

DON"T quantize, the groove they lay down is not "on the markers". Consider that many great songs will speed up and/or slow down, tempo changes are an important aspect of musical expression. 

If you have a keyboard with MIDI out, google for free drum programs and try out a few. Use your keyboard to provide the sounds you want (kick, snare, hats, etc) and start copying and pasting, sliding and listening. Plenty of free DAWS out there, I'd recommend Waveform Free just for one.

First few times can be time-consuming but you'll get faster as things become clearer. 

Definitely a labor of love but also a road to freedom and independence. 

[Docbop]

12 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

Short term, the suggestions above should get you there. 

Long term, if this is something that will come up more often over time then consider learning to program your own beat loops in MIDI. 

DON"T quantize, the groove they lay down is not "on the markers". Consider that many great songs will speed up and/or slow down, tempo changes are an important aspect of musical expression. 

If you have a keyboard with MIDI out, google for free drum programs and try out a few. Use your keyboard to provide the sounds you want (kick, snare, hats, etc) and start copying and pasting, sliding and listening. Plenty of free DAWS out there, I'd recommend Waveform Free just for one.

First few times can be time-consuming but you'll get faster as things become clearer. 

Definitely a labor of love but also a road to freedom and independence. 

 

 

Also read the book  "Dilla Time"  by Dan Charnas.     

[Bill H.]

When I was doing this sort of thing (piano plus beats from a drum machine or workstation) I did a lot of my own drums. And (because I was horribly sloppy with my fingers playing drums) I would quantize this, but with an offset in the range of rockabilly (around 53% or so) - which this sounds a lot like. There's a definite swing in there, but it's subtle. 

 

Anyway that would give me the general feel for something casual like a single act. 

 

Nowadays I'd buy the MP3 off Amazon, load it into Traktor Pro, loop the first bar or two (and because the beat was created by a human a shorter loop might work best) then record that loop for as long as I'd play the song. That recording is what I'd play live. There's no need for any stripping because the first two bars of the song are just the drums. 

[HSS]

Many thanks for the prompt helpful replies.

 

Per several recommendations, I may try to find one to those websites where I can strip the drum "stem" out for free.

 

I may also try to loop the first two bars of drums at the beginning on Audacity.

 

As a long-term learning exercise, I may also try to bang the drum groove out on keys or perhaps my Alesis Nitro Mesh drum kit. Although, having been an old back beat drummer in Missouri before I moved to New Orleans, I found out pretty quickly that I couldn't play those funky greasy New Orleans grooves like Pocky A-way. 

 

If all else fails, my last resort would be to hang out in front of a High School to look for a teenager who could strip out the Pocky A-way drum groove for a few bucks.  But this could be high risk because I probably wouldn't do well in prison.  😜

[BenWaB3]

Groove Monkey does have a New Orleans pack but I'm not where I can access it right now to see if it has the Hey Pocky A-Way groove in it or not. That song has always been my #1 choice for the Funkiest tune ever recorded.

[ProfD]

Great recommendation to sample and loop from the recording.

 

@HSS, are you using a laptop or another instrument to load and trigger the drums?

 

Breakbeat recordings with different drum patterns exist in the public domain already but I digress...

 

For anyone who needs a variety of drum beats, considering a finding a real drummer. 

 

Book studio time.  Have the drummer lay down a variety of beats. 

 

Software will allow tempo changes.  Loop, save and load into sample playback device.😎

[Delaware Dave]

Played this with many of the Dead bands I was in, not sure why they retitled the song Hey Pocky A-way. 

[HSS]

57 minutes ago, Delaware Dave said:

Played this with many of the Dead bands I was in, not sure why they retitled the song Hey Pocky A-way. 

 

The Dead and most others who covered the song just shortened the title to "Hey Pocky Way", which is what it's usually referred to (including by me). However, the original song was by the Meters and they called it "Hey Pocky A-way".

 

http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/Hey_Pocky_Way.htm

 

From the Dead link above:

 

"The original recording of this song by The Meters and other recordings by the group use the title Hey Pocky A-Way. The majority of other recordings use the title Hey Pocky Way. The song was written in 1974. It incorporates traditional chants and a drum rhythm that was first used by Meters drummer Zig Modeliste on the Dr. John song Shoo Fly Marches On.

The Grateful Dead performed Hey Pocky Way about 30 times between September 1987 and July 1990.The song has also been performed by The Dead and Furthur."

 

 

FWIW... IMHO the Meters was one the best and most underrated bands ever. Art Neville was great on keys and George Porter and Zig Modeliste were a killer rhythm section. 

 

[cphollis]

4 hours ago, El Lobo said:

I was just on a family vacation with my brother, 2 adult children, 6 grandchildren. Most of the family are musicians. We were jamming on Cissy Strut without drums. My grandson, 18 yrs. old, does beats. We asked him if he could do a beat for Cissy Strut. We played him the Meters version. He said there are web sites that take a recording and strip out the beat. He went off to his bedroom and an hour later he came back with the drum part from the Meters recording. We jammed on Cissy Strut with keys, guitars, bass and the beat playing out of one of those small bluetooth speakers. I don't know what web site does this or how to strip a beat off a Hey Pocky Way recording (my main band does a version of that tune). My advice, as with many of these things, is to ask a teenager. See if you can find one who does beats. Or search online. There's probably a youtube video that shows you how to do it. 

