LA. STUDIOROUND TABLE

Colaiuta, Keltner, Porcaro,Mason, Baird, Fongheiser, andSchaeffer—seven of the mostrespected and requested drum-mers recording today. Put 'emin a room together and pressthe record button, and whathave you got? Readon...and LEARN.• by Robyn Flans 18

BOBBYELLIOTT

Not too many bands haveremained together—and suc-cessful—as long as the Hollies.Bobby Elliott's drumming hasbeen an integral part of theband's sound since they beganrecording. Find out why drum-mers like Phil Collins and CozyPowell understand the value ofElliott's contributions to theHollies' timelessmusic.•by Simon Goodwin 26

INSIDECOLLARLOCK

In an almost silent way, MarkGauthier of Collarlock has beena major contributor to therecent drum rack revolution. Inthis special industry profile,Gauthier explains the nuts andbolts (and much more) of build-ing the uniqueCollarlock system.• by Rick Van Horn 30

MD TRIVIACONTEST

Win a set of Paiste SoundFormula Cymbals!

64

Cover Photo: Lissa Wales

FEATURES

EducationROCKPERSPECTIVESThe Benefits Of AFour-Piece Kit

BY ANDY NEWMARK

ROCK 'N'JAZZ CLINICApplying CrossRhythms To TheDrumset Part 2

BY ROD MORGENSTEIN

THE MACHINESHOPDrum MachinesA To Z

BY RIC FURLEY

STRICTLYTECHNIQUERhythmic RudimentalProgressions: Part 6

BY JOE MORELLO

ROCK CHARTSJohn "Jabo" Starks:"Superbad"

TRANSCRIBED BYJOSEPH CONNELL

SOUTH OF THEBORDERSamba For CongaDrums

BY JOHN SANTOS

CONCEPTSExperience

BY ROY BURNS

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PRODUCTCLOSE-UPCorder CelebrityDrumkit

BY RICK VAN HORN

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Vic Firth SignatureDrumsticks

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BY ADAM BUDOFSKY

IMPAC SnareReplacement

BY WILLIAM F. MILLER

Vater Drumsticks

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8 UPDATEMichael Hodges,Marillion's Ian Mosley,Jerry Fehily ofHothouse Flowers,Bobby Z, plus News

Profiles58 PORTRAITS

Dom Um Romao

BY FRANK COLON

COLUMNS

E D I T O R ' S O V E R V I E W

A Consumer SurveySeveral months ago we sent out a somewhatdetailed, six-page questionnaire to 2000 sub-scribers across the country, who were selected tobe part of an MD Marketing Advisory Panel.

The questionnaire was designed to determineconsumer preferences on a wide range of percus-sion equipment. We asked our survey group to ratespecific features for drums, cymbals, hardware,

percussion, electronics, sticks, heads, and even cases. The ques-tionnaire was also used to ascertain not only current ownership ofequipment, but purchasing plans for the next 12 months, as well.Finally, a portion of the survey was developed to establish whatsources of information most stimulated interest in a product, andwhat factors played a role in the final buying decision. Reasons formaking particular choices included friends' recommendations,print advertising, product reviews, and visibility in concert or onMTV, among others.What was the ultimate purpose of the survey? First, the infor-

mation we've collected will help MD editors obtain a clearer pic-ture of product preferences among our consumer/readers.Further insight on what's being purchased—and the factors thatinfluence those purchasing decisions—will help to keep our prod-uct reporting on target for MD readers.

Secondly, all of the data will be compiled into a comprehensivereport and distributed as a free service to all percussion manufac-turers and MD advertisers. I might point out that many of thesemanufacturers were consulted prior to the designing of the ques-tionnaire, as a guide in determining what information each need-ed to know from consumers. We hope the completed report willaid them in gearing their future product lines in accordance withthe major preferences revealed in the study. Consumer percep-tions of artist endorsements, pricing, product visibility, and war-ranties are a few of the many other important considerationsmanufacturers will be able to observe from the study.

The overall response to our survey was extremely satisfying,and I'd like to thank all the participating Advisory Panel members.We're well-aware that it was a lengthy, complex questionnaire tocomplete, and we certainly appreciate the time each respondentdevoted to the task. Obviously, a comprehensive report would nothave been possible without the cooperation of so many panelmembers. Hopefully, each and every one of us involved in thedrum and percussion industry will benefit from the informationthat's been gathered here.

EDITOR/PUBLISHER Ronald Spagnardi

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Isabel Spagnardi

MANAGING EDITOR Rick Van Horn

FEATURES EDITOR William F. Miller

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Adam Budofsky

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Rick Mattingly

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Karen Walsh

ART DIRECTOR Scott G. Bienstock

ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER Tracy A. Kearns

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Joan C. Stickel

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Bob Berenson

SALES AND MARKETING Crystal W. Van HornDIRECTOR

MAIL ROOM SUPERVISOR Leo Spagnardi

CONSULTANT TO THE Arnold E. AbramsonPUBLISHER

MODERN DRUMMER ADVISORY BOARD: Henry Adler, KennyAronoff, Louie Bellson, Bill Bruford, Roy Burns, Jim Chapin, AlanDawson, Dennis DeLucia, Les DeMerle, Len DiMuzio, CharlieDonnelly, Peter Erskine, Vic Firth, Danny Gottlieb, Sonny Igoe, JimKeltner, Larrie Londin, Peter Magadini, George Marsh, Joe Morello,Andy Newmark, Neil Peart, Charlie Perry, Dave Samuels, John Santos,Ed Shaughnessy, Steve Smith, Ed Thigpen.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Susan Alexander, Robyn Flans, SimonGoodwin, Jeff Potter, Ten Saccone, Robert Santelli, Robin Tolleson,Lauren Vogel, T. Bruce Wittet

MODERN DRUMMER magazine (ISSN 0194-4533) is publishedmonthly with an additional issue in July by MODERN DRUMMERPublications, Inc., 870 Pompton Avenue, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009.Second-Class Postage paid at Cedar Grove, NJ 07009 and at additionalmailing offices. Copyright 1990 by MODERN DRUMMERPublications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the per-mission of the publisher is prohibited.

EDITORIAL/ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES: MODERNDRUMMER Publications, 870 Pompton Avenue, Cedar Grove, NJ07009. Tel.: (201) 239-4140.

MODERN DRUMMER welcomes manuscripts and photographic mate-rial, however, cannot assume responsibility for them. Such items mustbe accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

MUSIC DEALERS: Modern Drummer is available for resale at bulkrates. Direct correspondence to Modern Drummer, Dealer Service, P.O.Box 389, Mt Morris, IL 61054. Tel.: (800) 334-DRUM or (815) 734-6013.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: $27.95 per year; $49.95, two years. Single copies$3.95.

SUBSCRIPTION CORRESPONDENCE: Modern Drummer, P.O. Box480, Mt. Morris, IL 61054-0480. Change of address: Allow at least sixweeks for a change. Please provide both old and new address. Toll FreeTel.: (800) 435-0715.

Audit Bureau Of CirculationsMembership applied for.

R E A D E R S ' P L A T F O R M

Tommy WellsThe Michael Briggs piece on Tommy Wellsin your August issue was superb. It's niceto see MD feature someone who isn't ahousehold name but has just as muchinsight to offer as a player who is. Thosepeople interested in a career in music coulddefinitely benefit from the down-to-earthapproach Tommy has. His portion on elec-tronics was also helpful. Thanks again forthe informative article.

Ted TretiakSt. Louis MO

Disagrees With WatsonIn response to Mr. Alan Watson's remarks[Readers' Platform, August '90 MD] con-cerning Don Henley's feature in the Mayissue: Just who in God's creation do youthink you are? If it weren't for drummerslike Don Henley, Phil Collins, and the like,the music and drumming industry wouldbe lacking a great deal—not to mention ourears missing out on a lot of incrediblemusic. As for your remark on drummerswho were great, where do you think drum-ming would be today without the likes ofKeith Moon, John Bonham, and the still-jammin' Ringo Starr? Alan, the next timeyou decide to criticize someone, please takea look at what they have contributed to themusic scene. I've been playing for ten yearsnow, and let me say that the music thesemen have created has been as big a part ofmy life as breathing.

John BennettWashington Township NJ

Congrats to BillI've had the pleasure of meeting BillBruford on several occasions, and havefound him to be a gentleman and profes-sional, as well as a stunning player. He isalso one of those rare artists who has cho-sen to follow his muse instead of thealmighty dollar, and because of this, has

consistently broken new ground—especiallyin the field of electronics. In doing so, hehas redefined the role of the drummer andexpanded the realm of possibilities for all ofus.

Congratulations, Bill, on your election toMD's Hall of Fame. And congratulations,Modern Drummer—a great way to start the1990s.

Todd BernhardtWashington DC

Agrees With RodRod Morgenstein's comments on "rock ver-sus jazz" attitudes [July '90 MD] remindme of similar attitudes I have encounteredbecause I refuse to limit myself to just onestyle of music. I have put up with sarcasticremarks such as "What do y'all play...punk-thrash?" or "I hear you're playing in a pop-metal band now," or "You're not gonna playwith those old geezers, are you?"

Well, I'll play with whomever I want, andeveryone who disapproves can just sit intheir bedrooms and play their instrumentswhile I go out and try to make somethinghappen. Presently, I am playing in a com-munity marching band, and although it isnot a paying gig, I'm keeping in practiceand having a blast. So it doesn't matter tome whether it's rock, jazz, country, oroldies; the bottom line is, "I'm playingdrums."

Dudley JohnsonAtlanta GA

Appreciation From Down UnderAs a player and teacher with 25 years expe-rience, I must congratulate ModernDrummer on being a well-balanced maga-zine. I'm impressed with the educationalcolumns—in particular those such asConcepts, The Jobbing Drummer, TakingCare Of Business, and Head Talk. All toooften, wonderful players don't make theprofessional level because of poor personal

development. This shortfall in personalityand attitude is often the result of inade-quate training in the home and/or schoolenvironment, and it becomes the responsi-bility of the perceptive drum teacher toimpart these values along with the mechan-ics of playing. Special thanks to Roy Burns,whose articles reflect the value of "havingyour head together."

Will DowerSydney, Australia

Thanks From CarlI would like to take this opportunity toexpress my sincere thanks and appreciationto Modern Drummer, its staff, and its read-ers for both consideration and for voting forme in the Mainstream Jazz category of the1990 Readers Poll. I consider this recogni-tion a great honor—particularly since I'vebeen an avid reader of the magazine formany years. God bless you all, and (ofcourse) keep swingin'!

Carl AllenBrooklyn NY

Thanks From SamThank you for the fine listing of drumteachers in your August issue. The detailand work that went into compiling this col-lection of drum educators was brilliant. It issomething that has been needed for years,and I was proud to be included.

Sam UlanoNew York NY

Editors'PleaMD readers: For future MD trivia contests,please send in only reasonably-sizedpostcards. Huge cards are no more likely tobe chosen than standard-sized ones, andonly make our sorter grumpy. And no cardsin envelopes, please. Thank you.

MICHAEL HODGESIn April, 1989, while MichaelHodges was in Aruba with a'50s and '60s band called theVandells, he got a call fromAdrian Belew's management,asking him to play on Belew'sproject, Mr. Music Head.Having grown up and workedon and off with Belew since

IAN MOSLEYMarillion's lan Mosley hashad an unusual year. Theband's singer, Fish, left theband, and it took six monthsto find a replacement. Afterfinding Steve Hogarth ("Itbecame apparent straightaway that there was a chem-istry between us," Mosleysays), the band did a tour ofEurope, which "was probablythe best we've done," accord-ing to Ian. "When I firstjoined Marillion, it had that'go for it' vibe, and it's backagain. We went 'round thewhole of Europe in threeweeks—all in the back of a hot

high school, he was thrilled.Little did he know it wouldturn into the David Bowieworld tour.

"A year ago September,David had seen the band inMontreal and talked to Adrianabout playing his tour,"Michael recalls. "Adrian saidhe was working with Rick[Fox] and me, and David

dog van. It wasn't luxury," helaughs.

Marillion's album Season'sEnd was released in Octoberof last year. Then Ian and theband played a couple of gigsin the States just to let theirrecord company know thatthey were still a viable band.After that they returned toBritain for a tour, and then inJanuary it was off to play a fes-tival in Rio. From there it wason to the States to do a propertour.

"I suppose the band's verydifferent now without Fish,"muses Ian. "But, at the sametime, it's still the sameMarillion sound. The music's

asked if he thought we couldcut it, and Adrian went to batfor us.

"The biggest thing in thissituation is keeping the tunestogether, because two thirdsof the songs are sequenced. Iwear headphones, and I've gota click—which is a hi-hatinstead of just a mechanicalclick—and then I have ametronomic light that is dis-playing the time at the sametime in case it gets too loudon stage. That way I can stillsee the time happening. Wedid a lot of click stuff withAdrian, so I'm used to doingthat, but the key to it is torelax. If you start to fight theclick, you're always going tolose.

"It's really a hard thing tolearn to play with the machineand make it sound natural,"Michael continues. "You canget real worried about thewhole thing falling apart, andif you start getting off, it canbe a train wreck. One night wewere playing 'Ashes To Ashes,'and I don't know what I wasthinking about. I was chang-ing programs on the Octapad,and all of a sudden the click

probably a little simpler, ifanything. It's difficult to know.All we know is we're just writ-ing, playing, and enjoying it.It's like any job, I suppose. Ifyou don't enjoy it, it doesn'tmatter how much you're get-ting paid."

Mosley says that from thedrumming side, he's thinkingmore about playing the musicas a part of the band. "Everydrummer goes through thatstage where they want to beabsolutely wonderful andimpress every drummer in theaudience. I think you tend togrow out of that. That cansound like an excuse for notpracticing," he laughs. "But

was happening, and I get fourcounts, and then I count theband off. I had already gottenmy four counts, and I was oncount three of the count-off.Adrian said he thought I wasgolfing, because I just yelled,'Four!' and went into thesong. Everyone jumped in."

Michael admits, however,that working in arenas defi-nitely called for an adjust-ment. "It's just a differentthing. You really have to trimthe fat. You just make bigmoves, because all the rest ofthat stuff doesn't translate tothe arena situation. It just getslost and starts making every-thing sound cluttered. I had tolearn to play a totally differentway, like more 8ths on the hi-hat than 16th notes, becauseyou have to hit the snare hard-er. I even got blisters in differ-ent places than I used to."

The tour goes throughNovember, hopefully therewill be a break, and thenMichael will go out withAdrian Belew's Young Liontour.

• Robyn Flans

when I played with SteveHackett, some of it was greatand there was some nicemelodies going on, but a lot ofit was just self-indulgent.'Let's do this bit in a weirdtime signature because it's agood laugh. And let's do amassive drum solo in the mid-dle of a song.' At the time itwas, 'Yeah, alright, I'll do adrum solo,'" he laughs,"where now I'd question that.I'd say, 'Well, why?' I don'tthink I do anything particular-ly flash anymore. It is musical,though."

• Susan Alexander

JERRY FEHILYIf Jerry Fehily had followed hisfirst love, he'd be kicking asoccer ball for a professionalteam instead of a bass drumfor the band HothouseFlowers. As a teenager inCork, a county in southernIreland, Fehily was a memberof his country's national soc-cer team. All this soccer play-ing must have kept him busy,because he didn't start playingthe drums until he was 18. Aself-taught drummer wholearned to play by listening torecords, Fehily attributesmuch of his early success tothe lack of drummers in hisarea. "When I first started, Iplayed in about six or sevenbands at the same time," hesays. "There weren't verymany drummers in Cork, so Igot a lot of gigging practice. Itwas great." In 1986, at age 23,Fehily moved to Dublin. Afteran audition he recalls as a"brilliant jam," he joinedHothouse Flowers.

Fehily's drumming is a sig-nificant part of Hothouse'spassionate soul-tinged sound."Basically, my role as drum-mer is to keep time and givethe music all of my energy,really go for it," he says.Perhaps what stands out mostwhen listening to Fehily playis his fondness for playingsyncopated patterns on hisride cymbal while maintaininga solid 4/4 rhythm on the bassand snare. It's somethingFehily says he's picked upfrom listening to more com-

NEWS...Sandy Gennaro has joinedPolygram's Company OfWolves. Also, congratulationsto Sandy and Shari on theirrecent wedding.

Prairie Prince playing withTodd Rundgren, and they arealso recording a live album.

plex drummers. "I've beenlistening to a lot of VinnieColaiuta and Dave Weckl andthat kind of stuff. I always liketo break it up a bit. Instead ofplaying straight fours, I like tostick in a little accent here orthere. Whatever I'm playing, Ilike to make it interesting. Youcan hit little bells or cymbalsto color it up a bit. It can turnout quite musical."

However, Fehily realizesthat you can sometimes take agood thing too far. "I used tocopy Manu Katche and hisuse of splash cymbals. At onetime I had three or four splashcymbals around my set. Now Ihave only one. That was hiskettle of fish."

The 27-year-old drummeris currently on a world toursupporting Hothouse Flow-ers' second album, Home, thefollow-up to 1988's People.Most of the songs from Homewere written during soundcheck, when the band justjams on different ideas. Fehilythinks "the songs are fantas-tic," but adds that he's onlyhappy with his drumming onabout five of the album'stracks. He'd much rather beplaying in a freer live situationthan in a more restrictive stu-dio setting. "In the studiosometimes I'm not allowed tobe myself. Playing live is thebest, though. The crowds weattract are brilliant. You can'tbeat a good crowd reaction. Itreally lifts your performance."

• John Rivito

Matt Chamberlain on theNew Bohemians' newly re-leased album.Joe Vitale co-produced

Crosby, Stills & Nash's recentsingle, "Live It Up" (which hewrote), and he is currently onthe road with them playingdrums, with Michito San-chez on percussion.

BOBBY ZBefore becoming a producerand then a solo artist, BobbyZ played drums with Princefor several years. His debutrelease, Bobby Z, is a testa-ment not only to his drum-ming skills, but also his song-writing and production tal-ents. Bobby asserts that all ofthese pursuits had beenimportant to him even beforehe left Prince to strike out onhis own.

"I actually wrote songs dur-ing the entire time I was withPrince," he says. "I did get'River Run Dry' on theFamily album, for instance.[That song is reworked onBobby's most recent release.]It was hard to utilize that situ-ation as an outlet for every-

Tommy Lee is on tourwith Motley Crue. Openingfor them is Ratt, with BobbyBlotzer at the drums. Ratt issupporting their new album,Detonator.

Albert Bouchard recentlyin the studio producing theband Heads Up!Steve Gorman on tour

thing I wrote, but there were afew good things that got out."

Although Bobby admitsthat Prince's shadow loomedlarge in shaping his career, healso states that he is still anartist with his own voice. "Myroots are here, on thisalbum," says Bobby, "andpeople have got to accept thefact that I have my own vision.Prince is one in a zillion, andhe has taught me a whole lot.In fact, I don't know if I wouldhave made the record withouthis influence. But I feel I hadsome influence on him, too."

Bobby's notable productioncareer has included work withBoy George, Wendy & Lisa,Aswad, and the Suburbs. "Ireally enjoyed all that," hecomments. "But I was gettinglabeled as a producer, so I

decided to jump offand do this record.But that doesn'tmean I won't contin-ue to produce in thefuture."

It sounds likeBobby thrives on allthe different roleshe plays, and heclaims that the vari-ations are natural tohim. "Yeah, produc-er, writer, singer,drummer—I love itall. But to me, it'sjust the way I goabout making music.I'm lucky in that I doget to apply a lot ofdifferent things."

• Teri Saccone

with the Black Crowes, sup-porting their album ShakeYour Moneymaker.

Barry Keane recently inthe studio with Anne Murray,Roger Whittaker, and theMemphis Bros. Barry is cur-rently touring the U.S. withGordon Lightfoot.

Tommy AldridgeFirst off, I would like to say you are defi-nitely my favorite drummer, and the best

in the rock world! I was fortunate enough to seethe Whitesnake show in Knoxville, Tennesseethis past spring. Your performance was excel-lent.

I would like to know how you got your snaresound on Slip Of The Tongue. It is very "in" withthe songs and the rest of the drums. I'd also liketo know what "carbon-fiber" is; the credits ofthe album say that you use it.

Could you tell me what your drum cage ismade of? Someone told me that they saw onMTV that you had the most expensive drumkitin the world, and I thought the cage might have something to dowith that. Finally, how did you get that "pow"—both on vinyland live—on "Judgement Day" ?

RyanWilkeyBirchwoodTN

Thank you very much for your kind remarks. Fans likeyou are very inspirational.

Simon PhillipsI saw you play on the Who's 25th

anniversary tour, and I thought youwere awesome! I have three very impor-tant questions to ask you. First, whattypes of Zildjian cymbals did you use onthe tour? Second, why do you put yourride cymbal to your left if your drumkit isset up as if you were right-handed?Finally, I've been looking everywhere foryour solo album, Protocol, but can't seemto find it. Can you tell me how I mightacquire it?

Alan TrezzaManhassat NY

Thank you for your kind compli-ments. My cymbal setup for the

Who tour, left to right as I saw them, was:24" Swish Knocker (no rivets); 12"splash; 14" Platinum New Beat hi-hats;22" K Custom ride; 19" Brilliant thin

crash; 18" Brilliant thincrash; 13" Z Dyno Beat hi-hats; 24" Platinum SwishKnocker (with rivets); 17"Brilliant paper thin crash.

As to why my ride is on myleft: A long time ago, havingplayed right-handed since Istarted, I felt it was time tochange—especially as thestyle of drumming waschanging and I was movingto a larger setup. There werecertain problems arisingfrom enlarging the drumset,like crossing the hands and generally get-ting into a real mess with all these newthings to hit. I figured if I could play withmy left hand on the hi-hat, this wouldopen up the whole kit to a freer approachof playing. It would also make me soundquite different to myself. So I started rid-ing with my left hand. I actually wentback to a small kit to do this—as I was

I used two Yamaha carbon-fibersnare drums on Slip Of TheTongue: a 3" piccolo and an 8"-deep drum. The piccolo, ofcourse, is the higher-pitched ofthe two. Carbon-fiber is a com-posite material developed by theaerospace industry. It was ini-tially used for structural parts injet fighters because of itsstrength and light weight. Thesecharacteristics make it the per-fect material for thin—andtherefore resonant—drumshells.Because of its strength, the shellcan be made extremely thinwithout risk of warpage. Unfort-

unately, it is a very expensive material. I have one of two kitsmade by Yamaha. I do, however, feel it is the material of thefuture for drum shells.

