Steve Fitch

Beginning in 1933 and expanding greatly after World War II, mid-century America saw a boom in the construction of large outdoor screen towers on which a projected movie image could be viewed from a parked car. This was the era of the drive-in movie theater, which saw the marriage of the automobile and the Hollywood movie. At its peak during the 1950s and 1960s more than 4,000 drive-in theaters dotted the American landscape, coast to coast. Starting in 1971, Steve Fitch traveled throughout the United States photographing many of these theaters, concentrating on the often stunning neon and painted murals that decorated the back, street-facing side of the tower that supported the white, rectangular screen. These dramatic murals often depicted scenes that related to the local history of the surrounding community, and they could be seen from many miles away. Working with black-and-white film, he mostly photographed at dusk or night, making striking images that captured the seductive beauty of these roadside monuments. Then, in 1980, Fitch began working in color with a large-format 8” x 10” view camera. Interested in the collecting and comparing possibilities of photography, he began to shift his emphasis to making pictures of the actual white screen itself and the inside spaces of the theater. By the early 1980s, many of the drive-ins were being abandoned or even torn down. The era of the drive-in theater was nearing its end, although today there remain about 300 operating drive-ins in America keeping alive the thrill of watching a movie outdoors, under the stars, in the comfort of one’s car.

Advanced Swing Systems for Drum Set is part of the six book Fantastic Hands and Feet series by Steve Fitch. It is the most complete method out there designed to help drummers equalize the abilities of their hands and feet-to help them with any style they choose to play. It has been endorsed by many of today's top drummers and percussionists, among them, Peter Erskine, Colin Bailey and John Tafoya. Although, the drum set books in this series were written using a double pedal, they can just as easily be studied using the bass drum and hihat. In fact, I highly recommend this approach for folks that do not perform using a double pedal. Advanced Swing Systems was written to help drummers develop their skills at comping behind a soloist in the jazz idiom. It does so through the use of rhythmic melodies which are played in many different ways thanks to a list of systems that tell the student what to do with each limb when playing the melody. Each system is different and will tax your coordinative abilities in a different way Great comping takes a lot of "headroom" and this is what this book is designed to give you. There are melodies and systems for both medium and up-tempo swing. Working out of this book will help give you the facility to listen to the soloist with BIG EARS and react in the most musical way possible. Caution These etudes aren't for the faint hearted They are also not intended to sound like actual comping, since they are etudes for the development of the skills necessary to comp well. But they work. Also included is an Appendix containing all of the melodies without dynamics, if you want to first practice these without the inherent difficulty that the dynamics provide. Or you can pencil in your own dynamics to give the melodies a whole different "feel". When you're tired of those dynamics, simply erase them and pencil in new ones Comping at the drums is one of the most difficult things to do well--it's spontaneous and "in the moment". You are conversing with the soloist, supporting him/her, reacting to them, perhaps even influencing them to change direction. There is an art to doing this well and it is a big part of your voice as a jazz drummer. Advanced Swing Systems will help you with this.

Tom Twisters for drum set is a part of Steve Fitch's Fantastic Hands and Feet series which has been endorsed by Peter Erskine, Colin Bailey, Russ Miller, Frank Briggs, Steve Fidyk, Casey Cangelosi, Ted Atkatz, Michael Rosen, John H. Beck, John Tafoya, Markus Rhoten, Kyle Zyrna, Michael McIntosh, Murray Gusseck, Jim Casella, Florian Alexandru-Zorn and John R. Beck. This book addresses speed, flexibility and efficiency of motion when getting around the drum set. Using 172 exercises which start slowly and gradually increase in speed and only three drums (snare, mounted tom and floor tom), your body will teach itself the most natural way to make the motions necessary to accomplish the task at hand. As you increase the speed of these twisters, especially those with asterisks, which indicate the need for crosses or rapid shifts, your arms and wrists will have to find the smoothest, most natural way to execute the pattern. Mastering these twisters will definitely broaden your comfort zone, which in turn, will allow you to expand your drumming vocabulary. Perhaps best of all, achieving the smoother motions necessary to play these patterns will give you a better touch and sound at the drums. The sticking types that are explored here are single strokes, double strokes, puh-duh-duhs, paradiddles, paradiddle-diddles, flam taps, swiss army triplets and consecutive flams. The Appendix of the book gives you many different foot patterns that you can play with the twisters at challenging tempos to enhance your four limb coordination. This book is designed to encourage your body to find logical solutions to difficult movement puzzles. By practicing out of this book, you will train your body to always look for the most natural way of getting around the kit in any situation. Utilize your body's own intelligence and improve your touch, speed and flexibility in the process

Steve Fitch is among America’s most well-known chroniclers of the American West since the days of Easy Rider. He has been photographing examples of the West’s changing vernacular landscape and vanishing roadside landmarks for more than 40 years. In his new book, he presents both the ancient and the modern by way of petroglyphs, neon motel signs and hand-painted business signs, drive-in movie theater screens, and radio and cell towers. All of them are now endangered because of the advent of the Interstate Highway System and corporate franchises. In this fascinating and comprehensive account, we are able to join in Fitch’s expansive journey, truly an odyssey, as represented in the book’s 120 unforgettable photographs, all sequenced to mimic the open road—both during day and night. Fitch explains the project in his informative introduction, in which, interestingly, he suggests that the petroglyphs of the ancient Pueblo people have endured far better and longer than anything made during the last sixty years. Curator Toby Jurovics, in his insightful concluding essay, positions Fitch’s work in relation to that of the practitioners of the photographic style known as the “New Topographics” and Fitch’s own view of photography as a visual form of cultural anthropology. Vanishing Vernacular: Western Landmarks is sure to become a modern-day classic, a book that will be all the more revered as America and Americans move farther away from the highways of the past. That economy and roadside culture are vanishing like endangered species, but Fitch was along for the ride. In sharing that past, he has been witness to his own form of historic preservation.

The Fantastic Hands books have been endorsed by Michael Rosen, John H. Beck, John Tafoya, Markus Rhoten, Kyle Zyrna, John R. Beck, Michael McIntosh, Murray Gusseck, Jim Casella, Colin Bailey, Florian Alexandru-Zorn, Frank Briggs and Steve Fidyk. Flam Pathways to Drumming Fluency (Volume 2 of Fantastic Hands) gives you all the flams you'll ever need---the FP matrix yields tens of thousands of different exercises. Working on these will heighten your drumming fluency and give you soft, flexible hands. The multi-tasking of playing flam patterns over multiple stickings pushes you further faster Section Two contains more flam hybrids than you can shake a stick at. These work your fluency from yet another angle and if you exhaust all possible stickings on each one, you will take your hands to some amazing places. Section Three has you creating your own flam patterns from prewritten rhythms for more creativity and rhythmic variety. This book can be practiced with the feet on a double pedal as Fantastic Feet Volume 3 The goal here is complete drumming fluency so that you can serve the music you play at the drums more deeply and with less effort. Enjoy your drumming journey