Just what is it with garage bands and drum breaks? It’s a thing of beauty when it’s done right, and Chip Damiani kept it simple on The Remains’ crowning glory. His cymbal leads the charge against Barry Tashian’s vocals, with syncopated beats reined in to let slammed punctuations fill the gaps. Nothing else The Remains recorded lived up to the promise of Don’t Look Back, and their lifespan was brief after Damiani left the band just before a support slot with The Beatles on their final tour.

Gregory Cylvester Coleman is responsible for what is probably the most influential break of them all, sampled from hip hop to eternity. Despite its ubiquity, Coleman never received a cent in royalties from its subsequent usage. But then isn’t it payment enough to know that in six seconds you altered the face of modern music? Not when you die in poverty. Those six seconds, though...transcendental, baby.

Where do you start trying to pick one of David Lovering’s drum parts from Pixies’ catalogue? Back when Pixies started out David Lovering was - and probably still is - a Rush fan. Neil Peart’s style was rambunctious, to say the least, and while showing a more judicious flair than Peart, Lovering was never afraid to throw in a fill when the need arose. Lovering, though, was a fiercely innovative drummer through five albums with Pixies (let’s just bypass the recent run of sub-par material). Check out his idiosyncratic stabs throughout Hey, or the final trampling vocal/drum duel of I’m Amazed. The fill in Levitate Me barely qualifies as such. It’s barely a second in length, simply a stutter on the snare and a thumped aside on the tom; a full stop to Frank Black's “Elevator lady” chant. In technical terms, a bass player could manage it, but as with so many of Lovering’s “where the fuck did that come from?” additions, it’s all about the placement.

Keith Moon is the toughest drummer to pick one fill from. I mean, fuck, the guy was basically a human drum fill. Each Who album/single/EP contains a multitude of Moon moments that beggar belief – a separate list of Moon’s greatest hits would be long and fantastic – but throughout ‘Tommy’ he was at his unfettered best. ‘Tommy’ came at a golden period of the band’s career; that magical few years between The Who ‘Sell Out’ in ’67 and ‘Who’s Next’ in ’71 where they were one of the most exalted live acts in the business. That confidence spilled into their conceptual undertakings, and while ‘Tommy’ may not be the best recorded Who album in terms of sound, it’s certainly the one where the band’s instrumentalists were able to stretch out as a power trio par excellence like never before. This is a rumble tumble variation of Moon’s roll just a few seconds previous, here doubling up on the final few beats. It’s best experienced on ‘Live At Leeds’…

Stephen Drozd’s syncopated invention between 3:53 and 4:33 on The ‘Soft Bulletin’s The Spark That Bled is one of the most innovative and satisfyingly executed musical nuggets he’s ever come up with. And that’s saying something when you take into account Drozd’s output with the Flips. “And it seemed to cause a chain reaction” sings Wayne Coyne, and the chain reaction is ignited as each of Drozd’s patterns takes a slightly different twist on the last, endlessly inventive and effortlessly cool. Just listen to that last hesitant bass drum punch at 4:23 before the kinks in the pattern are ironed out to let Coyne usher the song towards its conclusion. Holy fuck, man, this is perfect.

It’s nigh impossible to pick one moment from so perfect an album as The Band’s second, and even more so to pick a drum run from a record helmed by Levon’s backbeat. Dylan’s one-time backing band were a sum of their parts like no other pack of players, and throughout this album multi-instrumentalist Levon Helm was at his sublime best as a percussionist. The Band’s ‘official’ drummer takes a back seat on Rag Mama Rag, though, and his vocal provides the anchoring layer as Richard Manuel’s erratic clatter provides the melodic counterpoint. There was always an air of the unexpected when Manuel - better known as the band’s piano player and singer - was behind the kit (that’s also him on Jemima Surrender), a sense of a man playing by feel as if hearing the song for the first time; even after a thousand listens it’s still tough to call where Manuel’s stick is about to fall.

Topper Headon is an underrated drummer; not among drummers, though. The guy could play it all, which is why the Clash’s third album is rightly hailed as their best. Headon’s flair for any genre you care to cover, from jazz to reggae to rock, is accounted for throughout 'London Calling', and there’s no question they couldn’t have progressed from ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope’ to this without Topper’s skill and musicianship. Check out that little spar with Strummer at 2:04. Sheer class.

It may be cut together synthetically, but DJ Shadow’s mid-song breakdown is one of the most mind melting, original pieces of percussion to have graced the grooves of any record. The track opens with a vocal sample from an interview with drummer George Marsh, and a deep drum track comes in with I Feel a New Shadow by Jeremy Storc. As the song moves hypnotically forward, he cuts and loops and turns inside out that simple beat, continuing the transformations towards the songs conclusion.

This list is in no particular order of merit, except for this one, because Bob Bennett’s final trouncing of his kit on Psycho is the granddaddy of all drum breaks. The Sonics are the consummate garage band, and their 1965 debut 'Here Are Sonics' remains as heavy as anything any of the bands that followed in their throat-shredding wake could muster in their attempts to out-Sonic The Sonics. Bennett ushers the song in with a snare roll, then punctuates each verse with a kick/snare break. Three times during the song he repeats the pattern. And then, in a moment of inspired genius, Bennett decides to hammer the shit out of his cymbal bell toward the key change that lifts off the back of it. It’s as simple as drum breaks come, but simply unbeatable. Go on and try. He fucking dares you.