456 – [Daniel Glass Show]: Five Favorites: Joe Franco

The latest installment of the “Five Favorites” series features Daniel in a wide-ranging conversation with Joe Franco, a drummer, author and producer who’s six decade career has wound through some of the most interesting highways of the music and drumming industry.

What’s covered in this session:

• As a a 12-year old growing up in NYC, Joe was inspired to play drums when he saw the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan show in February, 1964.
• Life as an aspiring NY musician in the late 1960s, and having the opportunity to experience the greatest rock acts of the day, including Led Zeppelin, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, the Jeff Beck Group, and Iron Butterfly.
  
• Studying with Carmine Appice in 1972, and working out of the original manuscript of Realistic Rock as it was being written.
  
• Being a part of the Good Rats, an influential Long Island rock/prog band that came up alongside KISS and Twisted Sister.
• Freelance touring and session work with hard rockers like Twisted Sister, Leslie West, Jack Bruce, Blues Saraceno, Widowmaker, Vinnie Moore and Hall and Oates.
  
• How learning about electronic drums and programming in the late 1980s led to sessions with major pop stars like Sheena Easton, Taylor Dayne and Mariah Carrey.
  
• Moving to the “other side of the glass” in the 1990s and entering the world of post-production, which has been Joe’s primary business for more than two decades.
  

Resources/Links/People Mentioned:

• Joe’s mentor Carmine Appice, live with Vanilla Fudge in 1968.
• Joe displaying his rock solid chops and killer double bass technique at a Good Rats reunion show in 1997.
•  Joe’s groundbreaking book Double Bass Drumming (1983), the first of its kind to focus deeply  on the subject.
  
• A clip from Joe’s double bass instructional DVD.
• Playing with Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snyder in 2014.
  
• Since 1995, Joe has been operating BeatStreetNYC, an award winning audio post production studio.