My cage is made primarily of aluminum. The clamps andbrackets are made of chrome-moly and powder-coated black.The aluminum parts are anodized gold. As for the "pow" youspeak of on "Judgement Day," two words explain it: carbon-fiber!

doing recording ses-sions in London at thetime—and I would setup my ride cymbal tomy left and my swish tomy right (thereforeproviding a quickescape route if every-thing started to gowrong—which it fre-quently did). To theunsuspecting producerit just sounded ratherstrange, but interest-ing. I continued to do

this until it became second nature. Now Ican play right- or left-handed.

As for getting hold of a copy ofProtocol, my record company in the U.Kis Music for Nations, 102 Belsize Lane,London, NW3 5BB, England. [Look for atrack from Protocol featured next monthin an exclusive MD Sound Supplement.]

I T ' S Q U E S T I O N A B L E

As part of my home study I'mworking on "The Black Page"—the

version played by Terry Bozzio on FrankZappa's Live In New York album. Isthere some way I could get hold of a tran-scription of this, and/or the original chartthat Terry had to learn from?

Also, after nine years of playing heel-down on my pedals, I've recently changedto heel-up. I've checked out many videosand talked to teachers, but find that, asfar as foot technique is concerned, every-one says, "It's probably best to watch myfoot." I'm playing four nights a week,plus daytime practice and rehearsals withother bands, but I still find balance prob-lems, spring tension problems, etc.Could you advise me of any books orvideos that come close to a definite guideto foot control?

David AshcroftSt. Albans, Hertfordshire, England

You might contact Frank Zappa'spublishing company, Barfko-

Swill, at Box 5418, North Hollywood,California 91616, to see if a chart for"The Black Page" is available.

Two excellent videos involving foottechnique are Joe Franco's Double BassDrumming and Dom Famularo's It's YourMove, both available from DCI Video,541 Avenue Of The Americas, New York,New York 10011. Joe has a book by thesame title to accompany his video, andanother excellent book is Colin Bailey'sBass Drum Control. Both are publishedby DC Publications and distributed byHal Leonard Publishing Corporation.(Check with your local music retailerregarding availability or distribution inthe U.K.)

Several years ago I purchased anew Zildjian Impulse 18" China

cymbal. Just recently, I noticed a smallcrack about 1/8" long on the bell of thecymbal, starting from the center hole.The cymbal was mounted in an upside-down position.

What can I do to prolong the life of thiscymbal? And can you give any pointers asto the proper way to mount a China-typecymbal? A cymbal mounted in an upside-down position doesn't move as freelywhen struck as one mounted in the con-ventional manner—thus increasing thechances that it will eventually crack asmine has done.

Terry StedmanLee Center NY

Zildjian suggests two methodsfor the repair of your cymbal.

One is to enlarge the hole slightly, so asto eliminate the crack. This should notbe done if the crack has become longerthan 1/8", since the resulting hole wouldthen be too large and the cymbal wouldnot fit properly on a stand. The othermethod is to install a protective metalgrommet, which will reinforce the centerhole. These grommets are applied toZildjian's marching cymbals, as addedprotection against the wear and tear ofstraps used for marching.

There is no "proper" method formounting a China-type cymbal, althoughthe most popular method seems to be tomount the cymbal upside-down. Thisdoes put tremendous strain on the insideedge of the hole in the cymbal's bellwhere it rubs against the bolt of the cym-bal tilter. Many drummers crank thewingnuts holding the cymbals down morethan usual, to "steady" the cymbal in anear-vertical position in an effort toreduce this strain. Unfortunately, thisalso tends to choke the cymbal's sound. Ifyou do wish to mount the cymbal in anupside-down manner, the best methodwe know of for protecting the cymbal isto employ an Aquarian Super CymbalSpring. This is a device that attaches tothe tilter bolt, and actually holds the cym-bal atop a stiff spring. When the cymbalis struck, the entire tilting mechanism ofthe Cymbal Spring moves, thus prevent-ing any impact between the cymbal and asolid bolt.

I recently purchased a Pearl DR-1Drum Rack for my drumkit. My kit

is a six-piece Export model, with 12" and13" rack toms and 16" and 18" floor toms.The floor toms have legs, rather thanrack mounts. I'm considering suspendingthem from the DR-1. What should I do tofacilitate this? Do I drill holes in theshells so that I can install rack-tommounts? If so, where on the drum shouldI drill—more toward the top or the bot-tom of the drum? Do I leave the leg hold-ers on? If I remove them, do I plug theholes? If so, what do I plug them with?Finally, should I leave the set the way it iswith the intention of upgrading to better-quality drums in the future, and havingthem equipped with the necessary hard-ware from the manufacturer at the timeof purchase?

Sy SeylerGaithersburg MD

Whether or not this conversion isimportant enough to merit the

effort involved must be up to you. Buthere are some points to consider. First,16" and 18" floor toms are generally soresonant that the benefits of suspendingthem from a drum rack are minimal. Atthe same time, the strain put on theshells—especially of an entry-leveldrumkit—by suspending such heavydrums is significant. Suspending thetoms will not gain you any particular sav-ings in hardware weight, since the weightof the tom legs and brackets you removewill be more than made up for by theaddition of rack-tom shell mounts andsuspending tom arms.

Our advice would be to keep your cur-rent floor toms on their legs. If and whenyou decide to upgrade, you may wish toconsider other sizes of drums, includingslightly smaller "floor" toms for whichsuspension might be more practical.

I own a set of Pearl Prestige Studiodrums with a piano black lacquer

finish. Being the first set of lacquered

Photos by Lissa Wales

BY ROBYN FLANS

Drummers are a wonderfully rare breed. I can't

imagine a gathering of guitar players where each

would only want to speak of the others' accomplish-

ments. But such was true the day Jeff Porcaro, Jim

Keltner, Denny Fongheiser, Vinnie Colaiuta, Harvey

Mason, Mike Baird, and Steve Schaeffer got together

at my house to compare notes and swap anecdotes on

studio drumming. Fancy this smattering of dialog:

"I remember twice getting a phone call from Jeff

[Porcaro] saying, 'Hey, come down here, you gotta sub

for me on one tune,'" Mike Baird recounts. Jeff was

on a date at the Record Plant and said, 'I can't play

this groove, I'm going to call Baird.' So he called and

I showed up to do one tune."

"There are a lot of great musicians in this town, some

who are great at certain things," Jeff begins. "If some-

body says, We're going to do a Chicago shuffle, a two-

handed thing,' I'm sitting there thinking, 'If there's an

Earl Palmer who can do that way better than I can,

what's wrong with having Earl Palmer in for that one

tune?' There are specialists who would be the best for

the song, best for the artist, best to make the producer

shine. I'll say, 'You want the "Imagine" feel? There's

the guy,'" he says, pointing to Jim Keltner.

"I don't think everybody would do something like

that," says Keltner, who is really no different. He

would much rather talk about how everyone in the

room has influenced him than toot his own horn

Continuing the point, Baird recalls, "Jeff called me

over to his house one time, and he went over to the

stereo and said, 'You've got to dig this.' I'm thinking it's

some new cat, and I can't wait to hear it. I'm listening

and I look at him and he says, 'Yeah, it's you. Dig that

fill!' Dig me?"

At one time or another I've interviewed each of these

seven giants of the LA. studio scene, but somehow

having them all over at once, exchanging ideas and

arguing viewpoints, was a prospect that both excited

and frightened me. I knew they'd be more apt to share

stories with their peers, but I also knew that it was sim-

ply scarier having seven pairs of eyes on me instead of

one. It seemed an awesome task to prepare for and pull

off, and I wish to express my special thanks to Ed

Eblen for his invaluable help before, during, and after

the big day. I couldn't have been more pleased.

In fact, these guys were so excited to get together with

one another that it was almost like having a party with

a tape recorder going. They were just as excited to be

spending that Sunday with one another as I was hav-

ing all of them over to the house.

RF: During a recent interview with Alex Acuna, he said that noope is ready for their first session. I'd love for all of you to recallyour first session, what you were met with, and what you foundout—what awarenesses and insights. Mike, why don't we startwith you.MIKE: My actual very first session was in a band situation, so itwas a much easier ordeal. But my first legitimate session was ademo where I was recommended by David Foster, who at thetime was doing the Rocky Horror show. He was doing a projectat Village Recorders, and I remember carting my own drums in,and on the date was Richie Zito, David Foster, Lee Sklar, andmyself. I was scared shitless. I didn't really know who these peo-ple were, except for David Foster, so on that end it wasn't thatmuch pressure. But of course all these things happened: Thesnares broke on the snare drum, and I had no extra snares andwound up duct taping it to the bottom of the snare drum. Itmade me paranoid out of my mind. I got through the whole day,and at the end I said, "God, the bass player is pretty good. Whois he?" They go, "You don't know who Lee Sklar is? Where areyou from?" I grew up in Southgate, and the names I was associ-ated with at that time were Jeff's—because I loved the SteelyDan stuff—Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner, and cats from bands, likeBonham and so forth.

I was really very naive to the whole studio scene and who washappening and who wasn't. I wasn't ready from the standpoint ofbeing able to walk in with the confidence of having a trackrecord of having done things. That takes time. That comes fromdoing it and doing it. I don't know if I walk into a session evennow thinking to myself, "Oh, this is going to be cake," because Ialways like it to be a challenge in some aspect.HF: Jim, how about your first session story?

JIM: My very first actual time in the studio was at RCA, and itwas with Gary Lewis ["Just My Style"]. I had just come fromSherry's on the strip, where I was playing real cool jazz with lit-tle tiny 3D Gretsch sticks and a little drumset. They wanted meto play a shuffle, and thank God at that time I wasn't afraid ofshuffles. Later on I became deathly afraid of shuffles, but at thattime I didn't know. Leon Russell was there, and he told meexactly what to do. He said, "Play like this...." First of all, I thinkI remember him saying something about how the real guys playit—with the left hand and the right hand together. I tried it andit didn't work. To this day, I still can't do that. So he was saying,"Just do like this—with the left hand on the backbeat and theright hand on the hi-hat and kind of open up the hi-hat a littlebit. So I did it and it worked out. I played the beginning filldown the kit and he said, "Why don't you do it backwards?" so Idid that. I did this little thing on the intro when they played thepiano-bass figure where I opened the hi-hat and closed it quick-ly in the middle of a phrase, which was a very unconventionalthing for that time. They were sitting around saying how bril-liant it was, so I became this instantaneous find for them. I wastechnically adept enough that I could do anything they wantedme to do. If they wanted me to play backwards or hang upsidedown or come from underneath the drum—I could do all theselittle things. That was my first session. I wasn't really scareduntil later.RF: You were too stupid to be scared.JIM: I was too ignorant. Ignorance is bliss. I say "later on,"because later on I became panicky at every session I went to, Idon't care who it was. It was like that for years. It's only now thatI'm an old man approaching senility that I finally don't haveheart murmurs before I go to a session.

RF: What started making youscared?JIM: It's that thing of knowingwhat you're supposed to bedoing.RF: What were you findingout?JIM: They used to tell me,"Jimmy, you sound like a littlemouse running around on topof a box. Do something withyour drums. Listen to thisrecord, listen to that record." Iused small sticks. I startedlearning how to loosen up mydrum heads and how to playwith the butt of the stick. Itried to watch Hal [Blaine] as much as I could. I hadthe good fortune to come in at a time when I actuallygot to watch Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer at the drum-kit. I maintain that if you love music a lot, like we alldo, when you hear a musician, you obtain that imme-diately—their vibe, their feel, their whole musicality.That goes right into you and becomes a part of you.I'm sure every generation says this, but I truly do feelsorry for the kids who will never know what it is like toexperience sitting next to the power of Earl Palmerwhen he's playing with Little Richard. I get the chillsagain just thinking about it. And Hal Blaine playingwith the Fifth Dimension or Simon & Garfunkel atStudio 3—I'll never forget that; that's a part of me.Also, it's something that I aspire to constantly; I willnever be able to play as great as Hal Blaine on"Wedding Bell Blues," the way he played that shuffle.Or "Rip It Up," Earl Palmer. But it's something toaspire to.RF: Harvey, what about your first session?HARVEY: I had a funny situation, because I read adown beat article about studio musicians when I was in highschool, and I said, "That's what I want to be doing." I was play-ing clubs, and I rented a studio one summer and went in andplayed around with my drums, and then I got a job at this placecalled Triple A Recording. I called them and told them that theguy they were using was not happening, [everyone laughs] Itwas a really brash thing to do, but at the time I guess I was des-perate. So they told me to come in and work, so I took my owndrums. Those are my first experiences of making records. I'dget $25 for the day, and I played all the drums and all the per-cussion. I had quite a bit of confidence when I came out here in1970. But I couldn't get arrested as a drummer. So it's a goodthing I played percussion, because I was stuck playing malletsand percussion. I was working with Quincy and all these people,and I'd say, "You know, I play drums," and they'd say, "Sowhat?"RF: How did they even know to hire you for percussion?HARVEY: I came here playing drums with George Shearing,but a guy who came to see the show, who did the Lucille Ball

COLAIUTA:

"I invested a

lot of money in

this big rack of

electronics, and

it's just bells

and whistles—

it's jive."

show, wanted to hire me. He asked if I played percussion, I saidyes, and he hired me for the Lucille Ball show, where I had toplay everything. Then somebody saw me do that and they calledme, so I started playing all these percussion dates. The goodthing about it was, I got to sit next to—as Jim said—Hal Blaine,Earl Palmer, Jim Gordon—everybody—and I learned so muchabout how to handle different situations.RF: What was your actual first drum session like?HARVEY: I was nervous, but it was a lot easier than it wouldhave been if I had come in and just had to play drums right offin the studios. I was aware of the tuning of the drums. I'd listento how they'd tune their drums, and I'd just work on my own.I'd never get to play them, but I had a couple of kits set up andwent from one to the other and tuned them. I had a set likeHal's and a set that had a different kind of tuning, so I kind offelt like I was prepared.

RF: Jeff?JEFF: My first session was with Keltner with Jack Dougherty. Itwas a rehearsal band, and Hal Blaine was the drummer, andthen the contractor called to see if I wanted to do the rehearsalband on Saturdays. I did about five of them. I knew they wereplanning to do a record, and they stopped calling me forrehearsals, so I figured they were going to use a studio guy forthe album. Then Dougherty called me and asked if I had everheard of a drummer named Keltner. At that time, my biggestheroes were Keltner and Gordon. I said yes, and he said, "Hejust got off the road with Joe Cocker, and you and he are goingto do the rehearsal band for a couple of weeks. So we rehearseda couple of times before the session. I was 17 and didn't evenhave my driver's license, so my mom drove me to the session atA&M. I borrowed my dad's black diamond pearl Ludwig set,which was just like Keltner's, because I wanted to be just likehim: I wore a vest like Jim Keltner, I tried to get the heaviestboots I could, because like everyone else has said, you just want-ed to emulate your heroes. Just before I got through the door, I

was so nervous, I threw up right in the corner. Thank God thetune was this uptempo samba, because my stick was going sofast. I remember Jim sits down next to me, and he looks over tome and says, "Man, do you read?" I go, "No," and he said, "Idon't read that good either, you do the fills and I'll just keeptime." I'm going, "Right!"JIM: Tell them what you did, man.JEFF: What did I do?JIM: He was ridiculous. He was like Vinnie then.JEFF: Come awwwwwwnnnnn!JIM: He played some of the most inside out shit I've ever heard.JEFF: Like I said, that was just nerves. I had chops I didn't evenknow existed that day.RF: Any eye-opening revelations about recording?JEFF: No, nothing eye-opening except that I had to get my timetogether and my reading together, [everyone laughs]RF: Denny?DENNY: I was up in San Francisco, and it was a demo. I got acall to play on three songs. They sent me a tape, although itended up hot being the three songs we played. I had never beenin a studio, so I called my brother, who was my teacher, and Isaid, "What do I do?" I got out articles and read everythingabout these guys in this room—who were my heroes—and I lis-tened to every record I had of them. It actually ended up beingokay. I remember thinking at the time, "It has to be singleheads," so I took all the bottom heads off my drums. Everyonesaid I had to dampen the drums, so I think I got Pinstripes andtaped them up, stuffed the bass drum a lot, and taped my walletto the snare drum. But I got there and went, "This ain't hap-pening." So I had to undo some of it, but I tried to recreate whatI had been hearing.

When I came down to LA. for my first session, it was a differ-ent scene. You know, you practice to a metronome, but it was awhole different thing playing to a metronome and then making aclick feel good. So my first session down here was with a digitalclick, and I had never heard that before. I didn't know anythingabout headphone mixes, so I didn't know about saying, "Turndown the singer, turn down the keyboards so I can hear the

click," just something that could make me comfort-able. It was piano, vocals, and me, and it was a ballad.It was terrible. So I went home and stayed up for daysplaying to a click track. I was in tears halfway homegoing, "That's it, I'm outta here. I'll never have anoth-er chance."MIKE: That's a funny thing when you mentioned aclick. I was talking to [guitarist] Dean Parks the otherday, and he said, "You realize, even back in the late'70s and early '80s, cats weren't used to working with aclick track, and if you had just thrown them into a situ-ation with a click track, they would have fallen all overthemselves." Everybody was used to just having goodtime, but everybody has adapted to the new style ofwhat's happened.DENNY: I wasn't even smart enough to ask for a dou-ble-time click, and it was a ballad.RF: Vinnie, how about your first session?

VINNIE: My first was a bandsituation, and we did it up in SanFrancisco at the Record Plant.We were there for a long time,like a couple of months—livingup there. It's funny that you'retalking about a click, because Idon't even think we used a click.But it was weird because I didn'tknow anything about how tomake my drums sound halfdecent or anything. I had this oldGretsch drumset with Pinstripesand real dead heads. Theysounded real dead, and I knew it.I would listen to the playbacks

and say, "These drums sound horrible. How come they don'tsound like anything I've ever heard?" It was weird becausenobody said to change the heads or anything like that; we justworked with them as they were, which was really strange. Ihaven't heard the record in a long time, but I know I wasn'thappy with the sound and I didn't know anything about how tomake it any different. At least my time was okay, because I hadtime to get it together, and I would go back in and do it over. ButI played too much stuff and I wasn't playing like a sidemanwould play. When I came to town here, I just started doingdemos, because before machines hit, people were still doingdemos. I remember a Pages record—and you [Mike] were onthat record too, and you too, Jeff.JEFF: Don't you remember? I got a phone call on the Pagesrecord. I couldn't do some dates, and I tried to talk [Jay]Graydon into using you, but he wouldn't. He had never heard ofVinnie, and I tried to tell him, "At least you can hear his musi-cality on Joe's Garage." You were doing Karizma at the BakedPotato, and I said, "You've got to go dig him with Karizma."Finally Graydon called me up and said, "Okay, I'll try using thisguy, but he has to use your drums." Remember? I called youback and said, "Don't get freaked out, this guy is going to wantyou to use my drums because he doesn't know if you know how

to tune drums in the studio. So you can do whatever you want tomy drums." And Graydon told me, "If it's not happening, youhave to come the next morning at 9:00 and do the track forfree." So I get a call from him at 2:00 in the morning saying,"Man, it wasn't happening." It was a shuffle in 7. I got up earlyin the morning, and I was flipped out. He played me the trackand I was thinking, "Whoa, I have to do this over?" I looked atGraydon and said, "Where is it rushing?" The song was startingto fade down, and Graydon pointed to the monitor and said,"Right there." I said, "Where?" He said, "The foot, the bassdrum, it's rushing," and I flipped out.MIKE: Then I ran into you [Vinnie] at the Roxy and a big scenewent down because I wound up playing on a couple of tracks,which was when all this was going down, and you were mad atme. I said, "Hey man, I just walked into this situation. I had nodea what was going on." I had had the same conversation withGraydon. He was telling me that you didn't play consistent, andI listened to the track and said, "Itsounds great."VINNIE: I wasn't mad at you; Iwas upset at him. Those trackswere good. I was with Gino[Vanelli] during the day and doingthat at night. And Gino was evenmore demanding, so if he couldaccept tracks from me, Jay certain-ly should have; that's what got me.The thing was, the tracks weregood, and he never explained tome what he wanted or what hewasn't getting. Everybody was lov-ing it. The band went nuts.JEFF: Before this album wentdown, you were rehearsing withthat band, and the buzz aroundtown was, "Wait until that albumcomes out, because that stuff isprogressive and cool. Dig this cat."Vinnie was already every musi-cian's hero who had heard him.Regardless of how many sessionshe had done, everybody alreadyknew about him. You had alreadyseen him on Saturday Night Livewith Zappa with a yellow Gretschset going, "What is that shit?"VINNIE: It was painful to gothrough that, because I wanted toblow.MIKE: There are just some peo-ple you can never please. I'm suretha t everybody has replaced stuffthat I've played on, and I bet I'vereplaced stuff that you guys haveplayed on. You walk into a room,you listen to the track, and you go,"What am I supposed to play?"

KELTNER:"It's only

now that I'man old manapproachingsenility thatI finally don'thave heart

murmurs beforeI go to asession."