I use the Moises service to do just this -- disassemble recorded music into vocals, drums, etc.

[OB Dave]

OK, so I just installed Moises and wow, very impressive. I was very easily able to isolate the drum and bass tracks for Hey A-Pocky Way and Cissy Strut (which few drummers play correctly). 

[D. Gauss]

17 minutes ago, OB Dave said:

  Cissy Strut (which few drummers play correctly). 

Indeed. Because most drummers think that zig played the high hat with one hand Bernard Purdie style,  or like John Bonham (fool in the rain) or Toto (Rosanna) and that's really, really hard with the other syncopation going on.  In actuality, Zig plays it with 2 hands like a drunk, broken 16th note disco beat.  Still hard, but soooo much easier.  see below:

 

[Docbop]

No machine could ever play real New Orleans feel like Zigaboo Modeliste,  Herlin Riley who popped into the video, and late great Earl Palmer of Wrecking Crew.     Also that band video was that Greg Mathieson on B3 another great groove musician/producer.  

[HSS]

I just used a freebie offered by Splitter.ai - AI Audio Processing to successfully extract a drum stem from Hey Pocky A-way.  It's not perfect but it'll do for me since I'm not perfect either. 

 

https://splitter.ai/#uploader

 

 I'm going look into Moises since it seems to be well thought of. 

 

Again, many thanks for all of the recommendations

[JoJoB3]

You should check out Drum Genius for your phone (this and much more). Cheap too.

 

[Morrissey]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Dead but this is an instance where it is hard to enjoy their cover version when one has the knowledge of how funky the Meters do it

 

19 hours ago, HSS said:

 

The Dead and most others who covered the song just shortened the title to "Hey Pocky Way", which is what it's usually referred to (including by me). However, the original song was by the Meters and they called it "Hey Pocky A-way".

 

http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/Hey_Pocky_Way.htm

 

From the Dead link above:

 

"The original recording of this song by The Meters and other recordings by the group use the title Hey Pocky A-Way. The majority of other recordings use the title Hey Pocky Way. The song was written in 1974. It incorporates traditional chants and a drum rhythm that was first used by Meters drummer Zig Modeliste on the Dr. John song Shoo Fly Marches On.

The Grateful Dead performed Hey Pocky Way about 30 times between September 1987 and July 1990.The song has also been performed by The Dead and Furthur."

 

 

FWIW... IMHO the Meters was one the best and most underrated bands ever. Art Neville was great on keys and George Porter and Zig Modeliste were a killer rhythm section. 

 

 

[HSS]

1 hour ago, JoJoB3 said:

You should check out Drum Genius for your phone (this and much more). Cheap too.

 

Thanks for the heads-up. I just checked out Drum Genius's  "Jazz-New Orleans & Traditional" styles and found a couple of funky greasy second lines (e.g. #7) that work pretty good for Hey Pocky A-way.

 

It turns that the Drum Genius app allows three free loops to be download which, being a cheap bastard, I took advantage of. 

 

Damn, KC is a great place with a lot of knowledgeable and helpful folks unlike some other music sites which I won't mention.  

[HSS]

1 hour ago, Morrissey said:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Dead but this is an instance where it is hard to enjoy their cover version when one has the knowledge of how funky the Meters do it

 

 

Agree... I dig the Dead as well but they ain't got that funk thing going on like the Meters.

 

In terms of just raw greasy funk, my favorite Meters tune is Just Kissed My Baby. IMO it ranks as one of the best funk tunes ever. 

[ProfD]

31 minutes ago, HSS said:

In terms of just raw greasy funk, my favorite Meters tune is Just Kissed My Baby. IMO it ranks as one of the best funk tunes ever. 

That's an absolute fact.  Anyone who disagrees must sh8t Febreze because they clearly aren't funky.🤣😎

[JoJoB3]

On 1/6/2023 at 10:39 AM, HSS said:

Thanks for the heads-up. I just checked out Drum Genius's  "Jazz-New Orleans & Traditional" styles and found a couple of funky greasy second lines (e.g. #7) that work pretty good for Hey Pocky A-way.

 

It turns that the Drum Genius app allows three free loops to be download which, being a cheap bastard, I took advantage of. 

 

Damn, KC is a great place with a lot of knowledgeable and helpful folks unlike some other music sites which I won't mention.  

Oh man, buy it. It's so cheap and there's TONS more if you like that.

[Cliffk]

On 1/6/2023 at 7:20 PM, ProfD said:

That's an absolute fact.  Anyone who disagrees must sh8t Febreze because they clearly aren't funky.🤣😎

Haha true. The level of funk in Kissed my Baby should come with a health warning - filthy. 😄