The Cranky Drummer

In spite of having been so rapturously in love with drums since the age of eight, compared with many drummers who have reached my (much more advanced) current age I've actually owned relatively little drum equipment throughout my life. This post is Part 2 in a multi-part rundown of it all.  (Here is a link to   Part 1 .) “Expand-O-Kent” drumset (1969 – 1973): Combination of E.W.Kent and Ludwig drums Added in 1969: • E.W.Kent 22" x 14" bass drum (black-diamond pearl wrap) • 20" A Zildjian Medium Ride cymbal; 14" A Zildjian Hi-Hat cymbals New drumset configuration: Two bass drums, small tom, floor tom, snare drum I spent 1968 going to high school, practicing drums, attending rock concerts and becoming a desciple  of CREAM's drummer, Ginger Baker. When my friend Mark and I saw CREAM play live for the first time in March of 1968 I remember Baker's drumset configuration of  two bass drums, two small toms, two floor toms and a snare drum  impacting me almos...

In spite of having been so rapturously in love with drums since the age of eight, compared with many drummers who have reached my (much more advanced) current age I've actually owned relatively little drum equipment throughout my life. This post is Part 1 in a multi-part rundown of it all. First drumset (1965): E.W.Kent (black-diamond pearl wrap) Configuration: Bass drum, tom-tom, snare drum • 20” x 14” bass drum, 12” x 8” small tom, 14” x 5½” snare drum • Various entry-level hardware • 15” Paiste Standard crash cymbal, 13” Italian (no brand name) crash cymbal, 14” Zyn hi-hat cymbals After taking lessons for a year and practicing a couple of hours every day on my Pearl MIJ snare drum and humidor-lid cymbal (see Starting To Play ), when I was 13 I used my bar-mitzvah gift money ($150!) to purchase my first drumset used from my friend Terry, who had switched from playing drums to playing vibes. It included entry-level (read: cheap) hardware and an old fibre trap case tha...

When I was a teenager, I lusted after the unattainable drum (a Rogers wood-shelled Dyna-Sonic snare drum) as much as I ever lusted after any pretty girl in school. When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to afford a Dyna-Sonic my heart ached just as much as it did when Linda Tussey shot me down during my senior year at Grant High. At least a Dyna-Sonic never said to me “But I only like you as a friend”. Instead, the Dyna’s kiss-off line (which my mind always heard in Mae West's voice) was “Sure you can have me, big boy, but it’ll cost you plenty”, and that was just as heartbreaking for me at the time. But unlike your high-school crushes, when you’re much older and are in a position to spend your money as you wish, you can go out and get yourself that drum you lusted after when you were just a lad. And so, when Rogers reissued* this drum in 2019 I just had to see what all the hype was about. I gave a Dyna-Sonic snare a side-by-side test against my then-current snare drum, and tu...

The drumset or drumkit   (sometimes called a  trap set )  is made up of a number of individual drums and cymbals (and occasionally additional instruments). The number of different drumset configurations is infinite — the drumset is unique among acoustical musical instruments in that each player chooses which drums and other instruments their drumset will include, what size each included element will be, the physical arrangement of all the elements and how each drum will be tuned. At their core, just about all drumsets consist of: • A  bass drum , a large drum that produces a very deep and powerful tone the drummer uses to define the music’s pulse. In a drumset the bass drum is played with a foot using a mechanical pedal. (In fact, the invention of the first practical bass drum pedal in Chicago in 1909 is what allowed both the drumset and how it is played to evolve and keep pace with the evolution of popular music over the 110 or so years that the drumset has exist...

After Pop and Mom had listened to me bang on whatever I could get my hands on around the house and watched me play “air drums” for a couple of years, one day when I was around ten years old Pop brought me home a pair of drumsticks and a Ludwig model #354 gum-rubber practice pad (see catalog photo, above). The sticks were not even a matched pair — one was a Ludwig 2B model, the other was a Slingerland 5B model; they were quite different in weight, diameter, balance, and in shape near the tip — and they both had been well used by the time I took possession of them. As an adult I’ve often wondered where Pop got his hands on such a motley pair of sticks. (Maybe he won them in a poker game.) But when I was ten it didn’t matter — at last I had real drumsticks instead of wooden spoons and cutlery! And I worked out for hours on end with those sticks on that rubber pad, which I placed on an old wooden chair that had a stoutly-padded yellow vinyl seat cushion. With the practice pad as my snare d...

I met my first love when I was eight years old and my love for her has continued to burn in my heart right up through today. In fact, it has gotten stronger over the decades. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my whole life up till then. Her name was Gretsch . She had a very sexy pair of tom-toms and she wore a beautiful sky-blue pearl wrap. And of course, she belonged to another. When I was eight, most of my neighborhood friends had formed a Cub Scout den, and like any red-blooded eight-year old American boy, I didn’t want to be left out, so I had my folks sign me up. Although dressing up in the uniform was fun (we got to wear them to school on the days of our den meetings) and I enjoyed the boisterous den and pack meetings, ultimately I turned out to be poor scouting material because I was an overly-cautious kid (read: a chicken shit). And photographic evidence has subsequently revealed that I looked incredibly dorky in my blue Cub Scout uniform with the yellow nec...