You wind up playing something that's a ballpark thing and theygo, "That's it!"VINNIE: It's so subjective that you can't rate yourself: This wasbetter or worse.RF: Steve, what about your first session?STEVE: It was in New York, which was a whole different scenefrom anything I had experienced here. I was probably around 15years old on my first session. I think it was a jingle for CharlieFox. It was just very frightening. The concept of recording wasalso different; they didn't have multi-track recorders in NewYork on that kind of session. I had been working with incrediblemusicians, but I didn't have any concept of going to tape or whatwas involved in playing. I remember the drumset was dead.Everything I had previously played on was wide open drumswith no muffling. Studio playing was a whole other thing.VINNIE: I ran into Bob Mann the other day, and he said thefirst session he ever played on was with you and Eddie Gomez.STEVE: I think that had to do with trying out the new studio atA&R Studios in New York. They wanted to hear what the roomsounded like, so they hired a band. But that was not really a ses-sion, working for somebody, with music in front of you. I'vebeen playing with Bob Mann since I was 12. Here, I think thefirst session I did was when I hooked up with Herb Alpertaround 1975. The stories that go along with what happened withthat band are beyond belief. For instance, they were doing somework in the studio, and to keep the plaster from falling on mydrums, they covered them with a big yellow blanket, almost likethe packing material they use on pianos. Some kid was in thestudio, and he had a piece of that wood doweling, and the kid hitmy drums on top of the blanket, and Herb went, "That's thesound I want." So I had to play the entire session with that allover my drums. [everyone laughs]

The best story was, later on after that band disbanded, hewanted to do a record. So we went in to cut this record, Rise,which was his most successful record. He wanted to audition, sohe had different rhythm sections in. Abe Laboriel and I showed

up at the new Studio D. We walked in with no microphones, justmy drumset and his bass, and Herb brought in a little GeneralElectric plastic cassette recorder and put it on a stool—in amajor studio, with engineers in the booth and no microphones.He turned on the machine and said, "I want you guys to play allthe new dance grooves that you know and categorize them forme"—into a cassette machine. He hired us to do the record, andwe walked into the studio and it was freezing. I mean freezing.There was even condensation on the glass. Alpert liked the waythe trumpet sounded in the cold, but the studio was so cold thatAbe ended up going to the hospital.

All of us have these stories, and we all still work with the samepeople, or at least I do. I just learned to understand going in thatsomebody is looking for something, but they don't really knowwhat they're looking for.HARVEY: I went in with Quincy Jones one day, and then he hadme come back for the next two weeks playing everything again,individually.MIKE: During the disco scene, one guy had me do a seven-minute tune, with no click, with everyone playing in the roomwith me. Then he said, "Okay, everyone take a break," and thenI went back and recorded just bass drum for seven minutes,then snare drum for seven minutes, then hi-hat for seven min-utes, and then each tom for seven minutes.VINNIE: I just did that a week ago, same thing. I was in therefor 12 hours. It was with Tony Childs. I'm not saying it was abad thing to do it that way, but you know, if you have that muchtime, you use that much time. So we were figuring out differentparts to play. I'd play the hi-hat part, then the bass drum, ormaybe we'd keep the machine bass drum and I'd just play snaredrum. It might not be straight backbeat, it might be a littletwisted backbeat; then I'd put a tom part in between and if thetempo is just a certain tempo, sometimes it is really hard.MIKE: That's really changed a lot, compared to those dayswhen people weren't working with clicks, where you basicallyhad to have decent time to play seven minutes, and then replace

each part with no machines.STEVE: Or those sessions where they make you play your stickstogether and do a click track. Then you play to that.HARVEY: Or doing a record for someone who has died, andthey want to keep the vocal but get rid of the original backingtracks. But they didn't originally have a click track, so you go inand make one.MIKE: Or they can't play the machine track or any click trackbecause they need those tracks for your drum track, and thebass player is over here and the guitar player is in another ball-park, and the vocal is somewhere else, and the keyboard isspread all in between, and they go, "Make it work!"DENNY: Actually, Mike, I met you when you were doing that. Iwas doing my first record here, and the producer said, "I'mdoing a session tomorrow night at A&M with Mike Baird; whydon't you come down and talk to him?" So I came down andhung out, and you were great. You were doing it for some oldJackson 5 stuff.MIKE: Oh yeah, that's right. They found these old tracks thatthey had cut, and the Jacksons were out of their contract. ButMotown decided they were going to make some money on theseold tracks that were licensed to them. So they rehashed five oldtracks from Jamerson and Gadson, and the time was all over theplace. It was a groove for the time, but for now.... The guy goes,"I want something current," and how can you play somethingcurrent with the bass all over the place?HARVEY: Jeff, I heard down in Florida they were measuring thedistance between your snare drum and your bass drum.JEFF: It was Gadd, Kunkel, and I think Bob Glaub. They wentthe week I went to Florida, to their Middle Ear Studios atBiscaine Bay. They would have a click going, and they wanted tomake two-bar loops, so they would play the demo of the tune.They would talk about what they wanted the drum pattern to bein the verse, the chorus, and the bridge, then they would runtape. They had giant reels of tape like I had never seen before.You'd hear it click for two bars, and then you'd play the down-

beat bass drum. You'd hear eight beats, hit a down-beat, and stop. Then Albhy Galuten and CarlRichardson would move the reels of tape by hand overthe tape heads. Looking at the meters they could tell ifI was behind or ahead of the click. Mind you, theycould not tell audibly; they'd have to look at themeters. This took seven minutes, and they'd say,"You're three milliseconds behind the downbeat; let'sdo it again." So I'd wait for the tape to rewind, heareight clicks, hit it, there would be seven minutes ofmeasuring, and then I'd hear, "Man, it's close, you'reone millisecond over; you overcompensated one mil-lisecond." [Everyone groans]While this was going on, in the back room was some

scientist. There were these saw horses with clamps onthem. Attached to it was a big brass-encased motor,and it had a brass piece coming out with four allenscrews in it. Clamped to the allen screws was a 5ARegal Tip drumstick, and in front of that was an 8x12tom-tom on a stand, tilted just perfectly so that if youhit middle C on the Fairlight, this arm would hit the

drum harder than you could everhit a drum. But then it wouldrecoil, and just when they wouldtry to program it to come downagain, they had these series oflights that went from white to yel-low to green to red, and when itgot to green, they would have toreach over and unplug it becausethe motors were $750 a piece, andthey would burn out. On aFairlight they had a bass drum ona stand that had two rods comingfrom underneath the riser, boltedonto the footboard. One motorbrought the pedal down and theother motor lifted it up so it couldcome back for another beat. Theyhad two arms on the hi-hat, anarm on the floor tom, one on thesnare drum, and one on themounted tom, and the whole con-cept was, while Gadd, Kunkel, andI were doing our thing, they hadthis scientist trying to get thisrobot to do what we were doing.But the project turned out to betoo expensive. It just blew ourminds, though, watching thesepeople measure milliseconds.After two hours you'd have a breakand you'd have a headache and bedizzy, then you'd go back andthere'd be this mad scientist try-ing to take over your gig.VINNIE: That's the ultimatestory.RF: Other than the story Jeff told MD last year about leaving theRickie Lee Jones session, have any of you had reason to walk outof a session?DENNY: I came close about a month ago. I've blanked on thename of the band, but it was described to me as a real technoband. It was dance music, and they were using a Roland 909drum machine. Everything was real small, tight sounds. Theproducer wanted to put live drums on it, but the band didn'treally want live drums. They wanted a live player, but they want-ed more electronic sounds. We're at Capitol, Studio B, whichgets the biggest drum sound you can get, while everything elseon the tune is real tight and machine-like. The engineer comesin and says, "I get drum sounds in ten minutes," and four hourslater, I'm still on the snare drum. What happened was the pro-ducer lied to the band and said I was going to bring all my elec-tronics, but he had called me up and said, "Don't bring anyelectronics." He said, "The band is going to disagree with this,but I want the tracks to feel like U2." So I'm sitting there play-ing parts like the drummer in U2 would play to these songs thatyou shouldn't be playing these parts to, and the band is going,

BAlRD:"If a producer

says, 'Playa Vinnie fill,'or 'Play likeJeff,' I say,

'Look, I'll giveyou their phone

numbers.'"

"No," and the producer is going, "Great." It was horrible.MIKE: Jeff and I once had a war going on where we'd be doingall these dates just hours apart, and I'd come in, and therewould be stuff drawn all over my drumheads, really graphic,crude drawings. I cracked up and then I'd go to his date anddraw on his heads. This kit of mine became this real legendarything—"You've got to see Baird's kit, look at the drumheads,look at the floor tom!"

So this guy called me up wanting me to do this Christian date.He said, "Whatever you do, get there early and change thosedrumheads, because this artist is so religious she floats throughthe room." By the time I got to the gig, I remember I walked inand said, "Hi everybody," and I just see these people turn, andthere's dead silence. The artist is staring at my kit, and shelooks at me, her eyes get huge, and she backs away and every-body splits. That was it. I filled out a form and left. I blew herwhole session that day, she was ruined; she thought I was thedevil.RF: What about situations where you're not communicatingwith the producer? Aside from walking, what do you do?DENNY: Try your hardest to make it work.MIKE: The bottom line is we're being paid to do a job, and Ifeel an obligation once I'm committed to something, unless it'sserious verbal humiliation.JEFF: Exactly.MIKE: I used to stop dates, because if someone burned me onsomething, I would go off and not let the person off the flooruntil they were just dust. People would say, "Okay, Mike, okay,"and I would just be livid. People would say, "If you get Jeff, he'spretty temperamental; if you get Baird, God, he'll burn you tothe ground." We've all gone through these periods, and we've alllearned something through them. Now, to me, as long as a pro-ducer doesn't personally demean me, I'll work with him.RF: Isn't there a fine line sometimes where if you give the pro-ducer what he wants, you are really compromising yourself?

The drumbeat starts before the introductory fanfare

has faded from the speakers. The audience starts to

respond to the beat, some cheering, some applauding,

some clapping along. The lights flash, swirl, and

swoop, momentarily illuminating areas of the stage, but

keeping the drumkit in darkness. As the fanfare fades

completely, the rhythm from the drums fills the the-

ater, and the audience response increases in propor-

tion. Seconds later the lights do pick out the drumkit,

and the theater erupts in a crescendo of cheering. It's a

spontaneous greeting for the man seated behind the

kit, one of the most perennially popular figures in

British rock music, Bobby Elliott. The benign figure

sitting high above his drums—with his cymbals seem-

ingly set high above him—dominates the drums and

for a moment the whole auditorium, before the other

members of the Hollies move forward from the shad-

ows and launch into "Long Cool Woman In A Black

Dress." Another Hollies concert to a typically packed

house has begun.

Almost everybody who has been around long enough

to follow British pop/rock since the boom of '63 can

measure out their lives in Hollies hits. From the early,

"Searchin"' and "Stay," which established them as one

of their country's top bands, through records like "I'm

Alive," "Look Through Any Window" ('65), "Bus

Stop," "Stop, Stop, Stop" ('66), "On A Carousel," and

"Carrie Ann" ('67), and on to a series of unforgettable

'70s songs including "Long Cool Woman In A Black

Dress," "The Air That I Breathe," and "He Ain't

Heavy, He's My Brother," Hollies material has found a

place in public consciousness. The numbers I've men-

tioned are only a selection. Different people have dif-

ferent favorites. Looking through a list of their record-

ings, you find yourself saying, "Yes, of course, they did

that one too."

The Hollies originated in a partnership between

singers Allan Clarke and Graham Nash way back in the

early '60s. As they progressed from working the clubs

to being a hit-making band, their personnel changed,

and they picked up guitarist Tony Hicks and drummer

Bobby Elliott. Their original bass player, Eric Haydock,

was replaced in '66 by Bernie Calvert. The present

bassist is Steve Stroud. Graham Nash left the band at

the end of '68 to work with David Crosby and Steve

Stills. Nash's position was taken by Terry Sylvester,

who was replaced in the early '80s by Alan Coates.

Today the line-up on stage is completed by Dave Carey

on keyboards.

Clarke, Hicks, and Elliott are the three stalwarts who

have seen the thing through for close to 30 years, and

somehow they haven't lost any of their enthusiasm. It

must stem from satisfaction in still being able to pro-

duce excellent music that delights audiences. Bob

Elliott has a very interesting long-term perspective on

the rock 'n' role life. What makes him so good to talk to

is the obvious fun and enjoyment that his career has

given him. BY SIMON GOODWIN

SG: Going back to the begin-ning, do you remember whatturned you on to drums in thefirst place?BE: Yes, it was listening torecords—often those of bigbands—when I was a boy. I wasattracted by the sound of thedrums, and would concentratemore and more on what theywere doing. I thought, "I'd liketo have a go at this," so I col-lected a bunch of tins from mymother's grocery shop and putthem around me like tom-toms. In the middle there wasthe Cadbury's "Roses" tin withthe lid slightly loose, so that itrattled like a snare drum. Thefirst two records I bought were"Nights At The Turntable" byGerry Mulligan, and "Sing SingSing" by Benny Goodman withGene Krupa on drums, and I'dplay along to these on my kit oftins.

I was fortunate in that I hadrelatives who were interested.We also had some neighborswho were a really musical fami-ly. I'd go past their house andhear the record player goingfull blast. One of the guys madea pair of brushes out of lengthsof copper wire bound at thehandle end with insulationtape. I used to play with theseon a newspaper to GerryMulligan records, convincedthat I was sounding like ChicoHamilton. This all started forme when I was 11 or 12 yearsold, and it just progressed: buy-ing more records, playing alongto them, making cymbals out ofbaking tins and drilling them toput rivets in. I've always beeninto putting rivets in cymbals,right the way through to theHollies. It carried on to thetime I was able to fork out a couple of quid [£2] for my firstsnare drum, along with a pair of sticks and brushes. It wasthanks to my school friend, Bob Palmer, that I bought my firstfull drumkit. He encouraged me to borrow £60 from my fatherto buy a secondhand Premier kit. It once had a white pearl fin-ish, but by the time I got it, it had changed to a sort of "nicotineyellow." [laughs]

I first got into playing withother people at a local jazz club.I used to go along for weeks onend trying to get to know theguys and buying the drummerhalves of bitter, until eventuallyhe allowed me to sit in. At thattime we were living a little wayout in the country. The last busleft at 10:30, so if I wanted to sitin, I had to walk home after-wards. It was worth it though;playing things like "Girl InCalico" with trumpet, tenor sax,piano, bass, and drums was thebiggest thrill I'd ever had. I wasnervous at first, but when Iplayed the reaction was quitefavorable, so I started doing itregularly—and then walkingbetween three and four mileshome. Eventually the drummerhad other commitments andmoved on, so I moved in with mysmokey Premier kit. It built fromthere. There was a fairly famousjazz club at a place calledRawtenstall, and I got the jobwith the resident band there. Itwas a quintet, but the rhythmsection would back guests whocame up from London: DonRendell, Harold McNair, EddieThompson—all the top Britishjazzers—and I was on drums. Itwas great experience. DonRendell came up a few times,and on one occasion he said thatit was a pity I didn't live nearerLondon, because he would haveused me regularly. That wasnice.

At the same time I was alsoleaning towards rock. I realizedthat if you went to a jazz club,everybody was sitting aroundlooking cool; but if you went to arock show down at the Imperialin Nelson, the girls would all bedown the front jumping around

and screaming. I thought, "This rock thing looks alright to me;perhaps I should get into it!" [laughs] I knew Tony Hicksalready. Tony was only 14 when I first met him, but he wasalready an excellent guitarist. We got together in a band calledRicky Shaw & the Dolphins. I was now getting quite busy.Thursday nights was the jazz club, weekends the Dolphins, andsome Fridays I would dep [sub] with a big band, the Jimmy

Drumset: Remo Encore series in gold finishA. 5 1/2x 14 snareB. 8 x 8 tomC. 9 x 10 tomD. 11 x 12 tomE. 13 x 14 tomF. 16 x 16 floor tomG. 16 x 22 bass drum

Cymbals: Paiste1. 13" Dark Crisp hi-hats2. 16" Full crash3. 20" Mellow ride4. 20" Dry ride5. 22" Novo China6. 18" Mellow crash

aa. Roland PD 31 pads

Hardware: All Remo, except for a Pearl TW 880 dou-ble pedal with felt beaters.Heads: Remo Falams K on snare, clear Ambassadorson tops of rack toms, gold Ambassadors on bottoms,Pinstripes on floor tom and bass drum, with a goldAmbassador on bottom of floor tom and an EbonyAmbassador on front of bass drum with a 14" hole cutin it.Sticks: 26 with wood tip.Electronics: Roland S-330 Sampler, Roland PM 16controller, two Roland PD 31 pads, and Roland 626and CR8000 drum machines.

Heyworth Orchestra, which played at the Astoria in Rawtenstall.So I was doing jazz, rock, and the big band; I had to try to readthe drum charts for that.SG: Were you entirely self-taught at the time?BE: Largely, yes. But at the time I was sitting in at the jazz club,the regular drummer was going into Manchester once a week tohave lessons with Bob Turner, who played with the NDO[Northern Dance Orchestra]. Then on the following day Iwould go 'round to his house, and for five shillings he wouldpass on what he'd learned to me. We used the Buddy Rich tutorbook. That was very helpful; it made me realize that there wasmore to drumming thanjust sitting down andplaying. So I reallyknuckled under, "got mychops together" as theysay, and learned all Icould.SG: Your first fully pro-fessional gig was withShane Fenton & theFentones.BE: Yes it was, but inthe early days I neverseriously consideredbecoming fully pro. Ithink it was characteris-tic of being born in theNorth of England; atthat time you wereexpected to settle downand work at a trade. Myfather, who was a skilledmaster cabinet maker,didn't put it to me quitelike that, but he did say,"Robert, the drummingis great if you enjoy it,but you can't expect to earn a liv-ing from it." And actually it tookme some time to get the confi-dence to see very much potentialin myself. But I backed somequite well-known jazz artists atthe club, and then I backedsome pop artists with theDolphins—and the reaction wasalways good.

Now, at that time, the Hollies,with Allan Clarke and GrahamNash, were already doing verywell in the North—following onfrom the Beatles at The Cavern,that sort of thing. They saw theopportunity to go fully pro, buttheir lead guitarist didn't wantto. Their manager, who had seen

a lot of the Dolphins, was pestering Tony Hicks to join them. Heresisted at first—it's a complicated story—but eventually Tonydid join the Hollies, leaving the Dolphins without a guitar play-er. I thought, "That's buggered it!" [laughs] because it was athree-piece band. Tony was one of those guitar players whocould play lead and rhythm at the same time; there was nobodyaround who could replace him. Anyway, off he went to make arecord with the Hollies, but he phoned me up a few days later totell me that Shane Fenton was looking for a drummer.

I went down to Stoke On Trent to do the audition, and theyseemed quite pleased, so I thought I'd got the gig. Then they

said, "Can you come toLondon next week to doanother audition, whenthere will be some otherdrummers as well?" I wasdisappointed, but I decid-ed that I ought to go. Mydad took me down toLondon in his van—andwe were late! When I gotthere, there were ten ortwelve guys standing out-side holding drumsticks.I was at the back of thequeue, but I could heareverything that was beingplayed inside. By the timeit was my turn to go in Iknew the numbers per-fectly. So I did the audi-tion and got the job.

I found out later thatone of those other peoplein the queue had beenKeith Moon. When I wasin the Hollies and he wasin the Who I got to know

him quite well. It's strange, butin the early days he used to bevery unsure of himself. Over aperiod of about three years I sawhim develop from being a ner-vous little guy to being the fullyfledged Keith Moon.

So I became a member of theFentones for a few months,which was a very good experi-ence. My first gig with them wasat The Royal Albert Hall inLondon, alongside people likeEric Delaney, who is one of ourgreat British drummers but whohas never had the recognition hedeserves. At the end of that showeverybody stood along the front

Classic Elliott Wax

Bobby Elliott chose the following albumsas containing examples of hisprime Hollies performances.

Stop! Stop! Stop! (Imperial LP 12339)Another Night (Epic PE33387)

Buddy Holly (Polydor [UK] POLTV12)Rarities (EMI [UK] EMS1311)

What Goes Around (Atlantic 800761)All The Hits And More...The Definitive Collection

(EMI [UK] EM 1301)Hollies Greatest (Capitol N-16056)

Butterfly (Parlophone [UK] PCS7039)

Mark Gauthier is not the kind of personyou would immediately identify as a pio-neer. He's quiet, modest, and not given toa lot of fanfare regarding himself or hisinvolvement in the development of themodern-day drum rack. And this is all themore admirable, considering that he actu-ally has a lot of accomplishments to hiscredit.

In the ten years that he has been inbusiness, Mark has seen his Collarlockcompany grow from a backyard operationcreating customized hardware parts to amanufacturer of innovative drum supportsystems distributed world-wide. Along theway, Mark can take credit for severalindustry "firsts"—many of which havesince been adopted by other companiesand have become standard features onalmost all drum rack systems.

Traditional drum hardware hasn'tundergone much fundamental changesince the early drumsets were invent-ed—except perhaps in variety of size andweight. And although there were some"rail systems" used in the early days bytrapset drummers to support small tomsand accessories, the present-day, self-sup-porting rack system has really only beenaround for a few years. In that time, rackshave undergone a tremendous amount ofdevelopment in their designs and features.And a great deal of that development canbe attributed squarely to the efforts ofMark Gauthier.

BY RICK VAN HORN

RVH: You are a drummer, an engineer,and a mechanical designer. How did allthese talents come together to make you amanufacturer of drum racks?MG: My grandfather was a machinist,and he taught me a lot about machiningthings. But I never really pursued that.My musical career was the first thing; Igot into playing about 20 years ago. Istarted teaching drums in 1972.1 did thatfor about four years, and then I went towork for Ray Ayotte at Drums Only, herein Vancouver, Canada. I ran the repairdepartment, where my mechanical skillsbegan to be required more and more.

In the last couple of years that I was atDrums Only, I started buying someequipment myself and doing some manu-facturing on the side. I incorporatedunder the name Creative PercussionDesigns, Inc. in 1979. I began to makeprototypes of some support systems, aswell as to manufacture various hardwareitems and accessories for customers.

I know you've reviewed an awful lot ofequipment in your day, but do yourecognize this part? [Mark holds up asmall, "doughnut"-shaped metal object.]That's a replacement part I used to makefor Rogers drum thrones. I sold tons andtons of them because the die-cast alu-minum part that they employed for theheight adjustment used to just strip outlike crazy. Anyway, one of the very firstproducts that I ever manufactured for

anybody was this clamp. That's where alot of the Collarlock designs were born,but this was made years before Collarlockcame into actuality.

