Have any of you studied or practiced it? Maybe you should?
Hard hitters take note (esp. if you've experienced tendonitis):
Try to block Famularo out. He's a good teacher, but a total cheese dick.
Morello's take:
I use the shit out of it. Mostly with blastbeats. It's a fun technique. I used to play stiff and use my wrist in a locked hand, but after learning how to keep my rebounds even with Moeller, the blasts sped up and sounded a shitload tighter.
search out "gravity roll" for blast beats
Never really liked the feel of the whole fulcrum point technique. The gravity blasts really only have a certain place, and in certain bands... Braindrill is one of them. I come from the old school drum-like-Mike-Smith-from-Suffocation way of playing. He doesn't use Moeller, but he certainly has one of my favorite blasts. Everyone does 'em differently. One band that eats total dick but always finds the tightest blasters is Black Dahlia Murder. Their first two albums have Zach from Gutrot, and he's just a fucking MACHINE, but the music is metalcore wannabe swedish death metal, it's lame.
I really don't listen to any of that stuff, but can appreciate the skill for what it is. My band opened for Origin a few years ago, and the sheer speed of the drummer just dropped my jaw. When I learned gravity rolling, I was trying to figure out the Buddy Rich "single-handed roll" that he did when he was soloing. His is based off traditional grip, but I saw Dennis Chambers using something similar that incorporated the hoop...
Jojo Mayer rocking leather pants demoing gravity roll... forward toward the end to see him double stroke the gravity roll.
Johnny Rabb going off... two handed gravity technique
I've always like Jojo. He's pretty killer. I dunno, there's something about aggressive music that makes me tick. Blasts and whatnot make the world go round... at 240bpm.
I own his "secret weapons for the modern drummer" dvd. It's fucking fantastic.
Here's the push/pull technique briefly demonstrated by Jojo Mayer. There is a much more in depth explanation of this in "secret weapons", but I couldn't find a clip on youtube. He makes a joke at the end that he only uses it to get attention in music stores, but I've found it to be VERY useful for super-fast ride patterns. Saves a lot of juice and if properly executed is just as powerful if not more over an extended period of time.
When he's push/pulling with the trad grip on his left hand, it looks a lot like Buddy Rich's left hand technique. I dig. I've never used the French grip thing that he's doing with his right hand for linear 8th notes, but I use it all the time for fast swing and shuffle. I need to pick up that vid. Thanks!
...and music store licks FTW
the dudes at the local Guitard Center are hung up on showing off the roll-around-the-kit gospel triplet+kick shit that is popular these days. I dig it, don't get me wrong, but I throw down some of those Bonham Dazed triplets sped up with the crossovers. I also pull out "Cold Sweat" and "Funky Drummer" sometimes. I'm amazed at how many drummers have never heard that shit outside of ripped off loops and samples.
Guys ... it's actually spelled Molière ... and he really pumps my nads.