Stickmen One Love

Singing drummers

Even though he's won ARIA awards before and had a number of minor hits with his previous album Like Drawing Blood , it was still a surprise to see him not only go to number one last week on the ARIA charts with his new album, Making Mirrors , but to also take out top spot on the singles chart with Someone That I Used To Know . No Aussie group has managed the chart-topping double since Silverchair in 2007.

Sadly Gotye hasn't released five albums yet, so he's not quite Musicology -worthy. But we found another way to pay tribute to him: with an ode to singing drummers.

Gotye

NEWCOMERS to the work of Wally "Gotye" De Backer might not be familiar with his skills as a drummer. While he's a multi-instrumentalist (with a wonderfully flexible and soulful voice), De Backer first came to prominence on the Melbourne music scene as the tub-thumper for The Basics. A hard-working trio, the group began with a sound that mirrored the rock 'n' roll of the '50s and '60s but has developed into a broader sonic template that incorporates elements of pop, reggae and country. De Backer shares vocal duties with guitarist Kris Schroeder and despite the band gigging their butts off for many years it wasn't until De Backer had success as Gotye that the industry (and Triple J) started to take notice of The Basics. In his Gotye live shows, De Backer splits his time between singing at the kit and singing front-of-stage using samplers, with a voice that often sounds spookily like a young Sting.

He doesn't sound like Sting here, but this is his cool performance of Learnalilgivinanlovin at the 2007 ARIA Awards:

Dave Grohl

THE obvious entry for this list, although the Nirvana stickman and Foo Fighters frontman rarely mixes his drumming and his singing these days.

Clairvoyant Bird: 1900 | Shorpy Historic Photo Archive

Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here .) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

Whatever these guys do, they clearly have a distinct uniform and the special pokey-thing they carry is part of their trade recognition. White designates cleanliness. If you could wear white uniform all day it meant you didn't work with oily machinery or coal fires. Those sticks they are carrying must be emblematic of the trade. Any chance of some ShorpyZoom on one them?

It was but just that the painters, decorators and paperhangers of the city should have the right of the line, for they made a magnificent showing, the opinion being general along the line of march that these men made the finest appearance of any organization. All were clad in immaculate white. The trousers were white duck, the shirts were snowy cambric, the belts were white leather and each man wore a white yachting cap and a handsome boutonniere, and Marshal Chapman, who led the line, rode a splendid snow-white horse. There were cheers for the painters along the line of march and there were predictions that the union will gain its fourth silken banner because of its showing, having already won three for making the finest appearance in annual Labor Day processions.

Each of them appears to be holding a sword -- for dividing ice cream sandwiches that stick together? Or something more menacing?

Also, an impressive number of bicycles and bicycle racks -- I doubt there are anywhere near that many (if any at all) in the current stretch of road.

And, oops, one of the flags in the third floor windows of the Miller Block is flying upside down.

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