We also made chain-drive kits for everypedal in the market. Each of our kits hadan axle that was identical to the axle ofwhatever brand of pedal the drummerhad. We sold mountains of that stuff. Butthen all the manufacturers started offer-ing chain drive pedals, and there was nolonger a demand for our conversion kits .RVH: How and when did the Collarlockbar system originate?MG: The original prototype was createdin 1978 for a fellow called Rocket Nortonof the band Prism. He wanted his drumssuspended off of something other thanthe conventional stands that were avail-able. So we got a bunch of North compo-nents, which had been on the market foryears, and fabricated a rack system so hecould hang all his toms and cymbals.They ended up attaching the micro-phones, too. Prism played a number ofdates in and around Vancouver, so a lot ofdrummers were exposed to the rack andwanted the same thing.RVH: Obviously it was incumbent uponyou to meet that demand.MG: That's right. But we couldn't utilizethe North system, because it wasn't flexi-ble enough for what drummers wanted.Most drummers want to be able to attachtheir cymbals to the rack, but the North

PHOTOS BY RICHARD HACKETT

rack was a very low, small, curvedbar that sat below the toms. If youwere going to suspend any cym-bals, the cymbal arms ended uprunning in between the toms. Sowe decided to fabricate our ownbars and clamps and make a moreflexible type of setup.

Eventually, my little companybegan to become known for theproducts we were making, whichwere called Collarlock Clamps atthe time. I left Drums Only in1982, and devoted my full ener-gies to my own products. InAugust of 1984 I decided tochange the name to CollarlockCanada, to make it synonymouswith what we were manufactur-ing.RVH: Did you plan to go intomanufacturing full-time from thevery beginning?MG: No. As a matter of fact, Ioriginally tried to interest othermajor manufacturers in the ideaof a drum rack. I submitted drafted illus-trations of many of my hardware designsand the original Collarlock clamp seriesto William F. Ludwig, Jr. in 1980. But ourproposal was rejected, because Ludwigwas just tooling up for their Modularhardware series, and Mr. Ludwig didn'tsee a future in drum racks.RVH: Well, considering that no one hadever marketed such a device before, hisattitude might be understandable. Mostof the major drum companies at the timewere following the lead of Rogers, withtheir Memri-Loc modular system. Yourideas might have seemed pretty radicalback then.MG: Well, they weren't, really. The com-panies were trying to combine modular,flexible setups with traditional tripod-based stands. We were simply doing awaywith some or all of the tripods, by creat-ing a support system that would involve acombination of universal components. Wedrafted up parts, and decided to base thesystem on 1" steel tubing—because atthat time just about every drum manufac-turer was making some piece of hardwarethat was 1" somewhere. The most popu-lar drum brand at the time made theirtom holders with 1" down tubes goinginto the bass drum, and we wanted to

make something that you could put those1" tubes into. And it just seemed to makesense to make a clamp for which youcould use 1" as a standard size.RVH: But all of those stands you're talk-ing about are designed to be used in avertical configuration. Your new rack con-cept involved a 1" bar to be used in a hori-zontal configuration, and on which fairlyweighty items were going to be hung.The manner in which the drums were toclamp onto the bar also involved leverage,further adding to the weight factor. Howdid you deal with the likelihood of drumsslipping when held by clamps attached toa cylindrical bar with such a small diame-ter?MG: Well, when we first started makingrack systems, we made the clamps out ofsteel. You could tighten them up likenothing else on this planet. Each clampwas a circular device, and when itclamped around the tubing, the tubingwould break before any item slipped.Since that was the case, the relativelysmall diameter of our tubing neverbecame a factor. There was no reason toincrease the amount of surface diameterthat we were clamping because we neverhad a problem with slippage.

After we found that the steel clamps

were too expensive to manu-facture—mainly because ofthe amount of machiningthat was involved—we start-ed making them out of alu-minum. We didn't have aslippage problem with ourfirst aluminum clampseither, because we wereanodizing the parts andhardening the threads inthem to compensate for thefact that it was a lighter,weaker material than thesteel. We also increased theamount of surface area thatwe were clamping with thealuminum clamps by makingthe base side twice as wide.

When we first got intomanufacturing, what wewere making was reallyheavy-duty. Ludwig was stillmaking lightweight stands atthat point in time; the Atlasseries was the biggest thing

they had. Rogers had the heaviest stuff onthe market. Pearl's stands had a 1/2"upper tube, a 3/4" center tube, and a 7/8"base tube. Ludwig and Pearl drums hadmost of the market share in those days,and they were very light. They hadn'teven gotten into power toms. So we weredealing with lightweight, conventionaldrums and hardware that everybody hadbeen manufacturing for years. By com-parison, our stuff seemed very, very beefy.Of course, that changed.

We phased out the machined alu-minum clamps—because of the cost ofmachining, once again—and got into ourfirst die-cast line. We wanted to offer adie-cast clamp that looked identical to themachined aluminum one so that peoplewho had already bought those could buysomething that was going to look compat-ible. So we stayed with the same basicdimensions. But it wasn't quite as suc-cessful as the previous design had been.Because it was a die-cast part, it was aweaker material, and we couldn't anodizeit to harden the threads. The threadswere cut into the aluminum, and whenthey stripped out that was the end of thepart. So we phased that out in 1986 andcame up with our new clamping line, the

Making A Collarlock Bar SystemRVH: The Collarlock Bar System is afairly complicated combination of compo-nent parts—each of which has to be man-ufactured. Do you do everything yourself,or are some parts made for you?MG: The die-casting of componentparts, our chrome plating, and our epoxycoating are done outside the shop. Allother machine operations and assemblywork are done in-house.

When you think about it, we are pro-ducing something akin to an automobilechassis. It's the frame that supportseverything else, so it has to be sturdy andstructurally sound. If you're talking aboutindustrial-strength support, you're goingto need industrial-strength machinery.We use metal cutting lathes, millingmachines, drill presses, 800-ton presses,welding equipment, and so on.RVH: How many different componentparts do you make?MG: We make eight sections of bars, fivedifferent sizes of Fast Clamps, one BarConnector, seven different sizes of tomarms, five different sizes of memoryclamps, a hi-hat mount accessory, a dou-ble tom holder accessory, two differentlengths of our own microphonearms—which are made of nylon insteadof steel—and two different types ofdrumkeys: one tuning key and one tight-ening key. We also make three differentstyles of leg assemblies: one that lookslike a T-shape for support between dou-ble bass drums, a support to go on theend of the side bar assembly, and endsupport assemblies with cymbal boommounts included in them. The legs,clamps, and connectors are offered ineither a black epoxy coating or a polishedaluminum finish.

The fundamental element of our sys-tem is the bar. For that, we've always usedstainless steel tubing—no chrome to peeloff, no cracking, nothing. It's alsostronger than chromed steel. We buy it in20' lengths and cut it to size. A lathe isused to machine-turn the ends, and thenwe place a plastic plug in the end andmachine-turn it to match the diameter ofthe tube. But even as important as theyare, the bars are the easy part of our oper-

Fast Clamps being drilled by a twin-spindle drill head. This creates theholes for the swivel nuts.

In one lathing operation, a tom armhas its knurled lines machined on the

narrow end of the shaft.

ation. What takes us the most time andeffort are the Fast Clamps, which are theoperational heart of the Collarlock sys-tem.

When we started making componentconnectors—which we called CollarlockClamps—they required anywhere from 20

A bar connector, clamped in a specialjig, has its center hole drilled.

A sawing operation is performed on asupport clamp. This is one of 13 sepa-rate machining steps necessary to pro-duce this part.

to 30 machine operations. After ournewest version, which is called the FastClamp, comes from the die caster, weonly need to do one machining operationto it. All we do after that is assemble it.But we also machine many of the partsthat go into that assembly. For example,

we make our own custom-size hex nuts.There were no generic nuts on the mar-ket to fit into the size of clamp that wewanted to manufacture. And when wewanted to make one side of the clampopen up so that you could attach it to thebar without taking the entire clamp apart,we had to design swivel nuts that wouldallow the clamp top to swivel open andthe key screw to swing to the side. Thenwe had to have a custom-size springmade by a manufacturer in anotherprovince of Canada. We also use a specialkey screw that has the thickest washer inthe drum industry in order to take theamount of pressure required for tighten-ing the clamp. We have that made inOhio. We even use a special grease on ourscrews and fasteners. It's used in theautomotive industry because it resistswater completely. It can be a little messy,but it really lubricates the screws proper-

iy-So when people wonder why they are

paying $35 to $40 "just for a clamp," theyneed to understand that it's not "just aclamp." It's a complicated and very care-fully designed piece of machinery.RVH: Besides the parts that go into theFast Clamps, what else do you machinehere?MG: Our leg assemblies are machined100% in-house. We used to use round

tubing for the base sections, but our newleg assembly is made of square stock onthe horizontal member that runs alongthe floor. One reason for this is that it'seasier to attach to a riser if you're goingto permanently locate it for a setup posi-tion. And aesthetically, people have foundit a little more pleasing because we cut45° angles on either end of the squaretube and put in what most people feel arerelatively attractive endcaps. We also putrubber feet on the bottom of the tube,which stop it from slipping across mostplain surfaces.

In order to facilitate the way our legassemblies join together, we have to makeour own key screws. We make the largestdrumkey-turned screw in the industry.It's 3/8" National Coarse thread with a3/16" washer face on it to take all the pres-sure that anybody could exert on it. Wemachine it ourselves from 9/16" stock. Thecylindrical portions and the threads arecut on a rotary lathe. A separate machin-ing operation done on the millingmachine is required to square off thehead. A dividing head rotates the piece

four times, and we put theflats on with a milling cutter.It's a very expensive part tomanufacture, but it's criticalin avoiding having the legsstripped out.RVH: And you also manufac-ture the tool used by thedrummer to tighten it.MG: Right. When we firsthad rack systems out, every-body was just using conven-tional tuning keys to tightenup the clamps—which is justnot sufficient because theywere designed for tuningdrums, not for tighteningclamps. So we now supply asteel key that won't break orstrip out and has an L-shapeto give you more torquingpressure than a conventionalT-shaped key. We send themout with a plastic sleeve thatincreases the handle diame-ter from 1/4" to 3/8" andmakes it a lot more comfort-able on your hand. There are15 machine operations in-volved in manufacturing our

steel drumkeys, including the use of an800-ton press to put the square broachinto the center of it. That operation wefarm out.

We also make our tom arms fromscratch. We buy raw steel in 12' lengthsand cut it into the various sizes that tomarms have to be. Lathing operations turnthe material down to whatever diametersare required to mate with the various tombrands that are on the market, and thenthe tom arms are either bent or weldedinto an L-shape, depending on if it'stubular or solid material. For that we usea bender that's the first piece of equip-ment Creative Percussion Design ownedand the first that I ever built. I made it in1978 for bending little L-shaped piecesfor the chain-drive pedal kits, butthroughout the years it's been adapted forprobably half the products that we manu-facture. It's attached to the concrete floorwith 3 1/2" bolts. We had 2 1/2" initially, andwe pulled the vice out of the floor. Steel istough stuff to bend.

Holes are cross-drilled in a support

clamp, later to be threaded by thesame machine with a threadingattachment.

A tom arm is bent into a right angle in a bending

machine designed by Mark Gauthier.

This lathe accounts for approximately 70% of

Collarlock's machining operations, fitted with up to20 custom attachments and 32 cutting tools.

CorderCelebrityDrumkit• by Rick Van Horn

One of the joys of doing product reviewsis that occasionally you discover a productthat genuinely exceeds your expectations.So it was with the Corder Celebritydrumkit.

You may have seen Corder's ads inMD—fairly small, black & white, and notparticularly splashy or compelling—andfrom these you may have gotten theimpression that the company and itsdrums were not in the "big leagues" interms of quality. Well, impressions cansometimes be deceiving.

It's undeniably true that the CorderDrum Company is not in the big leagueswhen it comes to factory size, productionoutput, advertising budget, and otheraspects common to major manufacturers.But after playing their drums, I canunequivocally state that they take a backseat to no one when it comes to quality ofconstruction and sound. And when itcomes to innovation, this quiet little com-pany from Alabama offers some featuresthat are both exciting and unique.

I tested a standard five-piece kit,including 8x12 and 9x13 rack toms, a16 x16 floor tom, a 14 x 22 bass drum, and a4x14 snare (an odd size, but the one thatCorder states is currently their best sell-er). Corder only offers one type of shell:6-ply all-maple, with no reinforcing rings.

The Look

The drums were covered with a satinyblack Formex covering, which looked

more like a lacquer finish than a "plasticcovering." In fact, it fooled me completelyuntil I actually touched the drums. I wasimpressed by the nature of this Formex(which is a Formica-style material asopposed to the more familiar, thinnerplastic coverings used by many othercompanies.) Gloss black covered finishesin plastic stand an equal chance of look-ing either really great or really cheap; thissatiny black Formex finish looked rich.

The lugs on Corder drums are fromthe Fibes design of days gone by, becauseCorder bought all the tooling and moldswhen Fibes went out of business in thelate '70s. Somewhat diamond-shaped,they are simple and attractive. The plat-ing on all the hardware is excellent.

Sound

The sound of the Corder drums wasthe sound you would expect from any

well-made maple drums: full, round, andwarm. The toms had a powerful, singingsound, with surprising sensitivity at lowervolumes, even when fitted with Pinstripebatter heads.

The bass drum offered loads of bottomwith plenty of attack. I played it with anintact front head and a Pinstripe batter,and enjoyed the depth and projection thedrum offered. It might have been a tad"boomy" for some applications, but youcan always muffle a drum down. Thetrick is to find one that starts with reso-nance and volume to spare, and thisdrum certainly had both.

The snare drum was crisp, sensitive,and responsive, with a reasonably widetuning range for a 4"-deep drum. I foundthat I preferred it at a medium tension; atthat point it cut well without beingobnoxiously sharp. Snare sensitivity wasexcellent, owing substantially to Corder'sfairly unusual snare throwoff design.

Another holdover from Fibes, the straineruses a positive-action mechanicalthrowoff, similar in nature to a parallel-action model. However, there are no rodsor frames passing through the drum.Instead, an oversize set of wire snaresextends beyond the bottom head oneither side of the drum, and attaches tothe throwoff at one side and the buttplate at the other, via machine screws.Throwing the snare release lever simplypushes down on the snare set, lowering itaway from the bottom head. It worksextremely well, and offers the addedsecurity of not having any string or tapestrip to break at a critical moment in yourplaying. The nice thing about this designis that you can either use the oversizewire snares (available through Corder at aprice comparable to anybody's replace-ment snares), or you can use standard-length snares with strings or tape if youwish; the throwoff can accommodate thatmethod of attachment as well.

Hardware

It's in the area of hardware that Corderoffers some unique design elements—plus one feature that is becoming moreand more important to drummers today.That feature is that Corder makes 99% ofits own hardware—stands, lugs, snarestrainer, etc.—right in its own plant inAlabama. What they don't do themselves(some molding and plating, for instance)is also done in the USA, generally bycompanies right in Corder's neighbor-hood in the South. At this point, the onlyimported items are a collar componentfor some of the stands, and the rubberfeet used on all the stands—and Corderis searching for a domestic source forthose as you read this. When Corder saysthat their drumkits are "American-made," they mean it!

The kit I tested is provided with asnare stand, a hi-hat, two straight cymbalstands, and legs for the floor tom and thebass drum. The rack toms are supportedby Corder's exceptional Slide-Trackmount, which is probably the most versa-

tile bass drum shell mount I've ever seen.Rather than having a hole through whicha down post passes through the bassdrum shell, the base plate of the mount issolid. A slot in this base plate corre-sponds with an upper plate that can slideback and forth. To this plate is attachedthe down post for the double tom mount.That post offers several inches of heightadjustment; pivoting "shoulders" con-taining ball-and-socket L-posts completethe mount and give a tremendous amountof positioning flexibility.

The advantage of the sliding track isthat you can put your bass drum where itis comfortable for your leg length, andadjust the distance to your rack tomsindependently. If you like to sit up closeto your toms, but have your bass drumwell away from you (or vice versa), youcan do it easily with this mount, withouthaving to affect the other elements of thetoms' position (such as angle and dis-tance between each drum). It's simply aterrific idea, and it works very well. Andyou get the added advantage of not havinga large hole drilled in the shell; four smallbolts hold the base plate in place.

Avoiding holes in the shell also comesinto play with the bass drum spur design.The spurs on the drum neither disappearinto the shell nor fold back against it.They are designed to be inserted intopermanently attached tubular recepta-cles, and are removed completely forpack-up. The receptacles are longenough to hold the spurs firmly, yet shortenough not to interfere with casing upthe drum. They are attached to the shellwith small bolts, and once again preventthe need for large holes in the bass drumshell.

There's nothing particularly unusualabout Corder's stand designs, but thereare some nice construction elements. Allthe height adjustment points featurenylon bushings surrounded by steelbands, so that the wing bolts can nevercrush the bushing, yet height adjustmentis always solid. The collars and wing boltsused at those same adjustment points areof solid steel, rather than cast metal, to

maintain durability and prevent stripping.Although not included on my test models,Corder offers stands with tilting options,including a snare stand with a "dog-bone" connection built in, allowing it togo incredibly low (for oversize drums) orbe positioned up and away at an angle(perhaps for a secondary piccolo drum).

The hi-hat was smooth and functional,with a single external adjustable spring.The bass drum pedal didn't look particu-larly high-tech, but it too was eminentlyfunctional: chain-driven, quiet, light-weight, and very quick. When I men-tioned to Jim Corder that the yoke andfootplate were not very highly buffed, heexplained how that would increase thepedal's cost but wouldn't make a bit ofdifference to its performance—so why doit? I must say, I find that attitude refresh-ing.

Conclusion

Essentially, what we have here is a pro-fessional-level drumkit that soundsextremely good, but that nobody knowsvery much about. It's my hope that thisreview will help to change that, becausedrummers should be aware of the qualityand innovation available from this family-owned and operated American company.And lest it be overlooked, let me hasten toadd that the drums are priced competi-tively, too. The five-piece Celebrity kit Itested lists for $2,195, making it extreme-ly appealing to drummers who seek quali-ty equipment, but don't want to pay addi-tional money for a nametag.

Since they are currently a fairly low-profile company, Corder drums are notavailable for you to check out in everylocal drumshop. But you can ask yourdealer to look into them for you, or youcan contact the company directly for fur-ther information. (They'd love to hearfrom you.) The address is 3122 12thAvenue, S.W, Huntsville, Alabama 35805,(205) 534-8406.

Remo LegacyDrumheads

by Rick Mattingly

Remo recently introduced a line of drum-heads called Legacy, which are availablein four different models: LD (Diplomat;thin), LA (Ambassador; medium), LE(Emperor; heavy), and LP (Pinstripe).The heads are coated with a new lami-nate called Reemlar, which, the companystates, "produces spectacular tonal depthand resonance, combined with excellentresponse and the feel of a coated brushsurface."

Tom-Toms

I began by using the Legacy heads asbatters on tom-toms. As a control, I usedregular Diplomats on the bottoms, chang-ing only the top heads. Overall, the differ-ences between the different Legacyheads are comparable to the differencesyou would find between Diplomats,Ambassadors, Emperors, and Pinstripes.The LD head favored higher pitches, theLA worked well in the mid-range, and theLE and LP were best suited for lowerpitches. While I wouldn't have any troubleusing the LA heads on all of my toms, Idon't think I'd use an LD on anythingbigger than a 12" tom, and I only reallyliked the LE on my 16" floor tom. But thisis exactly why I applaud Remo for apply-ing the Legacy idea to a full range ofheads, so that one can match head thick-nesses with tuning preferences and stillhave a set of heads with the same basicsound characteristics.

As for the LP, I've never been one tomix Pinstripes with other types of heads;it's either all Pinstripes or none. (I'm onlytalking about tom-toms. I might use aPinstripe on the bass drum without anyother Pinstripes on the kit. Conversely, I

never use a Pinstripe on the snare.) Inthat regard, I was able to use the LP overa full range of tom sizes and get compa-rable results.

So what's different about the Legacyheads? Essentially, the coating mutes theheads somewhat so that there is not aswide a range of overtones produced.Compared to a regular coated Ambas-sador, the LA has less highs, with themidrange being emphasized. The resultis that the toms seemed to have a moredistinct pitch with the Legacy heads.That also held true for the LD and LEmodels compared to regular Diplomatsand Emperors.Again, the LP heads were in a class of

their own. Pinstripe heads have never hada lot of highs to begin with, so I can't saythat I noticed a lack of them in the LPhead. However, some of the extreme bot-tom end seemed to be missing. The LPheads just didn't have the same warmthas the regular Pinstripe heads. But that'snot necessarily a drawback; again, thepitch seemed to be more focused, so LPmight be just what someone is lookingfor who feels that regular Pinstripes cansound too muddy at times because of allthe low-end. Also, I detected slightlymore impact sound with the LP head,which some drummers could find desir-able.

In some respects, the Legacy headsresemble the Fibreskyn 2 line, in thatthose heads also tend to have less high-

Photo fay Rick Mattingly

end. However, there area couple of differences.First, in terms of over-tones, while the Legacyheads have less highsthan comparable Am-bassadors, Diplomats,etc., they aren't quite asmuted-sounding asFibreskyns are. Second,Fibreskyn heads tend tosuffer from a lack ofsustain. In fact, I'venever really liked Fibre-skyns on tom-toms forthat very reason. (I'veused them a lot on snare

drums, however.) The Legacy heads,though, seem to have just as much sus-tain as the "regular" heads.

Just for the sake of experimentation, Iput regular Ambassadors on the tops ofmy toms and tried various Legacy headson the bottom. I found them to be a littletoo dry for that particular application.The toms sounded a little thin to mecompared to the way they sound with reg-ular Diplomat bottoms. Of course, fordrummers who tend to muffle their tomsquite a bit, these heads might be perfect.

Snare Drum

Again, in many respects the Legacyheads responded in a similar fashion totheir regular counterparts: the LDfavored higher tunings and was the mostsensitive; the LA worked well over thewidest range and still had good sensitivi-ty; the LE favored lower pitches andlacked a little bit of sensitivity. Andalthough I've never favored Pinstripes onsnare drums, I tried the LP anyway andfound it to be an improvement over theregular version. I suspect that the differ-ence is in that lack of extreme lows that Imentioned in the tom-tom head review,as well as in the increased impact sound.Of the four heads, it was still my leastfavorite on the snare drum, but I could atleast see using the LP on a snare drum,where I wouldn't use an ordinary Pin-stripe.

