Did some motherfucker actually say Steve fucking Shelley is irrelevant??? IRRELEVANT?!?!

Precisely. Steve Shelley is a dream drummer for any bands I can think of. I read somewhere a long while ago that what makes him great is his ability to switch from Led Zeppelin to Dead Kennedys, or something along those lines. I couldn't agree more.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to SuchFriendsAreDangerous again.

I've recently seen Chris Corsano doing similar things with Vibracathedral Orchestra live where his style would morph from loose abstraction to kickass punk punctuation, which was brilliant to hear.

Steve is the heart of sonic youth, he's what turned their no wave noise into music, and anyone who had the privilege to chat with him at shows find he is possibly the nicest guy in any band youll ever meet! Shit, Steve introduced me to Lee! When I ran into him again at the backdoor of a show we couldnt get in we tried to talk him into guest listing us but he said he didnt want to diss anybody already on the list. He still kicked woth us talking about music for several minutes and he told us good luck sneaking into the show. We did manage to sneak in and when we saw him again at the backdoor (we got kicked out for sneaking in so we were back at the backdoor listening) he asked us, "did y'all get in?" And he fist bumped us all excited when we told him "fuck yeah!" Steve is the shit yo

He's dam hot too

Of course Steve is not irrelevant, he´s as important as those other three to create unique SY-sound, but as a drummer I think he´s quite basic drummer. Lot better than Bob Bert of course, but I think Jim Sclavunos is the greatest drummer that has been in SY. Also I haven´t heard anything interesting from Steve outside SY.

BASIC DRUMMER???
ever heard SYR 3? thats probably the best drumming on earth ever.

i mean yeah, there are better drummers of course, but steve's faaaar faar from basic.

I´ve got all SYR`s (my favourites are 1,2,3,6,7&9). Yes, Steve does very good percussion working in 3 and also in 7. He´s as skillful at improvisations as other SY members are with their equipments. And of course he´s lot more versatile than for example some Dave Grohl but anyway he´s not Bill Bruford or Neil Peart or even Jim Schlavunos.

Neil Peart is an ENEMY of ROCK AND ROLL.

Two Dollar Guitar - Train Songs

They're prog drummers, it's a strange comparison to make

I think we were talking about great drummers. Steve was earlier compared to John Bonham and D.H Peligro. Well comparison to Bonham is not bad, but he certainly isn´t as talented as Peligro. To me it´s quite the same what music drummers are playing, you can hear if somebody´s got talent & somebody is just normal basic, but good drummer.

Yes, this is great! Sounds me something between Sy Made In Usa & John Parish Screenplay. Some tracks sounds also little bit Tom Waits...

I think it was an Italian journalist who was describing his playing but I am pretty sure he wasn't comparing him to Jon Bonham as such, what he meant is that he has a great ability to do more traditional rock drumming combined with the primitiveness and impulsiveness more commonly associated with punk time-keeping. That shows he's a talented drummer, and you can hear it on a number of Sonic Youth songs. Dirty is a record which I think is a great example of that. For one reason or another it seems like a much maligned record by Sonic Youth purists but to me it's always sounded like their ambition to be accepted as a rock band showed they could do it in a way that Nirvana or Soundgarden couldn't. A big achievement, partly ruined for me by the continuous whinging of music nerds who need to chill out and spend more time with their own record collections.

Check out Crucifucks with Steve at the drums. Great band.

Yeah Dirty is a great all the way through

I have listened Crucifucks. It didn´t change my opinion about Steve as drumplayer. Just listen Schlavunos playing in (She´s in a) Bad Mood. I don´t believe Steve could have ever played like Jim (I think SY haven´t played that tune after Bob, here´s Bob Bert-version, you can hear the difference although sound quality is real bad):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5S7kTcbjLc

I really like Steve´s playing (I think he´s "craftsman of rock" like Bonham, Bill Ward, Nick Mason, Phil Rudd, they all really make music rock, but they very rare do anything suprising or real exciting) but I just can´t say he belong into greatest drumplayers of the world. It was very great to hear Smart Bar Live also that reason Steve played in it, BMR-songs just are in that much more dangerous! But on the other hand I like also a lot Bert-version of BMR, its darkness & kind of weird serenity.

I have always loved Dirty, some Finnish journalist said when it came it beat thousand Nevermind & Superunknown, I agree with him!

The last two comments here are pretty spot on.

btw, strange article/interview w/ Thurston in latest New York magazine. Kinda focuses on that junk involving his personal life matters (well stuff that happened 2-3 years ago) and just two mentions on the 'The Best Day'...

 

(by the way great ending of "Pretty Bad" with his new band few days back and really good quality video as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVidqC03cng)