In terms of response, the Reemlarcoating seems to benefit the heads. Ihadn't noticed it on the toms, but when Icranked the LD and LA heads up on thesnare drum and tried playing orchestral-type buzz rolls, the sticks felt as if theywere bouncing better than usual. Iattribute this to the fact that the laminateadds a degree of stiffness to the head,which would cause the stick to reboundfaster.

I was interested to see how the tex-tured surface would work with brushes. Istarted with regular wire brushes on theLD head and immediately ran into aproblem. There were a couple of spots onthe head where the coating was especiallythick, and individual wire strands oftengot caught as I moved the left-hand brushin a circular swish. I switched to the LAhead, and I didn't have as much trouble,as the coating seemed to be more evenlyapplied on this particular head. But that'snot to say it was perfect. The coating hasa definite "grain" to it (almost as thoughit were applied with a paint brush), andthe brushes continued to occasionally getcaught up when I moved them against thegrain.

But then I tried a couple of differentnylon brushes (Calato's Ed Thigpenmodel and Vic Firth's Rock Rake), and Ihad no problem at all. The extra textureof the Legacy heads worked well with theextra thickness of the nylon strands, andtogether they produced a very pleasingsound. It was somewhat mellower thanthe sound of wire brushes on a regularcoated Ambassador, but it was also loud-er. I've liked the feel of nylon brushesever since I first used them, but becausethe strands were so wide, I couldn'talways get a good, traditional "swish"sound from them. The Legacy headshave solved this problem; I may never goback to wire brushes again.

One final observation: I played on all ofthese heads for quite a while, using bothsticks and brushes, and yet none of theheads showed any indication of havingbeen played. Granted, I was using a newpair of sticks, so dirt wasn't a factor, butthere still were not any "scuff" marks of

the type you usually get on heads as soonas you play on them. This would seem tospeak well for the durability of the lami-nate. Also, after quite a bit of brush play-ing, I saw no evidence of the coatingwearing down.

To test this further, I put the LA headon my snare drum and used it for a three-hour rehearsal and two four-hour jobswith a rock band. The head is just start-ing to show some evidence of having beenplayed, but it looks as if it's been playedfor a few minutes rather than severalhours. Also, although I had to tighten it acouple of times during the first hour thatI had it on the drum, after that it held itstension quite well. I was slamming back-beats pretty hard during both of thosegigs, but I didn't have to tighten the headonce.

Bass Drum

The Legacy bass drum heads are avail-able only in LA and LP models. Accord-ing to Lloyd McCausland at Remo, theLD weight was considered too thin to bepractical for bass drum use, and the LEprototypes didn't sound all that differentfrom the LPs. So, the company is onlyoffering the two models, and we weresent one of each in the 22" size for review.Given current tastes in bass drum

sounds, it's not easy to review a bassdrum head. Consider: It's not uncommonto stuff a pillow in the bass drum, withboth heads being heavily muffled. Anoth-er popular option is to use something likea Muff'1 against the back head and cut ahole in the front one. Given conditionssuch as these, who can say just what thehead itself sounds like?

Nevertheless, I had to come up withsome basis for evaluation, so for starters,I put the LP on the batter side of the bassdrum and the LA on the front. As I sus-pected, there was too much ring for any-one to consider using such a combinationwithout any damping whatsoever. And yet,the heads did share a characteristic withthe Legacy tom heads in that the pitchseemed a little more focused than itwould have been with regular Ambas-

sador and Pinstripe heads. The reductionof high-end overtones is obviously desir-able in a bass drum head, so in thatrespect these heads are well-suited forthis application.

In regards to the LP batter, it had a dif-ferent feel than a regular Pinstripe, in thatthe beater seemed to rebound off of itrather than sink in. Also, there was moreof an impact sound, which many drum-mers will favor. Again, I attribute both ofthese characteristics to the extra stiffnessthe laminate gives the head.

I experimented with various types anddegrees of muffling, ranging from aMuff'1 to different numbers of felt stripsto a pillow. In terms of overall ring, theresults were fairly consistent with what Iwould expect with a regular Ambassadorand Pinstripe combination. But alongwith that, keep in mind what I said aboutthe pitch being more focused, the differ-ent feel, and the added impact.

Conclusion

After all of their emphasis in recentyears on products ranging from drumsetsto Spoxe to Putty Pads, it's nice to seeRemo being innovative again in the areathat originally put the company on themap: drumheads. The Legacy series def-initely fills a gap between Diplomats,Ambassadors, Emperors, and Pinstripeson one end and Fibreskyn 2 on the other.For drummers who have gone back andforth between, say, Ambassadors andFibreskyns, looking for something inbetween, Legacy might be the answer.

In terms of price, Legacy LD, LA, andLE heads list about 20% higher thancomparable models from the WeatherKing series (Diplomats, Ambassadors,and Emperors); LP models are pricedabout 20% higher than clear Pinstripesizes. Representative LD, LA, and LEprices are as follows: 12" batter - $16.50;14" batter - $18.00; 16" batter - $20.00;and 22" bass drum batter - $38.00. Pricesfor LP models are: 12" batter - $18.50;14" batter - $20.25; 16" batter - 22.50; and22" bass drum batter - $42.75.

Vic FirthSignatureDrumsticks• by Rick Mattingly

Putting well-known drummers' names onsticks goes back at least as far as Jo Jonesand Gene Krupa, but in those days, thestick itself was usually a standard produc-tion model, and the drummer's name wason it simply to acknowledge that this wasthe stick he used, and to give that modelsome extra prestige. But the stick wouldoften carry its regular designation as wellas the drummer's name, for instance JoJones/ 11A.

Vic Firth has been putting drummers'names on sticks for the past several years,starting with his Steve Gadd stick, andsubsequently adding models named forsuch artists as Harvey Mason, Peter Ersk-ine, Omar Hakim, and Dave Weckl. Butthese sticks were all different in someway than the regular catalog models.They were a little longer or shorter, a lit-tle fatter or thinner, had a different bead,and so on. The input of the artist wasobvious, making the signature on thestick actually stand for something.Recently, Firth added five new signaturemodels to his already impressive list ofnames.

The Carmine Appice stick is the mostdistinctive, but in a certain sense it is alsothe least "new" of the bunch, as Calatohas offered this stick for several years.The Firth version of the stick is virtuallyidentical, with one major exception. TheCalato model had a nylon tip; Firth'sAppice stick has a wood tip, which Firth'sbrochure describes as a "conventional5A." The only distinction I would make isthat it is not exactly the tip found on

Firth's own 5A model. Most of Firth'ssticks feature a somewhat acorn-shapedbead; the tip of the Carmine Appice stickis a bit more oval. Of course, it's theother end of the stick that is so unique.For players who like to use the butt end,the Appice stick has a large bead downthere, too. It's the kind of bead you mightfind on a 3S marching stick, but withoutall the weight and bulk of the stick itself.Overall, the Appice model resembles aslightly beefed-up 5A.

Another new Firth model sports GreggBissonette's signature. It's a big stick,slightly larger all around than a 2B, andwould be perfect for someone who playsin a loud band. It has a fat, acorn-shapedbead, and the shoulder and neck areespecially heavy.

The Jack Dejohnette model is virtuallyidentical to a regular Firth 5A, except thatJack's stick is just slightly longer—abouta quarter of an inch. I must confess that Iwas skeptical about this stick when I firstsaw it. Being so close to a 5A, I couldn'timagine that it would feel any different. Itlooked to me like nothing more than a 5Awith a famous drummer's name on it.But then I spent some time on a practicepad switching back and forth between theDejohnette stick and a Firth 5A, and

there really is a difference. In fact, I evengave myself a sort of "blindfold test,"picking up 5As and Dejohnettes withoutlooking to see which was which, and Icould tell the difference by the way theyfelt. That extra quarter inch is at the buttof the stick, where the most wood is any-way, and it does affect the balance. Byhaving just a bit more wood at the end,the front of the stick tends to feel a littlelighter (although it really isn't). I oftenuse a Firth 5A myself, so I am very famil-iar and comfortable with the feel of thatstick. But I quickly found myself prefer-ring the Dejohnette stick. So it wouldseem that I owe Vic and Jack an apologyfor doubting their integrity. This really isa different stick.

For heavy rock players with large kits,the Tommy Lee signature model shouldprove popular. It is a full 17 inches long,which could come in handy if you have alot of drums and cymbals and have trou-ble reaching some of them. It is alsoextremely fat and heavy, and should standup to the hardest playing. The stick has alarge, red nylon tip that produces a veryfull sound on drums as well as cymbals.

The Steve Smith stick seems well-suit-ed for a person who divides his or hertime between jazz and rock playing, asSteve does. When I first saw the stick, Iwas reminded of the stick that Ippolito'sProfessional Percussion Center in NewYork used to make for Elvin Jones. Bothsticks feature a long, oval bead. TheSmith stick, however, is just a little fatterthan the Elvin Jones stick, and also has alittle more body than the typical jazzstick, such as a Firth 8D. The stick actu-ally feels a lot like another Firth signaturemodel, the Peter Erskine stick, with thedifference being in the bead. Where theErskine stick brings out the lower over-tones of a cymbal by virtue of its small,round bead, the Smith stick will bring outmore highs. A drummer could easilyswitch back and forth between these twomodels to get different cymbal soundswithout noticing an appreciable differ-ence in feel. For more rock-oriented play-ers, the stick has enough body that itshould hold up well, and the neck is rea-

Photo by Rick Mattingly

sonably fat. Extremely hard hitters mightwant something a little fatter, but forsomeone who needs a stick that is lightenough for those times when finesse iscalled for, but that also has enoughweight to deliver a solid whack, the SteveSmith model would be worth checkingout.

All of the sticks reviewed here arepriced at $9.00 per pair, with the excep-tion of the Tommy Lee model, which sellsfor $9.25.

Nady's SongStarter is basically a souped-up electronic metronome that allowsdrummers (or any other instrumentalists,for that matter) to program the tempos ofup to 32 songs, and immediately callthem back up for either practicing or per-forming situations. As with manymetronomes, the tempo can be either vis-ible via a flashing light, or audible byheadphones (through a 1/4" jack in theunit's side). Tempos are adjusted with anup-down rocker switch, and themetronome can be powered either by a 9V

battery or an AC adapter (not included).The obvious advantage of the Song-

Starter is that, since many different tem-pos are programmable, you don't have tofiddle with any controls when calling uptempos for the next tune. Just put theSongStarter within reach on the floor,give it two quick clicks with your foot, andit goes to the next tune, displaying thesong number and its tempo, then flashingout (or clicking through your phones) theproper tempo.

The SongStarter is a fairly rugged littlebox, akin to an effects pedal, and featuresa non-sliding rubber base and a toughpedal. Programming it is easy, and usingit is just as simple. In the Practice modeit will "perform" a given tempo until youturn it off. In the Play mode it will beatout the tempo 16 times, which should beenough for you to get a handle on it. Afterthese 16 beats, the light and LED displaywill shut off, and the Starter will auto-matically advance to the next tune'stempo. This is a nice touch, since itleaves you with even less to worry aboutin a performance situation. But just becareful. If you don't get the tempo withinthose 16 beats, the starter will go on tothe next tune, and you will have to pedalyour way forward through 32 tunes to getit back on course again, which isn't a veryrapid procedure.

A combination of existing technologyrather than a real "invention," the NadySongStarter is nonetheless an excellentidea that works well. It retails at $119.95.

IMPAC SnareReplacement• by William F. Miller

Drummers are spending a lot of moneythese days on expensive "designer" snaredrums. At this point everybody and their

brother is coming out with a new type ofsnare drum. The IMPAC snare replace-ment might be something you'll want totry before you give up on your old snare.

What's so special about the IMPAC?Well, it's a well-conceived, well-con-structed unit that offers a bit more quali-ty to the underside of your snare thanyour usual snare strainer. The design issimple and effective: Eighteen snarestrands are individually mounted at bothends of a frame, with equal tension oneach strand. The frame itself protects thesnares (which is nice when putting thedrum in and taking it out of a case), andbecause it's a solid unit, it's very easy toinstall on the drum.

According to the manufacturer, theIMPAC "eliminates choking, buzzing,and snare slap, increasing the drum'spower and sensitivity." It's nice when aproduct lives up to the manufacturer'sdescription. The snare drum I mountedit on already had a nice sound, but withthe addition of the IMPAC, it immediatelybecame a much more sensitive drum.Playing rolls up near the rim of the drumhad a lot more snare response, and thefeel of the drum seemed a bit better.Also, the "decay" of the snares after Istruck the drum was much more uniformand even. Because of the IMPAC's design,there's no "pulling" tension on the snarewires themselves—only how much theentire unit is tensioned against the head.That allows the snare wires more free-dom so the drum doesn't choke.

If you're not happy with the sound andfeel of your current snare drum, theIMPAC may be a comparatively inexpen-

NadySongStarter• by Adam Budofsky

sive solution. The list price for theIMPAC is $24.95 (Canadian funds). Forfurther information contact ScorpionProducts, 195 Clearview Ave., Suite 716,Ottawa, Ontario K1Z 6S1, Canada.

VaterDrumsticks• by Rick Van Horn

After years of turning custom-made andprivate-label drumsticks for individualdrummers, retail stores, and even someother drumstick brands, Vater is nowoffering a complete line of drumsticksunder its own name. Although the line isnot extensive, several models are availablein either oak or hickory versions. Vatermakes a point of the fact that their oaksticks are made of American oak, asopposed to "imported" oak, stating intheir brochure that American oak "doesnot have the 'brittle shock' usuallyattributed to oak sticks." Two additionalmodels are offered in maple.

All models, with the exception of theHammer double-butt stick, come witheither wood or nylon tips. Worthy of men-tion is the fact that the nylon and woodversions of each stick tip very closely

resemble each other, and there is little orno difference in the neck size or stick sil-houette between nylon- and wood-tippedsticks. As a result, the feel of a givenmodel in your hand doesn't change if youchange tip types.

Vater designs its sticks with the shoul-der area slightly "beefed up" in an effortto "increase the power of your stroke"and to reduce breakage at the neck of thestick. In playing terms, this means thateven on lighter-weight, medium-dutysticks such as the Manhattan 7A or LA.5A, you get a lot of impact power, but notas quick a rebound as with sticks with amore gradual taper. This could be goodor bad, depending on your playing tech-nique.

Although Vater is not offering as manymodels as someother brands do,the line offerssticks to cover justabout any need.The more tradi-tional sizes, suchas the LA. 5A, 5B,2B, and 3S, willfeel familiar tothose used to suchmodels. There'sonly one small,"jazz" stick: theManhattan 7A,which is offeredonly in hickory (tokeep the weight

down) and sounds very nice at low vol-umes on a ride cymbal. Other modelsworthy of note include the Fatback 3Aand Rock models, both of which featureround tips and medium-sized shanks.(The Rock is a bit longer.) These pro-duced solid sounds on toms and snares,while not sounding too "clunky" on cym-bals. They'd work well for fairly high-vol-ume electric jazz or funk, or for unmikedclub playing when extra projection isdesirable.

For heavy hitters, Vater offers theNightstick, which is only a shade biggeraround than a 2B but is a full inch longer.Then there is the Hammer, a double-butt-ended stick with no taper. Thediameter is about the same as a tradition-al 5B, which isn't huge or clumsy, but thebutt end gives plenty of impact power.

Photo by Scott G. Bienstock

With so many drummers playing in loudsettings these days, it's nice to have amodel that offers a normal gripping area(to avoid blisters) and a butt end to hitwith.

The two maple models available areinteresting. The Blazer is very nearly thesame size as the 2B, but feels muchlighter and quicker to play with, owing tothe lower weight of maple. (This was apersonal favorite of mine.) The Concert isas big around as the 2B, 1/4" longer, andless tapered—giving a respectableamount of impact. Its round tip alsoseemed to focus that impact well on bothdrums and cymbals. This might appeal todrummers who like to play with a bigstick but don't like to feel like they'reswinging a bat.

In terms of quality, the selection ofsticks that we were sent was straight andwell-balanced throughout. The finish onthe sticks is consistent—and min-imal—giving a very natural feel and suregrip. The sticks were as durable as youwould expect premium wooden sticks tobe. The bottom line is that Vater is offer-ing a quality series of sticks with someinteresting models that give drummersstill more choices for the tools of theirtrade. Vater's sticks are priced at $7.65per pair, regardless of model, tip, or woodtype.

KATmidi K.I.T.I.• by Ed Uribe

Being familiar with the KAT MalletController and the drumKAT—both ofwhich have become mainstays in theMIDI percussion world—I was anxiousto get my hands on the new "toy" fromKAT: the midi K.I.T.I. "K.I.T.I." standsfor "KAT Intelligent Trigger Interface,"and the unit is just that: an interfacefrom your triggers or pads to your tonegenerators (drum machines, samplers, orsynthesizers). It has none of the MIDI-controller capacities of the drumKAT orthe Roland PAD-80, such as large RAM,pedal inputs, layering, panning, ordynamic note shift. Designer Bill Katoskitold me, "We were trying to make a 'low-end' unit to meet the requests of drum-mers who were telling us, 'I just want toput a trigger on my kick and snare andtrigger sounds from my Alesis drummachine; I don't need a fancy unit.'"Well, I can certainly appreciate that, butwhen he said "low-end," I had to stophim. I had just put the K.I.T.I. throughthe triggering "wringer," and while itmay be "low-end" in terms of featuresand memory (and, to its credit, also inprice, size, and overall simplicity of use),in terms of triggering—which is what it'smeant for—I found the unit to be totally"pro."

Basic Overview

The K.I.T.I. measures approximately8" x 9" x 1" to 2" and weighs about fourpounds. It's not rack-mountable, but iscertainly very compact and portable, anda bracket is available for mounting it on atom or cymbal stand. It is powered by a9-volt AC adapter. The back panel has

one MIDI In, two MIDI Outs, and ninetrigger inputs. The MIDI Outs canmerge all data from the MIDI In. (I'llmention here that you can engage or dis-engage this merge function by pressing"save" and "down arrow." This is not inthe manual, so jot it down if you thinkyou might be purchasing a K.I.T.I. Thereare times when the merge function willbe helpful, but if you aren't using it, it'sbetter to have it off—or else the resultingMIDI loops could send you off to MIDIhell.) The front panel has five push-but-ton switches: Select, Up, Down, Save,and Auto—with which you perform allfunctions.

There are three groups of LEDs toindicate your selected function, trigger,and what you are doing to it. All of this isshown in a bar-graph for-mat by the LEDs. I mustadmit that my first re-sponse to this front panelwas, "There must bedozens of hidden jobs tomemorize under each ofthese buttons. This willtake hours to learn, and I'llnever memorize them all!"Well, what a pleasant sur-prise: The K.I.T.I. is atremendously user-friendlyunit. The entire front panelis clearly labeled, andeverything makes sense.You can see exactly whereyou are and what you aredoing, and you can get fromone function to anotherquite easily.

The LEDs

There are three groups ofLEDs on the front panel. On the left are17 red LEDs that indicate your MIDI andtriggering settings. They're numbered 0to 16, and each has one of the KI.T.I.'sfunctions written next to it. On the topright are two yellow LEDs that guide youthrough the "auto-training" mode. Onthe bottom right are nine green LEDs

that indicate which of the nine triggerswas just hit. This bar graph is nice; ittakes away some of the number mysteryof MIDI for the basic-level operator. Forthe more advanced user (or real gluttonfor punishment), KAT has provided con-version tables in the manual showingexactly where each LED reading puts younumerically.

The "Auto-Train" Function

The "auto-train" function provides youwith an automatic means to set some ofyour triggering parameters. All of thesesettings can then be individually adjustedto suit your specific needs. There arethree basic settings to be achieved in the"auto-train" mode. They are:

(1) MIDI channel andnote number auto-train.(To do this you need toconnect a MIDI Out fromyour drum machine orsynth to the MIDI In of theK.I.T.I., and a MIDI Outfrom the K.I.T.I. to theMIDI In of your drummachine, and you musthave the merge functionengaged.) Hit a button onyour drum machine andthe K.I.T.I. will receive andstore the MIDI channeland note number at thetrigger location you haveselected. This is a quickand easy way to get yourdesired voices assigned tothe triggers.

(2) Gain auto-trainmode. In this mode you areasked for a medium-hardhit. The KI.T.I. will auto-

matically set a gain (amplification) read-ing of your trigger. It may deem that yourgain needs to be increased or decreased,in which case it will ask you to repeat theprocess until a gain has been accepted.

(3) Trigger envelope auto-train. In thismode, the K.I.T.I. basically samples theenvelope of two hits that you are asked to

"While it may

be 'low-end'

in terms of

features and

memory, in

terms of

triggering the

midi K.I.T.I. is

totally 'pro.'"

enter: one soft—to set the bottom end ofyour dynamic range—and one hard—toset the top end. The K.I.T.I. then deter-mines the related parameters, such asthreshold, mask time, and minimum andmaximum dynamic (all of which I willexplain in detail in the next section).Although these features are great to getyou started and save you set-up time,these settings will only get you in theballpark (except for MIDI channel andnote numbers, which are finite settings).

You are not going to trigger a full kitwith triggers using only the "auto-train"parameters. But the great thing aboutthis unit is that you can fine-tune each ofthese settings to really get your triggersdoing exactly what you want.

The K.I. T.I. also provides you withdefault settings in three different ways.You can enter settings for an entire kit,for only one trigger within a kit, or for theparticular parameter you happen to beworking with. With this capability, youhave something to fall back on if you getstuck. You simply call in the default set-ting, and you're back in the ballpark, andsoon you'll be zipping around all of themanual settings. This is great, since"getting stuck" is usually what keepssomeone from further exploring a unitand benefitting from its more advancedfunctions.

The MIDI AndTriggering Parameters

Beyond the "auto-train" mode, thereare 16 parameters to be manually set onthe K.I.T.I. KAT divides these into twogroups: the MIDI parameters and thetriggering parameters. The MIDI param-eters are: channel, note number, mini-mum velocity, maximum velocity, velocitycurve, gate time, and program change.The triggering parameters are gain, peakview, threshold, mask time, minimumdynamic, maximum dynamic, headroom,scan time, and interaction. Except for theinteraction setting, all of the parameterscan be set for each of the nine triggers.The interaction setting affects all nine

triggers within each kit. All of these set-tings can then be stored into a kit config-uration.

Each one of these jobs is spelled outnext to one of the 17 red LEDs. Jobs 0through 8 are the triggering settings, jobs9 through 15 are the MIDI settings, andjob 16 is the kit selection function.Selecting and tweaking each parametercouldn't be easier. You simply press andhold "Select," then use the up or downarrows until the red LED next to thefunction you want is lit. Release "Select"and increment or decrement as needed,using the arrows. By the way, this is athree-finger operation, so you can hold astick and hit your trigger with one hand,while adjusting your settings with theother. This way you can hear the effect ofyour adjustments to each trigger as youmake them.

The MIDI functions are the basicfunctions that are needed for interfacingyour triggers. You set your MIDI channeland note numbers to correspond withyour receiving devices, your minimumvelocity (how loud your softest hits willsound), your maximum velocity (howloud your loudest hits will sound), and

your velocity curve. Without getting tootechnical here, velocity curves are basi-cally a correlation of how fast (and inwhich way) the sound gets louder as youhit harder.

The K.I.T.I. provides you with 16 veloc-ity curves. This is a lot to choose from,although most of them have very special-ized functions (such as playing very loudor very soft all the time, reversecurves—which start high and drop asyour velocity increases—and some curveswith some very distinct plateaus in thewave form). These might be good ifyou're only trying to play with two orthree very distinct and consistent dynam-ic ranges. In general, you will probablyfind curves 8 and 9 to work best for over-all playing. These were designed to workbest with piezo triggers and pads, andwill capture your dynamic ranges mostsmoothly.

Next, you can set your gate time, whichdetermines how long the sound sustainsafter you strike it. For basic drum sounds,gate time is generally meaningless. Forcymbals and other instrument soundsand effects, you can adjust the sustain toyour liking.

The final MIDI setting is programchange. The K.I.T.I. can send one pro-gram change per kit configuration to yourdrum machines, synths, or samplers tocall up a patch (a group of sounds or set-tings) of your choosing. The MIDI chan-nel the program change will be transmit-ted on is the same as the MIDI channelyou have selected for trigger input num-ber 9 in each of your kits. The K.I.T.1. canalso receive program changes fromanother controlling device, such as asequencer. According to the K.I. T.I. 'sMIDI implementation sheet, it can onlyrecognize messages sent on channel 16.

Next you have your triggering settings.This is where the K.I.T.I. allows you tocompensate for differences in triggerdesigns and to customize its functions toyour drums, triggers, and playing style.The first—and most important—settingyou will establish is gain, which is thelevel of input from the trigger into theinterface. (You will probably already havea gain reading from your gain auto-trainfunction, but you can go from scratch ifyou like. In any case you will more thanlikely be making adjustments.) You wantto select a gain that is high enough to giveyou good response and sensitivity at yourlow dynamic, as well as reading your highdynamics without "peaking out" the unit.

The peak view function can help youvisually in setting the gain by giving you abar-graph representation of your attackon the trigger. The LEDs will light andincrease or decrease with your varyingdynamics. You have 16 different gains tochoose from, but rather than be con-cerned with picking one by number, hityour drum or pad and adjust your gainuntil you get the widest spread ofresponse on the bar-graph and you aregetting close to the dynamic response youwant. You still have other parameters toadjust to get it just right. Remember, theresponse will vary not only with your play-ing but with your trigger, trigger place-ment, tuning, size of drum, etc. You haveto experiment.

You also don't have to have a peak viewreading of 1 for your softest hit and 16 foryour loudest. Adjust your gain to get the

widest, smoothest range from soft to loudhits. (Also not in the manual: You don'thave to change from the peak view func-tion back to the gain function to adjustthe gain. In the peak view function, youwill first get a bar-graph reading of yourstroke. By using the up or down arrows atthis point, you can increment or decre-ment your gain.)

Threshold, your next setting, is thepoint at which the peak of your triggersignal will be read as an attack and subse-quently fire a note. The lower this set-ting, the more sensitivity you will have,but also the more likelihood of false trig-gering. Raising the threshold will elimi-nate false triggering, but will also elimi-nate your low-end dynamics. The K.I.T.I.still has other parameters to aid in pre-venting false triggering, but you shouldalso work with trigger placement. Youmay even have to try different triggers toachieve your desired goal. In any case, Ithink it's safe to say that the object hereis to keep the threshold setting as low aspossible in order to gain maximumdynamic response. (If you have to gohigher than 6 or 7 on this unit, you needto pinpoint exactly what is causing thefalse triggering and work from there.)

Mask time is the time immediatelyafter a hit, during which a signal is"masked" or ignored. You can think ofthis as "recovery time." You are setting atime limit before the unit re-triggers withyour next hit. If you are playing fast andall of your notes don't fire, decrease themask time. (You can also use this settingsparingly to help eliminate false trigger-

ing-)Minimum and maximum dynamic

(don't confuse these with minimum andmaximum velocity): These two parame-ters really allow you to tailor the K.I. T.I. tohow you want to play. Whether throughauto-train or manual settings, the K.I.T.I.has taken a "picture" of your envelope (alinear depiction of your stroke type on aparticular drum or pad). It has read thesoftest, loudest, and middle portion ofyour stroke. Minimum dynamic is thereading of your soft hit; maximumdynamic is that of your hard hit. Any

strokes below your minimum dynamicsetting and above your threshold settingwill be read at the minimum velocity set-ting. Any hits above your maximumdynamic reading are played at your maxi-mum velocity setting. This is a nice fea-ture; with it you can create dynamic flatspots (small plateaus in your envelope) atthe bottom and top of your dynamicrange. This gives you more consistency atyour low and high velocity settings.

Headroom is a further tweaking of theenvelope. Without getting too technical,this setting gives you a way of "fine-tun-ing" the envelope to make it less sensitiveto double triggering. The larger theheadroom setting, the less likelihood offalse triggering—but fast playing or a softhit immediately following a hard hit maynot be read. KAT calls this setting a"safety margin," and it should be used asjust that. A high headroom setting won'twork well for fast or dynamic playing.

Scan time is the last of the settings thatyou make independently for each of thenine triggers. This setting allows you tocompensate for differences in how quick-ly different triggers reach their peak.This peak is what an interface reads andconverts to MIDI data. The objectivehere is to use the lowest number of scansthat give you an accurate and consistentreading of your performance. In theK.I.T.I., a scan takes .5 milliseconds. Agood trigger takes about 1 millisecond toreach its peak. The range of settings in"scan time" is 3 to 16. A setting of 3would take 1.5 milliseconds from thereading of the waveform to the completedMIDI send-out. This setting is optimum.Fewer scans can mean a potentially lessaccurate reading of your trigger—espe-cially if it's less efficient and takes longerto peak. More scans mean a more accu-rate reading, but more delay. If your set-tings need to be higher than 6 on thisunit, you're probably working with a not-so-good trigger. Don't waste your time;good triggers don't cost that much morethan bad ones and—along with a goodinterface—will make all the difference inthe world when triggering from acousticdrums.

I tested the K.I.T.I. with four differenttriggers: the KAT KST1 shell mount andKDT1 head mount, the FishmanADT100S shell or head mount, and thenot-yet-released Fishman "purple micro-dot" head mount. I also tried it with Dauzpads and the Roland PD31 pad. Althoughthere were differences in the K.I.T.I.'sresponse to each of these trigger sources,the results were all excellent after someadjustments. These are all pro-level trig-gering devices, and there are plenty ofothers not mentioned here, so you've gotlots of options to work with.

Interaction, the last setting, is to fur-ther help suppress false triggering. Thissetting presently affects all nine triggersper kit. (Bill Katoski informed me that asoftware update will be available soon thatwill allow you to group certain triggerswithin a kit and assign an interaction per-centage per group instead of per kit.)Trigger interaction (false triggering) sup-pression works like this: When you strikea trigger, some percentage (you decide

how much you need) is read and storedaway as a "suppression factor" for a shortperiod of time after a hit. Any other trig-ger must be at least as big as this per-centage (suppression factor) to be seenas a hit.

The Memory

The K.I.T.I. can store 16 kits. There isno other on-board storage. Any other sav-ing and loading would have to be done viaMIDI as a system exclusive transmissionto a separate storage device. This wouldalso be the only way to back up your set-tings. This limited amount of RAMwould be just about my only major beefwith this unit.

All editing is done in an edit bufferKAT calls "temporary memory." There isalso a "recall drawer" used to keep youredited kit backed up, as well as to do kitcopies. In addition there is a manual trig-ger mode, which allows you to fire yourtrigger from the front panel while editing.

(This fires at a fixed maximum velocity of127, so it will only be useful for tweakingsome settings.)

Conclusions

This is a very powerful and efficient lit-tle unit. It's easy to learn and get around.The manual is very well-written andillustrated. It addresses both the basic-level user and the complete "tech-head"thoroughly. Although the midi K.I. T.I.doesn't have many of the features men-tioned in the introduction, it does haveabsolutely pro-level trigger performanceparameters, and it does everything it saysit can do. In today's advertising congames, that says a lot to me. So, if you arelooking to do some straight-ahead trig-gering, have a simple setup, and don'tneed all the features of a high-end con-troller, this unit may be just what you arelooking for. It lists for $499; the optionalstand mount is $35.

The Benefits Of AFour-Piece Kit

by Andy Newmark

Recently we received an Ask A Pro question directed to AndyNewmark, which we passed along to him to answer. Andy obvi-ously spent a lot of time and effort thinking about his response,and the results turned out to be so good—and thorough—that wethought it might make a great full-blown article. What follows isthe original question to Andy, and his response.

Dear Andy,Many drummers are getting back to using much more basic

drumkits these days. I just purchased a four-piece kit, and I'dlike your advice on how to get the most out of this type of setup,as far as general tuning, fills, and so forth. Your style, creativity,and overall technique on this type of kit has always impressedme, so you seem to be the best person to askabout this subject.

Sincerely,Mike DmytriwCleveland OH

Dear Mike,There are two ways I can approach your

question. Either version could give you differentideas. So I guess both ways of looking at it havesome validity.

Answer #1

The only real difference between our four-piece kit and a larger kit is that "they" havemore toms. You've probably always played onebass drum, one snare drum, and a hi-hat(assuming you are not a double bass player). Soall you have changed by de-escalating to a four-piece is the number of toms. Everything else isthe same. Therefore, I could say to you, "Don'tthink about playing any differently now thanbefore; you just have to re-distribute your notesover fewer toms." That's the only difference.

Depending on what kinds of fills you play, youhave to work out what sounds good with onlytwo toms. This could take you into a new style of

"You arenow at

the wheelof a

sports car,built for

onepurposeonly—thebig beat!"

playing I suppose, depending on how much revamping of thefills you would have to do. If you were playing long fills that arevery dependent on a lot of notes (drums), then yes, you willhave to shorten those fills and change your approach. The restof your playing needn't change a bit. Ninety-five percent of thetime, you are playing bass drum, snare drum, and hi-hat, so theother five percent is all we are talking about possibly having toedit.

The tuning of the bass drum and the snare drum should beas you had it on your bigger kit. Why change the boom andcrack? That's your stamp; keep them as you like them. As forthe tuning of the toms, each drum has an optimum note wherethe two heads (forget single heads in this set-up) seem to res-

onate the longest. Don't stray too far from thatnote. I would say with the floor tom, tune it to itslowest possible note, without the heads buzzing.Leave it there. Try to utilize that nice, long, fatnote. Please don't muffle it; you'll spoil everythingnice about it. It should command one's attentionwhen you hit it; it should have balls!The high tom's tuning...well...take your pick. I

would want something that cuts through the setand the music—not too obtrusive, but a definite lit-tle knife wound or stab. It's as if the drum weresaying, "Hey guys, I'm small, but I can hurt youtoo!"

Answer #2

Here's another way of answering your question.Although you have only changed the number oftoms on your kit, and everything else is the same, Ithink you will notice very quickly that this is a com-pletely different animal. You are now at the wheel ofa sports car, built for one purpose only—the bigbeat! I'm talking about serious grooving now. Youhave traded in your Cadillac that had all the extrasbuilt in, and that lumbered along okay. Now youhave decided that you finally want to groove yourbrains out!

Here's the story: I don't know what you were

doing before, but with a four-piece set, I assure you, I knowwhat you will be doing from now on. You will be playing thegroove ninety-five percent of the time. That's bass drum, snaredrum, and hi-hat. This could be significantly different than theCadillac. You must make the groove feel good now, becausethere is nothing else to hit. The smaller kit focuses you on play-ing time, but presumably not just playing time. You'll be playingtime with more affection and a much more intense focus on thatfunction. Now the challenge becomes, "How can I keep thegroove going, but add a little spice?" You will learn how to get tothe toms within the groove, not just playing a fill on them.There's a difference. Incorporating the toms into the groovemakes them become a part of the beat. This way you don't breaka groove to play a fill.

So you are now faced with a new discipline: doing more withless. You will learn to extract much more out of this four-piecethan you realized. You will be pushed into a corner, and you willthink more about how to color your playing. Things like dynam-ics on the hi-hat, dynamics on the other cymbals, and playingdifferent parts of the ride cymbal are all options. Also, breakingup your hi-hat and ride patterns so that your right hand plays asong of its own is something you'll want to try (but never let itinterfere with the flow of the music).

You will learn how each drum becomes more important,because there are so few of them now. When a hockey teamloses a player, the remaining players have a much greater loadon them. So now you must pick your shots carefully. You will seehow just a slight alteration of your bass drum pattern will suf-fice, instead of playing a fill. Or adding one tom note into thegroove—a fantastic fill! By the way, when I talk about addingtoms within the groove, it is usually by coming off the hi-hatmomentarily.

There are many ways to hit the toms. I often hit rimshots onthe high tom. Depending on how far back you pull the stick toyour side of the rim, the note will have a very different character.If you come way back, it will become more like a timbale. Youcan also take your other stick and put pressure on the tom head,and during a "timbale fill," alter the pressure so that the pitchof the drum changes.

Here's something else: When you have a strong groove hap-pening, it will feel so good that you won't want to break it upwith anything. Once you get that train motion going, it just getsmore and more powerful—if you don't break it up. You will seehow just dropping one bomb every 16 bars or even every 32 barsis magic. I know you've heard it a million times, but I tell you,the most difficult thing is playing the groove—nothing else—sothat all the notes from all of the players swing. It's the drummerwho makes everyone else's notes swing or not. If your groovemakes everyone in the band feel secure and it's easy for them toplay their axe with you, then you must be grooving. If you aredoing that, then you're doing great. That's a lot of responsibility.And a four-piece kit is more than enough to do that!

Dom Um Romaoby Frank Colon

Dom Um Romao and the bossa nova: These two names are syn-onymous when we consider their individual as well as unitedcontributions to both Brazilian and international music. Wecould almost go as far as stating that without one, we would nothave had the other, but this would be an unjust statementregarding Dom Um. For whatever style or movement hademerged, Dom Um Romao would still have left his unmistakablemark in musical history as a daring and incredibly talentedinnovator.

Born into a musical family, Dom Um was taught how to playthe drums by his father. By the time he was 16 years old, he wasalready performing professionally on a regular basis, playing inseveral bands and orchestras and in clubs and dance halls allaround the city.

Always one to pursue different avenues for his talents, DomUm came to form the core of the group of musicians in Rio whowere experimenting with a new musical form: the bossa nova.What has since become a major style of Brazilian music (onethat would have artistic and economic repercussions all over theworld) was born and crafted in a little alley in Rio de Janeiro. Itwas here, in two or three small and dimly lit "after-hour" clubs,that Dom Um and some of his colleagues, notably Antonio CarlosJobim, Jorge Bem, Elis Regina, Nara Leao, Edison Machado,Flora Purim, and Sergio Mendez, made their first attempts atcreating a new Brazilian idiom that would reflect their tropicalidentity while liberating the instrumentalists' self-expression.

Once the bossa nova became firmly established in Brazil andrecognized abroad, Dom Um was among the first to travelaround the world presenting these novel sounds. From 1962through 1970, he performed with artists like Joao and AstrudGilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Oscar Castro Neves, Julian"Cannonball" Adderley, Stan Getz, Stanley Turrentine, andOscar Brown, Jr. He was also a pan of Sergio Mendez's Brazil66.

1971 witnessed the inception of a new and different jazz bandon the world scene, a band to be known by the name of WeatherReport. Alongside of Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, MiroslavVitous, and Alphonse Mouzon, Dom Um was a primary ingredi-ent in the development of the audacious rhythmic pulse of theband. He remained with the group for three and a half years,contributing his talents and some songs to four of their albums.

Since moving on from Weather Report, Dom Um hasbranched out, primarily working internationally. Besides record-ing with Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Swiss group Om, he has

recorded three albums in the United States as a leader—allfavorably acclaimed by music critics worldwide.FC: Can you give us a bit of your personal musical history?DUR: I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I grew uparound the Zona Sul area, as well as Zona Norte. My father,Joaquim Romao, played the drumset as well as percussion anddrums with the symphonic orchestra in Rio. At home we wouldlisten mostly to Brazilian music, but we would also listen toclassical music and to jazz as well.

Besides my father, all of my uncles played an instrument. Mywhole family was very musical. And everybody could play per-cussion instruments. So as a child the first instruments I playedwere percussion instruments. By the time I was eight years old,I was already playing the drums in a band.FC: How did you get started in recording?DUR: The first albums I participated on were samba enredorecords—the ones that are released a few months beforeCarnaval, introducing the escolas de sambas' new songs for thatyear. Here, I usually played a variety of percussion instruments.FC: What was it like recording in Brazil at that time?DUR: Back then, records of that sort were done on primitivemachines, where the music was recorded "live," directly onto awax record blank. It was a one-shot deal. If somebody made abig mistake, you had to start everything over from the begin-ning! The recordings weren't done on multi-track tapes yet.Back then, I wasn't too interested in the technical aspects of therecording, so I wouldn't be wandering around the control roomstoo much. The band would come in all rehearsed, set up all ourstuff, go over everything once or twice, and then just go for it,from beginning to end, in one shot. Carnaval music was no

mystery to us, so as soon as the various melodies were revieweda couple of times, that was it. The rhythm was something we allknew; there was never any problem there.FC: Have you recorded a lot of albums in Brazil?DUR: I recorded a lot of samba records. I also recorded with OsCopa Cinco, Meireles, Paulo Moura, and Pedro Paulo. I pro-duced Flora Purim's first album in Brazil, arranged by myfriend Mestre Cipo. I got a deal for her with RCA Victor inBrazil and also participated on the record. Every year I was partof the band that put out the "official" Carnaval album, contain-ing the songs from the major escolas de sambas, which wouldthen compete in various musical categories during the bigCarnaval parade. I did the percussion, as well as the drums. Assoon as overdubbing became possible for us, many times I wasthe only one doing the percussion on these records. I would dothree surdos, some caixas, a couple of pandeiros, four tam-borims, some whistles, a couple of a-go-gos, a bunch of xocal-hos, and some other things—all in one day.FC: As far as your trapset playing is concerned, do you adhereto any specific style at all?DUR: I think I'm very much a Brazilian trap drummer—a sam-bista all the way. I'm really into samba drumming—you know,the samba cruzado—and I've never been into rock drumming atall.FC: When did you first come to the U.S.A.?DUR: In 1962, when the first wave of Brazilian music hit thiscountry. That was with a group called the Bossa Rio Sextet. Weput on a show at Carnegie Hall, which was the first time thatbossa nova was ever performed here. That group also includedSergio Mendez, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao and AstrudGilberto, and Menescal. We immediately recorded the sextetwith guest appearances by Cannonball Adderley and HerbieMann. Stan Getz also got on the bandwagon and sort of took offin this new direction. It happened to be good for him, as well asfor Brazilian music.FC: You had a group in Rio called the Copa Trio, right?DUR: Yes. The group also included Manoel Guzman and DomSalvador. This was during the time of the Beco das Garrafas,which was this one street in Rio where experimental music wascreated. At this time down in Rio, there were no trios or quar-tets who played Brazilian music. You mostly played in big bandsor on some other gigs playing jazz tunes and such. That wasn'tfor me; I never considered myself a jazz traps player, and I stilldon't. But in my group I began the policy of having everybodysolo during our performances. This was very odd at the time; itwas definitely not going along with the norm. But the style sooncaught on, and before you knew it, there were a bunch of groupswho were into this style of playing and musically stretching out.My trio expanded into a quintet, the Copa Cinco, who weremyself, Toninho, Meirelhes, Paulo Moura, Pedro Paulo, andOtavio Bene, Jr. We recorded an album under the same name,which is a collector's item today.FC: So this was the birth of improvisational music in Brazil?

DUR: Well, not exactly. There had always been a lot of improvi-sation done in the chorinho type of music, which goes back along way, tracing its roots back to Portugal. But the bossa novawas a modern style of Brazilian music with improvisation as oneof its key ingredients.FC: Many people believe that the bossa nova was a Brazilianadaptation of jazz.DUR: That's not true at all! One had nothing to do with theother. Bossa nova was something that was created totally inde-pendent from the jazz influence. It was also an era in Brazil; themusic reflected the times, and vice versa. It was in the languagefirst, and then it became a musical style. "Bossa" used to beslang for "something new and exciting." If you had some niceclothes on—not necessarily new but different and definitely"cool"—then you were looking "bossa." So, when we startedplaying this new music at these clubs—which were the onlyones into this new style at the time—people started telling eachother about the "new bossa" music that was happening on thisone street. Pretty soon the name "bossa nova" stuck, and awhole musical movement has evolved since. The most creativeperiod was between the years of '58 and '62. That's when wewere really refining the bossa.FC: So in 1962 you came to the U.S. to perform here atCarnegie Hall.DUR: Yeah, and I felt very good here. We were very well-received. I liked the spirit of this country and decided that Iwanted to move here permanently. So I went back to Brazil withthe rest of the band only in order to straighten out my personallife before making the definite move. In 1965, having satisfiedall of the bureaucratic requirements, I traveled back to the U.S.as an immigrant. Upon arriving, I stayed at Horace Silver'splace. I would like to thank him publicly for all the help he gaveme. Also Norman Granz, who I first met in Brazil. He and Ireally became good friends. He produced a Copa Trio record inBrazil, and I later did another album with him here. While inBrazil, he gave me a check for $500 and said, "Here, hang on to

this and cash it when you make it to the U.S." I later recordedan album here with Norman Granz called Hotmosphere, onPablo Records.FC: So you were in Brazil during the military takeover in 1964.DUR: Yes. This was a very hard time for everybody in Brazil, avery negative period in our history. The military was censoringeverything left and right, and a lot of artists were going to jail orelse being exiled because of their "subversive" ideas orlifestyles. This contributed a lot to my rushing to get my travelpapers together so I could leave that madness behind.FC: Once you moved to the U.S.A. in 1965, what happened?DUR: I worked a little with Astrud Gilberto and CharlieMariano. Then I left New York for Chicago to work with OscarBrown, Jr. It ended up that I stayed in Chicago for a year and ahalf. While in Chicago, Antonio Carlos Jobim called me for asession in Los Angeles. Well, the session turned out to be theFrank Sinatra/A.C. Jobim bossa nova album. Once in LosAngeles, I did a few other sessions here and there when, all of asudden, Sergio Mendez telephoned me offering me a job withhis band, which was then called Brazil 66. I accepted his offerand stayed with the band for three and a half years, playing thetraps and recording three or four albums and traveling all overthe world.FC: I've heard it stated that you were the first person to intro-duce the berimbau to the American public. Is this so?DUR: That's absolutely right. If I remember correctly, that wasabout 1965 or '66, and it was during a series of shows withSergio Mendez and Brazil 66, at Carnegie Hall. Each night Iwould open up the show with a berimbau solo. Besides playingtraps with Sergio, I would sometimes play other Brazilian per-cussion instruments as well.

Up until then, all that was here was Afro-Cuban percussioninstruments—congas, timbales, maracas, cowbells—and theguys would usually only play one of these at a time. But after Istarted playing with a lot of instruments on stage it dawned onme that there might be a market for this type of thing. So I quitplaying trap drums and just pursued work as a multi-instru-ment percussionist. As always, when you begin something dif-ferent, it takes a little time to develop, and in that light it was asacrifice that I took upon myself: to stick to my idea until itfinally bore fruit. I feel proud of being an innovator in this sense.Nowadays there are all kinds of percussionists functioning in allcategories of the music business.FC: How did your association with Weather Report come about?DUR: Airto was the first percussionist to work with WeatherReport. Those guys were always hanging out at Walter Booker'sBoogie Woogie studio, jamming and rehearsing. CannonballAdderley used to rehearse there all the time, and Joe, Airto, andBooker played in that band. After Airto recorded the firstWeather album, he got the gig with Miles Davis and went thatway instead. I happened to run into Zawinul and Wayne onenight at one of the clubs. They both talked to me about playingpercussion with them and asked me to come to a rehearsal with

them the next day. So I gathered some of my percussion instru-ments and went to one of the S.I.R buildings, where they wererehearsing. We played for about an hour before Zawinul sud-denly said, "Yeah, man, we don't need to rehearse any more.That's good just like that, man. Leave it just like it is! Anyway,tomorrow we'll be leaving on a short tour."FC: So you left the next day with them?DUR: I think we played in Philadelphia first, and then contin-ued up the East Coast. I stayed with Weather Report for threeand a half years. I played on I Sing The Body Electric, Live InTokyo, Mysterious Traveler, and Sweetnighter. This was a verygood period for me.

The band at that time was very together. We used to play a lottogether, all the time, and these jam sessions were always donein an atmosphere of stretching out musically. The band had acertain spirit of its own; we liked each other and liked beingwith each other. The band's personnel didn't change as much inthose times as it did later on. When I finally left the band, it wasa move in order to produce my own personal project.FC: Was this around the time when you moved to Europe andbegan touring with the group Om?DUR: Yes. I went over to Switzerland to do some work, and Omcontacted me and asked me to join their group. I recorded andtoured with them for a couple of years. Since then, I have beendividing my time between New York, Switzerland, and Germany.Sometimes I spend six months in one place, six months in thenext, and so on.FC: Do you take on students when you are not traveling?DUR: Depending on my schedule, I'll take on students andteach them in my home. These can be either drum or percus-sion classes. I've done a lot of workshops in Switzerland,Germany, Italy, and here.

My workshops include a physical fitness and warm-up period,where we'll do some jogging in conjunction with hand-clappingcoordination, on and off the beat. Then we might do some vocalexercises to liberate the spirit, and then some breathing anddiaphragm exercises. Moving right along, we might then have agroup massage session, in order for everybody to totally relax.Then we might move into a primal scream session. Next, Imight separate them into small groups and ask them to create acomposition. I'll go from group to group, checking out what theyare each coming up with, and help them in this point or that.This has been really good when I've been able to organize theseworkshops over the course of a couple of days or a long week-end.FC: What about the studio that you used to have, Black Beans?DUR: That was around 1984. The studio belonged to me and apartner of mine. It didn't last too long because I was always onthe road for long periods of time. If you are not there to super-vise the day-to-day activity of your business, it simply will notstay afloat by itself. After months and months of losing money, Ihad to let it go. It was a shame, because the place had become a

Applying Cross RhythmsTo The Drumset: Part 2• by Rod Morgenstein

In my last column we talked about creating crossrhythms by accenting every third note of a continu-ous 8th-note or 16th-note pattern. We also can ap-ply the cross rhythm concept to triplets. Let's be-gin with the following 4/4 measure, which consistsof a constant flow of 8th-note triplets.

However, if we accent every second note instead of every third, across rhythm effect results:

The conflict of the two-note accent pattern played simultaneouslyagainst the three-note triplet creates the cross rhythm.

Let's apply these accents to the toms:

If we play only the accents and omit the unaccented notes of thetwo-note pattern, we end up with the following three-against-twopolyrhythm:

Another way to illustrate this is as follows:

Note how the three-note quarter-note triplets take up the exactsame amount of time as the two quarter notes below them.

Another way to create cross rhythms with triplets is to accent

every fourth note instead of every second note, like this:

Apply the accents to the toms:

If we play only the accent and omit the unaccented note, we endup with the following three-against-four polyrhythm:

Another way to illustrate this is as follows:

The half-note triplet (three notes) takes up the exact same amountof space as the four quarter notes below it, hence three-against-four.

One way in which I apply cross rhythms to the drumset is byapplying four-note patterns or licks to triplets. For example, thefollowing four-note pattern (snare, tom, floor tom, bass drum) wouldlook like this:

Here's another one: floor tom, hi-hat, snare, bass drum.

Eight-note patterns (or two four-note patterns) also work wellwhen applied to triplets. For example, a complete paradiddle is aneight-note (or two four-note) pattern.

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When played in a triplet context it sounds like this:

Play the first note of each paradiddle on a tom, and you have a veryinteresting two-measure drum fill.

Or try your hand at a paradiddle beat:

Played in a triplet context, we have the following:

Once you achieve a basic understanding of how cross rhythmswork, you'll find that you can create an unlimited number of excitingand unique rhythmic textures.

DRUMMACHINESA TO Z

by Ric Furley

There we were, in our ElectronicPercussion class, finishing up our veryfirst project. Using an Apple computer,we had to translate a rhythm pattern so itwould be understood by an E-mu SP-12drum machine. It worked! Boy were weproud! Questions arose to the tune of, "Ihave a different machine at home, andmy buddy has this other one. Can wemake our machines talk to each other?"As we learned a bit more and realizedthat such communication was possible,logical, and practical, I thought,"Mightn't it be very handy to have a littlereference chart to show how all thoseMIDI numbers relate to each other ondifferent drum machines?" Certainlythere were other musical pioneers muchlike ourselves who could benefit from achart of this scope.

The challenge was made. Letters werewritten to drum machine manufacturersaround the country. Information camepouring in (well, not pouring, but drip-ping at a pretty good rate). With the helpof MD's Equipment Annual and a fewother sources, we gathered as manymachines as we could find and assem-bled a fairly concise chart.

Let's take a look at some of the usefulapplications that could be employed. Sayyou have your basic Yamaha RX-11 thatholds 10 songs and 100 patterns. You may

play nightclubs and use it to play a drumline while you go up front to sing backupand play a cowbell. You may have songsprogrammed that you play along with onyour electronic drumset. (Let's use aSimmons SDS 8 analog, non-MIDI kitfor our example.) The band decides thatthey want to learn a whole bunch of newmaterial, updating their '60s, '70s, and'80s variety format to more modern, tech-no Top-40 (perhaps bowing to pressurefrom club owners). Needless to say, thatRX-11 could outlive its usefulness prettyquickly. You need more sounds and morememory for those new tunes.

You decide to get a newer, fancierdrum machine, and a not-too-expensiveMIDI converter to beef up the ol'Simmons axe. With the addition ofalmost any other drum machine you canexpand your current setup to trulybreathtaking heights. One suggestion isto try a machine that has a variety ofLatin sounds, in addition to the basic kit.You can use your trusty RX-11 to play thenew sounds on the new machine, keepingevery rhythmic nuance intact—plus youhave all that memory to use. And havingthe MIDI converter will allow you to playall of those sounds from both machineswith your Simmons pads, while stillretaining your analog sounds! And youdon't even have a sampler yet!

Luckily, almost every drum machineon the market has the capability to reas-sign note numbers. (Refer to yourowner's manual for your particularmachine.) This is where the fun starts.Thanks to the miracle of MIDI, now anydrum machine can "talk" to almost anyother drum machine.

As a second example, suppose you andyour band are asked to do a jingle for alocal clothing outlet. You sit up all nightgetting the demo together on your four-track, and you're pretty happy with it(after about 37 takes). The ad agencyloves it, and you are ready to take it to the

studio. You discover that they have an SP-12 or similar monster drum machinewith killer sounds in it. Can you use theSP-12 on your track without rewriting theentire drum line?

Absolutely! Simply change the MIDISend numbers on the Yamaha to matchthe receiving notes on the E-mu unit (theSP-12 does not have re-assignable MIDInotes), or use the E-mu's "SwapSounds" function (their means to thesame end), and voila! Your drum track ison tape; your job is done. You get sent outfor fried chicken and drinks while yourband red-eyes the rest of the session. Ifyou had the chart presented here, youcould set the changes up at home inadvance (saving valuable session time),and be even more of a hero!

FOOTNOTES

1. On the machines listed #1 through#18, in many instances two MIDI notenumbers are assigned to the same sound.In each case, the higher of the two MIDInumbers is the note "sent" when thesound is triggered.

2. For the purposes of convenience andlegibility, abbreviations for varioussounds were used consistently on thechart. However, they may appear differ-ently on the individual machines. Forexample, while "sn" is used to stand for"snare drum" on the chart (as it is onmany machines), some machines use"sd" instead. Additionally, where thechart may spell out sounds such as "tam-bourine" or "timpani," many machineswill abbreviate those sounds as "tamb" or"timp."

3. The meaning of some abbreviationsmight not be immediately apparent.These include "dst" ("distorted"), "fus"("fusion"), "proc" ("processed"), and"rvrs" ("reversed").

Rhythmic Rudimental Progressions:Part 6: Triple Paradiddles

by Joe MorelloTranscribed by Keith Necessary

The purpose of the following exercise is to be able to play tripleparadiddles using 8th notes, 8th-note triplets, 16th notes, 16th-notetriplets, and 32nd notes. If you've been following this series, youshould be familiar with the concepts we're covering.

Play this exercise with and without accents. Once you can play theexercises as written, try accenting the first note only of each tripleparadiddle. Don't raise the metronome speed if you feel any sort oftension. Also, experiment with dynamic levels. Play everything fromvery soft (ppp) to very loud (fff).

As suggested in previous articles, try playing this exercise withbrushes. Also, try this exercise at the drumset. Play the unaccentednotes on the snare drum and the accented notes on the toms orcymbal/bass drum combination, while playing four on the hi-hatwith your left foot.

If you have any questions about this exercise, you can contact Joethrough Modern Drummer.

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John "Jabo" Starks:

SuperbadTranscribed by Joseph Connell

This month we're featuring a classic performance by drummer John "Jabo" Starks with "the hardest-working man in showbusiness," James Brown. This performance, along with several other great tracks, is now available on the CD JamesBrawn: The CD of J.B. (Sex Machine And Other Soul Classics) (Polygram 825 714-2).

Samba For Conga Drumsby John Santos

The samba is an exciting rhythm and dance with more variationsthan anyone knows. That is where the beauty of it lies—its versatil-ity. The following are eight solid sambas that I know you're going toenjoy. As usual, let those creative juices flow when adapting these tospecific musical situations.

The first three examples are to be played on one conga drum.Examples 4 through 8 are for two drums. (The high drum is notatedon the top space, the low drum on the second.) The examples con-taining notes that are enclosed in parentheses should be learnedwith and without those respective notes. Also, the symbols appearingin the examples indicate: S = slap, O = open tone, H = heel (fullpalm), and T = toe, touch, or tap (fingers).

Examples 1 and 2 are based in the traditional samba de roda style.

Example 3 is derived from the feel known aspartido alto.

Example 4 is definitely a different approach than what you'll usu-ally see. It combines both the samba de roda and partido alto rhythms.The samba de roda feel is maintained with the right hand on the lowdrum, while the partido alto is played with the left hand on thehigher-pitched drum (reverse if you're a lefty).4

Examples 5 and 6 are variations that are kind of "salsa-ish."

Examples 7 and 8 are variations likely to be heard with sambas deenredo (theme songs of the samba schools).

drums I've owned, I'm unsure how bestto care for them. Is it okay to use house-hold furniture polish to dust and cleanthem, or will this hurt the finish? Also,I've noticed a couple of very smallscratches in the finish—probably fromconstantly setting up and tearing downthe drums. Is there a product that couldbe used to buff out the scratches withouthurting the finish?

Tom RobinsonPhoenix AZ

drum in a circular motion for bestresults.

"Providing the scratches in your finishare not too deep, a product called DrumLuster is excellent for hiding hairlinescratches. It's available from Rit Drums,504 Lake Drive, Allegan, Michigan 49010.Another option is a product calledMcGuire's Nu-Glaze—a glaze and reseal-er made for cars and available in almostany automotive products store. We dosuggest testing a small area first. As withthe furniture polish, rub the product intoa rag first, then apply it to the drum.

"As for basic care, we suggest that ifyou leave your drums set up, you usesome type of cover (such as a sheet) tokeep dust and dulling agents in the airfrom settling on them."

Sandy Dallas, of Pearl's produc-tion department, provided the fol-

lowing information: "It's okay to use ahousehold furniture polish such asLemon Behold or Lemon Pledge to cleanlacquered drums. However, don't spraypolish directly onto the drum. Spray thepolish on a soft rag (such as an old T--shirt, a diaper, or cheesecloth) first, andrub it well into the rag. Then wipe the

Have you ever asked that your name betaken off a project?VINNIE: I did a project recently wherethey weren't going to put my name on it,and I said, "Yeah!"JEFF: There's a time when you have tokeep artistic license. I've had it with play-ing stuff that I would otherwise neverplay. That is not good for the soul.MIKE: That worked against me once.Whenever you show up in a situation, that

artistic license is really important. Therewas a situation during the time thatSteely Dan was really hot. Larry Carltonrecommended me to those cats to play ona track. There had been a date that I haddone three years prior to that recommen-dation, where it was some schlock musicand I said, "Ya know, I don't really want toplay this," and I just played verymediocre. The one thing Fagen andBecker happened to have heard me playon was a tape of that one track. They toldCarlton, "We've heard this cat; he's nothappening." Carlton told me the story

afterwards. So it doesn't pay in the longrun to do that.RF: But you just got finished saying youhave a commitment to the producer andthe artist, and they're paying you to exe-cute what they ask. Yet, maybe they'reasking you to be something you're not.MIKE: I always have this great thing. If aproducer says, "Play a Vinnie fill," or"Play like Jeff," I say, "Look, I'll give youtheir phone numbers."JEFF: It can even come down to some-thing as minute as milliseconds in thetempo of the click, where I feel it's myduty to suggest that the click be raised orlowered a couple of notches. Those littlethings can make or break the groove.DENNY: Part of our job is to make sug-gestions.JEFF: The other day I made that sugges-tion, and the producer insisted that Ishould make it feel just as comfortable atthat tempo, but in my heart I knew thatwas a load of crap.HARVEY: I feel that if that's the tempo, Ishould be able to make it feel good.VINNIE: But you settle where you wantto settle, and there's a reason that you dothat. I always go back and forth in my ownmind, because I hear people saying,"Yeah, he's a one-tempo drummer," andhow a drummer should be able to play atany tempo.MIKE: Then that's saying you have to bea machine, and that's not possible. Ifeverybody had the same fill, say, a five-stroke roll, and we said, "Harvey, you playit," "Jeff, you play it," all of us are goingto play differently. It's the same roll, thesame number of notes, but it's going tobe different. And if it is the same, thenwe might as well be machines.VINNIE: Also, talking about how torespond to certain producers, do you evernotice that some guys try to tell you whatthey want, but they don't really know, andyou have to be able to read them?JIM: A lot of times a big part of our job isto make sure the producer doesn't end uplooking like an idiot. Hal Blaine used totell me things like that. He said, "You'llnotice after working with people that itwill be real easy to make them lookstupid, because they are"—some of them.That will make the big difference—ifyou've done that, or if you've made theguy feel like he's done some good work.

That's part of your gig. That's the wayI've always approached it. I know Jeff doesthe same thing, but I love the other sideof Jeff where he will just not take anycrap. The stories about Jeff walkingout—I've worked for the same artists he'swalked out on, and I've stayed.MIKE: There have been times when I'verefused to play a certain fill that they hearjust because it's really lame. I'll just say,"I'll play anything else, but I won't playthat."HARVEY: If you're in a creative situation,as I am a lot of times, most people will

not ask you to do things like that; theyhire you for yourself. But when you'redoing a record with a particular artist andyou are not really part of the creative pro-cess, they have an idea of how they envi-sion a record to go, and it's your job to goin there and interpret what they're tryingto get. If they ask for a particular fill, thenI play it. That's it, no question about it. Idon't care how dumb it is.STEVE: Now let me give you the downside to the guy who played the fillbecause they kept on insisting on it. Nomatter what tune you play for three years

that you work with this guy, he only wantsthat fill. You do every project this guydoes for three years, and one day youdon't get a phone call, and you know theguy is working. Vinnie gets the phone calland Vinnie shows up on the date andsomebody innocently says, "What hap-pened to Steve?" "Can't use him, healways plays the same fill." And what filldid they give Vinnie to play? Yep, that fill.[a chorus of Ohhhhhhhhhhh!]RF: When we did our last round table,electronics were peaking. I'd like to talkabout studio trends and what's going ontoday.JIM: To me, what is happening with elec-tronics right now is exactly what Ithought was going to happen back in '83.A lot of people were panicking, but thevery thing that did happen, which we allknew was going to happen, was that peo-ple were going to lose out on gigs. Theplayers who did a lot of demos lost theirgigs to machines, that's for sure. But theelectronics took over for a long timebecause that was the trend. What's hap-pening now is that the electronics are justanother piece of gear. The acousticdrums are as big and important as theyever were. Because everybody got to thepoint where, when they listen to a recordand it's a machine, there's just somethingin your body that tells you there's nobodyhome, and that's not good for the averagemusic listener when he can feel that.RF: But everybody invested in majorracks.JIM: You can still use them. Now it's justanother piece of gear.VINNIE: That's another can of worms: •in terms of the status of electronics, theplace of it versus racks. Racks are a wholeother thing. But just to expound on theaverage music listener who feels nobodyis home: It's like conditioning; you canget used to that. Listen to the wayrecords are programmed now. It's nolonger important whether or not there are15 things going on at once, that it doesn'tsound like a real drummer because a realdrummer would stop playing the hi-hatwhen he plays a fill. It doesn't matter.Now people are used to hearing that.Guys who are used to hearing machinesall the time have to de-condition them-selves when they hear a real drummer.RF: Vinnie, how much did you actually

get into the machinery?VINNIE: Not as much as I thought I hadto. I invested a lot of money in this bigrack of electronics, and it's just bells andwhistles. It's just a psychological war ofwho has the biggest rack. It's jive. Nowyou don't need all that stuff.JIM: The nature of electronics is that ina 30-day period, a rack of gear that youhave can be replaced with one rack spacenow of another thing. What I recently dis-covered is the ddrum. The pads are very,very cool to play on. They feel goodbecause they have drumheads and they'revery, very dynamic. You can actually dropthe stick and you get a nice little buzzroll, and you can hit it real hard and itgets big. You can program it like that withthe dynamics, which is very cool. Thesounds are also very good, becausethey've taken samples from differentguys, and they blow the chips and putthem into ROM, and you have a choice.It's better than your own sampled soundsbecause sampled sounds are innatelyslow, they're late.MIKE: Ddrums have opened things up.It's definitely changed, like Jim said. Itused to be that you had to have all of this

gear, and for a new kid coming up, it's,"What do you really need?" If the produc-er says he wants five different snaredrums, a couple of different kicks, and acouple of different toms, something like addrum is great because the guy doesn'tneed to know sounds. He can say, "Howabout this tom? How about this snare?" Istill find the application for my rack,though. I like creating my own sounds.

Lately in a lot of situations I'll walk inand people will say, "I just want youracoustic drums." There's a lot of thatnow. Or they'll say, "I want you to pro-gram a drum machine," so you bring in amachine. The other side of the spectrumis, "I don't have a budget. I want electron-ics, but I don't want to pay nine milliondollars for this piece of gear and thatpiece of gear." So you bring one samplerand a pad kit or a drum machine and trig-ger your drum machine. Maybe a guy willsay, "I've already got the sounds, but Idon't want a machine. Bring a controllerand some pads. I don't want your perfor-mance." So you can walk in, play it intotheir Mac, and you're gone.DENNY: Don't you find, especially in thelast year and a half, that there's a lot less

triggering off the acoustic drums?MIKE: Absolutely. There are a lot ofengineers who can't deal with an acousticset of drums, so they're hoping you'llbring in sounds.JIM: The first day I used the ddrums, itblew my mind, because it was so easy.When was the last time you did a nine-hour TV show or movie at Universal? Ihad never done one. It's usually threehours and out. This happened to be astrange thing. It was nine hours, and Ididn't have anything but ddrums there.There were a stack of cues, and Ithought, "I don't know what I'm going todo here," but as it turned out, thosethings were so versatile that I did amarching band thing, and I had this hugebass drum sound for it. I'd go from thatto a ZZ Top sound. We all do that for aliving once in a while, and those ddrumsjust saved my butt. I sounded like TommyLee with Motley Crue on one song, andthen there's a little jazz set.MIKE: That's a big advantage, particu-larly for movie and TV things. You walkin, it's clean, they don't have to worryabout leakage, and it's a lot easier andquicker to deal with than having your own

sounds, even though you might have pre-set sets.JIM: I find now that my situation withelectronics is that I generally have to askto use them because nobody wants tohear that from me.RF: Harvey, do you use a lot of electron-ics?HARVEY: I use them quite a bit onmotion pictures. On records, I end uptriggering mainly the bass drum and thesnare drum. I use the Dynacord a lotbecause it's pretty fast, and the Akai andthe R8, and I put all these things togeth-er. I think acoustic drums are definitelyback in vogue, more than they've been inthe past few years.RF: Jeff, you never got much into elec-tronics.JEFF: I'm trying to remember one timeI've used any piece of electronic gear inany professional setting. Live I used thetimbale sound off the Dynacord once, butI've never used them on sessions.JIM: You never triggered sounds?JEFF: Never. Somebody might do some-thing after I'm gone, but I find that doingrecords, I go from a Bonham-esquesound to a little Billy Higgins sound in a

half hour in a good room with a goodengineer with gates and certain effects, ifthere is that kind of time. I have a rackbuilt right now, though, that I really like:It's a microwave, a VCR, and a refrigera-tor. That's the kind of rack I need. It's allbeen bogus to me, personally.JIM: Jeff knows this about me, but Idon't know if anyone else does: I cannothit a drum hard and play anything at all. IfI hit a drum a little bit too hard, it's justnot me; there's no music coming fromme at that point. I'm just hitting hard,and I'm just playing a beat. That's not theway I started. I started out as a jazz play-er, so everything I play has got to bemeaningful to me somehow for me to getoff. Like Denny said, we all went througha period where we had to hit hard and inthe middle and in the right place so thatwe could trigger the Wendel and this andthat. But thank God those days are gone.

Now we're back to trying to be musical.The thing for me is that I'm sitting herein a room with some of the greatest musi-cians in the world, and most of you guyshit harder than I do and you still getmusic out. It's a physical thing and it'sone of the great things about us all being

different. What electronics does for me is,now that I've got this real good triggersystem with the Impulse or the KAT, I cantrigger sounds from my toms, bass drum,snare, and even the hi-hat, and I can playat the volume I like to play at. But when Ihear the playback, it sounds big. Itsounds good to me, and I don't have towork so hard. So for me, electronics aremore than just a trend.VINNIE: I find that once I cross a cer-tain volume threshold, I also lose finesse,and it just mounts into problems. When Iplay too hard, all the other stuff just goes,so now I just never exceed that level. AndI find it doesn't make that big a differ-ence.MIKE: The drum is only going to get soloud, no matter how hard you hit it, andthen it's going to choke.RF: Before this equipment talk, we weretalking about getting into the studios, andI'm wondering how people do it. It'simpossible to get any demo work any-more. Since our last round table six yearsago, Denny is the only new guy doingenough work to get invited here today.Why is that? What do you tell a kid who isgrowing up?

MIKE: First of all, I think for a young kidwho wants to get into the studio, I don'tthink it's even a viable thing to tell some-body. He has a better chance of going outand getting in a band that's going to getsigned than he has of breaking into thestudio. It's not that he won't have theopportunity to break in; it's just that peo-ple don't have the time to waste. If they'redoing demos, they're doing them with amachine. If they're doing a full-blownrecord, they're either going to find some-body who is going to do it under double-scale; or they're going to pay double-scale

and hire one of the cats in this room.RF: You're telling me that it's hard tobreak into it because the old-timers haveit sewn up. But before the tape wasrolling, Vinnie was saying they put you outto pasture after a certain amount of time.VINNIE: They tend to, but I think it'sup to you to keep up with what's happen-ing and to be on the cutting edge. All Imeant is that we're a youth-oriented soci-ety, to the point where it's a sickness. Ithought you could get a reputation andthen enjoy it. I was doing a record recent-ly, and they didn't even know who John

Robinson was. I thought the guy was kid-ding. What good is a reputation youbuild?MIKE: I've seen the phases in thisindustry. It's gone from the days whereyou did records and TV and movie stuff,to, "Oh, he does records and he doesmovie and TV stuff." Then it was, "Whowants to do the movie and TV shit,because the records are the hip thing todo." Then the record industry went lameand if you didn't do the movie and TVstuff, you were starving to death—andthere's also an expertise in that field. Youhave to be able to read, and there's thepressure of an 80-piece orchestra. You'rescrewed if you make a mistake.

I remember Jim Horn telling me eonsago, "Whatever you do, don't lose thefire," and that's what happens in thistown, aside from getting pigeonholed. Iwatched the Hal Blaines and the JohnGuerins fold because they never wantedto progress. They said, "I'm at the heightof my day, and I can play anything and I'llget hired." A friend of mine once sug-gested it was that they did so many datesthat they didn't know when to give 100%and when not to give 100%. They lostperspective. Instead of going in and say-ing, "I'm giving 100% on everything Ido," they started making judgments, andeventually the judgments caught them offguard.JIM: I never even approached the worka-holic level that Hal Blaine or Earl Palmerand probably most of you guys have. Idon't work nearly as much as peoplethink I do. I did for a little period in the'70s, and I got so burned out that thathappened to me. I didn't care anymore. Ilisten to records from those days and it'sembarrassing.VINNIE: But you saw that and got pastthat.JIM: One of the reasons is that if youdon't work that much, you're just moreeager to play.RF: Everyone has told me in separateinterviews that there is indeed such athing as studio burnout. What is that?What are the symptoms? What is theremedy?DENNY: You drain yourself of any musi-cality if you're working every day for acertain length of time. For me, there's apoint where I'm not playing as well as I

was playing three weeks ago, or I'm notcoming up with the creative ideas that Iwas coming up with. I have to take a weekor two off to just listen to music, live, anddo whatever to get fed again. I don't evenplay during that time off; I don't evenpick up a pair of sticks. When I go back, Iplay better than I did.RF: Do all of you listen to those momentsand say, "I'm approaching burnout"?What does that feel like?VINNIE: There was a time a couple ofyears ago where I'd get home at 10:00 atnight, and there would be a call fromsomeone like Bobby Womack, who wouldwork all night long. So I'd go at 10:00 towork with him until 4:00 in the morning,when I had been working since 9:00 themorning before. Then I'm no good toanybody, but you don't want to say no.RF: Why don't you want to say no?VINNIE: Because you get into it and you.get this momentum going, but it catchesup with you and you can't see it. You wantto work and you want to play. I was tryingto keep fresh, so if I was doing that onenight, then the next day I'd work from10:00 to 1:00 and I'd go home and try topractice for an hour, thinking, "I played,

but I didn't really play." Now I realize Ihave to cool it for a couple of days. To me,burnout means just not giving a damn,getting overly grumpy and starting tosnap at the guys who are hiring me. I'mnot playing well and I know it, and mywhole perspective gets funny. I would getpissed off because I couldn't admit tomyself that I wasn't playing well, and inreality, it was just because I was burnedout. I hate that feeling.RF: All of you guys play live from time totime. Is it particularly for the reason ofwanting to be "you" for a minute?DENNY: It's a different energy playinglive, almost a different set of chops, play-ing one song after another, not the samesong. The endurance is different becauseyou're playing for two hours straight.RF: Why do you do it? Jeff, you probablydo it the most, because you're in a band.JEFF: I'll play anywhere. I just like play-ing, whether it's in the studio or in aclub. Hopefully I'm playing in the studiolike I play live, with the same excite-ment—if I'm allowed to.RF: But what's the percentage of timesthat you're allowed to? Vinnie, don't youget frustrated? You said you've come

home from sessions and practicedbecause you didn't feel like you played.VINNIE: Oh yeah, if I went on some TVdate, some episode where I played a cou-ple of cymbal rolls and read the latestGreenpeace issue, then I would go homeand practice. But it depends.RF: Percentage-wise, how much do youget to express yourself?VINNIE: Probably less than half. It's get-ting a little more these days, though, andI'd like to keep it that way, like doingthings like Patitucci's record.RF: But really, you get off when you playlive?VINNIE: Yes, because I don't thinkabout it; I just do it.MIKE: I think Vinnie's situation is a dif-ferent scenario, because his backgroundis more fusion, and that's his love atheart. To really play that 100%, you reallyhave to play that live, so it's tough in astudio situation because a lot of thosethings do not apply in 90% of the situa-tions. I didn't come from that school. Icame from, "Let's go simple, let's get thegroove." I'm not saying one is better thanthe other; I'm just saying I can get offeasier in a studio situation than Vinnie

because I'm not going to be as frustrated.VINNIE: For me, it's whatever the tuneis. If it's a great tune and a simple tune,I'll get off on it.HARVEY: That's what I was going to sayalso. I may not always play a lot technical-ly, but if I can fit into the musical situa-tion just right, then I feel great. And whatmakes it even better is if it's somethingthat I really feel should be on the tune, nomatter what it is. I really enjoy that.

Fortunately you get to do the greatrecords from time to time where you real-ly get to play, and that keeps you excit-ed—as opposed to the other thing whereyou're just filling a role. But I get off fill-ing a role also.RF: We touched on what happens whenit's over, but how do you prepare for thefuture as a studio musician?VINNIE: In our case, every gig is thelast, really.HARVEY: That's how I look at it. I'vebeen doing it since 1970, and at first I fig-ured I'd be the flavor of the month forfour or five years. It's been 20, and I stillapproach a session like it's my last one. Ialso listen to everybody and everything,and I get inspired by even a little thing Ihear, and I'll go home and start playingthat. Then I'll incorporate that into myrepertoire, and the next thing I know, itcomes out sounding different, which getsme juiced up. I'll listen to somethingVinnie did and go, "Oh man, that's slick,"and I'll start doing something like that,and now I've got my own version of it.JIM: That's what I tell guys who ask meabout the studio thing. I say, "Look, for-get about the studio, like it doesn't exist."You can ask me a couple of little ques-tions about music, but don't ask me howand what and why. If you love music,that's going to be the force that keeps youthere. You'll listen, like Harvey said, andyou'll get inspired, which keeps music inyou.RF: Reality-wise, preparing for thefuture, do any of these artists you play forever give you any points or anything likethat?HARVEY: Of course that's happened inisolated situations.MIKE: It's not a reality. It happens, butit's not by any means a norm.HARVEY: You have to save and do all thethings that the regular person does. You

have to invest in property, you have tomake smart decisions, and you have tothink about those kinds of things.MIKE: You can start a band and get arecord deal.DENNY: Publishing is money for yourgrandkids.JIM: If you love music enough, that'swhat you'll do. You'll try to write andmaybe try to get in a band. That's thegreatest thing of all, being in a band, itseems to me. I say that because I've neverbeen in a band.RF: Jeff, is that true?

JEFF: It's incredible.RF: Do you try to balance your life moreas you get older with families, and stopbeing so music-focused? Is it difficult tobalance a home life?MIKE: I would say yes. Sometimes it canbe the rollercoaster from hell. It's a toughthing for anybody, just dealing with afamily and your business.DENNY: Hopefully anybody who has afamily and a new baby, no matter whatyou do, is going to want to take time off tobe with the baby, more than just going toSanta Barbara for the weekend.

JIM: I believe that for any musician, nomatter what kind you are, the support youget from your wife or your girlfriend canbe the thing that allows you to go or justcuts you down. I've seen both sides ofthat situation from friends. I've beenblessed with a great family life. I've beenblessed with a wife who put up with morethan I can say. Wherever I am today, I'mthere because of her, and I mean that100%. She worked when I wasn't workingat all; I was playing in garages with peo-ple. She worked for the first five years ofour marriage. I'd do a $15 bar mitzvah ora little Mexican wedding, but most of thetime I was playing jazz in somebody'sfront room, and she worked while she waspregnant with three kids right up untilshe went into the hospital to have thosebabies. I know that's a key factor in mywhole situation. If I hadn't had her in mylife all these years, I'd probably be dead,first of all, and if I wasn't dead, I don'tknow what I'd be doing. But I certainlywouldn't still be playing music. The rela-tionship is a key factor for a musician.RF: What about the ups and downs dur-ing the slow times? Do you getdepressed? Is it frightening? Do you

worry that this is it?JIM: Around 1984/'85 that happened tome. I thought, "Well, this is it, it's gone,it's dead, no more calls." People like AbeLaboriel were saying, "Do you know ofany road gigs?" When I heard him saythat, I thought I was going to fall on thefloor. I thought there wasn't going to beanything anymore called "studio work."VINNIE: I used to worry a lot more thanI do, but I think we could be the last gen-eration. Although, in a way, it's turningaround.DENNY: I think it's turning around.Think about the people you work withnow that you may have worked with lessfour years ago. You're working for themthree or four times the amount of timenow because they want more live drums,so the work is opening up.JEFF: Don't you guys feel like in the lastcouple of years you're being rediscov-ered?JIM: I guess I could say that.JEFF: I know producers just coming upnow who are going, "Wow, Jim Keltner,"because of this trend of coming back toacoustics.VINNIE: But perseverance is important

too, for anybody, and especially for us ifwe're going to hang in there, because it'stight.RF: What happens when the work cur-tails?MIKE: Hopefully you're prepared to dosomething else. Even before I gotinvolved in the business there were theHal Blaines, the John Guerins, and theEarl Palmers who said, "It's never goingto end," three, four dates a day. You'refooling yourself if you think that way.JIM: Like Harvey said, you've got to bejust like anybody else. You've got to besmart with your money.RF: But Jim, an insurance salesman mayretire at 65. Do you all honestly thinkyou're still going to be doing this at 65?HARVEY: I'd love to be playing. I mean,if I love it and the music is still happen-ing, I might be.JEFF: My old man just turned 60, andhe's been busier than he ever was in hiswhole life.VINNIE: Look at Jim Chapin.JIM: Sol Gubin. Irv Cottier died at some-thing like 70.HARVEY: It all depends on the situation.MIKE: You don't want to wind up at 65

having to work.JIM: That's a big difference.MIKE: Then it's a drag. Then you'venever seen the light at the end of the tun-nel, and you never will.RF: Let's open it up a little. Are there anyquestions that any of you would like toask each other?HARVEY: Yeah, backbeats—in the studiodo you guys play more in the center of thedrum or rimshots ?JEFF: I always hit the rim.MIKE: I'd say 98% of the time it's therim.STEVE: I'd have to say more toward thecenter of the drum, although I don't thinkI ever play directly on the center.JIM: Lately I've been playing all over thedrum, and when people ask me about it, Isay, "That's the way all my favorite drum-mers I ever listened to play, and that's theway I like to play."DENNY: 98% rimshots.VINNIE: Mostly rimshots.HARVEY: Far out. How about the engi-neers who try to ask you to play exclusive-ly in the center of the drum? When you'regetting your sound in the beginning, they

say, "Will you hit the center of thedrum?" and then you start playing andyou don't.DENNY: One time this engineer cameout and said, "Your snare drum soundshorrible," and so I hit this other snareand he said, "That's much better." I putit up, he walked back in the control room,and I took it off and put the old one backbecause I really thought the other onesounded better. So I hit the drum andsaid, "Is this better?" And he said, "Man,it's so much better. I knew that was goingto be the drum."HARVEY: Everyone play open drums?MIKE: Pretty much. There might be lit-tle bits of padding here and there.JIM: I have two heads on the bass drum.HARVEY: I've been using two heads a lit-tle bit.JIM: I copy every one of these guys inthis room, and all the other ones who arenot here. The other day I got to play onVinnie's drums, and the first thing I saidto the Drum Doctor after that was, "Tuneme up a set of drums just like Vinnie's,with the same head configuration," and Iliked the intervals he had. I've done that

with Jeff many times. That might soundlike a real chump kind of thing to do, butI can't help it. If I like the way somebodyplays, they just get into my system rightaway—their sound, and the way they play.HARVEY: You play flat-footed?JEFF: I play with my toes.JIM: I played flat-footed for years, butwhen I saw the way Jeff played, I startedto play like him. I noticed that Jeff playedlike Gadd.HARVEY: I play with my toes, but I'vedeveloped playing with my heel downbecause there are certain situationswhere it calls for it to be so accurate, andin order to do that, I have to put my heeldown.MIKE: Vinnie, you play on toe, right?And you play off of the head.VINNIE: I do it both ways now. If I don'tplay that loud, I keep my heel down.STEVE: I play both ways, but I've beenplaying with clogs, which elevate my heelso that when I'm playing flat-footed, I'mkind of in a 50/50 position. The type ofmusic usually defines the technique,although basically I'm most comfortableplaying flat-footed. It really comes down

to whatever is the most comfortable wayto come up with the sound you want.MIKE: I can get more power out of play-ing with my foot down than I can with mytoes.JEFF: Really? That's weird.DENNY: Do you play out of the drum?MIKE: Yeah, out of the drum.JEFF: That sounds the best, when youplay off the head.RF: Something Jeff mentioned earlier:Do most producers expect you or wantyou to play on the click as opposed tobehind a little bit, and what do you preferto do?HARVEY: That's a problem.RF: Why?HARVEY: I don't find many players whoreally can play with a click other thandrummers. The drummer gets stuckplaying with the click, and the rest of theband is playing all over the place. Thepiano player is playing on top of the beatand the bass player is missing.JEFF: I have a big gripe about that. Inoticed during the years drum machineswere happening, you'd hear your key-board player and guitar player friends'

demos, and they were playing to a drummachine, and you'd go, "Wow, they seemto be fitting pretty good with that." Now,out of that context in the studio, they'resitting next to you while you're playingdrums, and you're digging the phones,you're on the same cue, and you go,"Man, they're real loud in the phones."Why aren't they listening to us as theywould a machine?MIKE: That's right. The machine isgeneric, it just goes. It doesn't have avibe, so your mind doesn't go to themachine. It goes to everything elsearound the machine, so you don't thinkabout it. And when guys are playing to aclick, that's what they do. Everybody lis-tens to the click, rather than listening tothe drummer, who is dictating the basisof the groove, and that's what happens. Ina lot of situations now, they'll take theclick out of everybody else's phonesand...HARVEY: ...and they still can't play withit.JEFF: I've been on sessions where thewriter or producer has predeterminedwhat the click tempo will be and hasalready striped the tape. He's put somesequence overdubs on it, and you go,"This is not the right tempo for thisgroove."VINNIE: They don't listen sometimes,and it's a drag. You're running it downwith the click and you're going, "This isgreat," and then they put the click on,and then they go, "It doesn't feel good."MIKE: The classic thing is you walk intoa situation that has had a machine on it.It was cut to a click and has four keyboardparts on it, and all of them have MIDIdelay, so none of them are on the click.Then the bass player has put his part onand he has his interpretation of wherehe's playing with the machine. Then theguitar player has his interpretation ofwhere he is playing with the machine,because neither of them played at thesame time. And then the keyboards arespread from one extreme to the other,and the producer says, "Make it right."That's the hardest thing in the world.HARVEY: That hurts me so badly whenit's like that. It hurts my spirit and every-thing about my playing; that will bum meout almost more than anything else.JEFF: That is the biggest bummer.

RF: So what do you do in those situa-tions?MIKE: You have to do the best you can.You know going in what the situation is.When they call you on the phone, they say,"This is what we want," and all you canthink is that hopefully it won't be theworst scenario, and if it is, you just haveto grit your teeth and do it.JEFF: I'll try to talk them into redoing it.Usually they'll listen if you calmly explainit to them. "Give me the click and let mego out there and cut it."MIKE: A lot of people will agree to that,but most of the time when the drummeris called in, everything is done. Theydon't want to have to redo all the vocals orre-stripe the tape.JEFF: They have to make a decision as towhether to blow off 20 grand that theyspent making this track before they calledyou, which was a bad mistake for them todo, and they should understand that. Ifthey want to keep it, they're not going tokeep me there four hours trying to getthat right, so that's when I start saying,"Maybe I'm the wrong guy." If I'm thereunder three hours and it's bogus and Iknow they're bogus, I'll say, "Look, youdon't have to pay me, see you later." It'simpossible. It's not good for the mind,it's not good for your family, your wife,other motorists on the freeway, and yourbest friends.JIM: I got around that with the BeachBoys, who always bring in semi-finishedtracks for you to put the drums on. I lis-tened to the track and the time waseverywhere, but the vocals were beautiful,so I talked them into using my SP1200.We did it right from scratch and thatturned out to be "Kokomo," whichturned out to be a big record for them.That was nothing but 1200, my drumsounds and percussion. Even the cymbalswere really good samples of my own cym-bals. I will not go through that pain of sit-ting there with real drums in a room thatis not best-suited for drum sounds, andtry to physically play to a track where thetime isn't right. Like you said, it's bad foryour soul.RF: Any other questions you have foreach other, or gripes ?JIM: I don't think any of us have anymajor gripes other than these little tech-nical things. It's great to be a drummer.

What else would you want to be? Jeffcould be an artist, but personally Icouldn't be anything but a drummer. Idon't have any other skills whatsoever. Icould work in a plant nursery.VINNIE: We were talking about planningfor the future. What if you don't knowhow to do anything else? I could drive acab.MIKE: I don't know if we resolved thequestion of the young players coming up.DENNY: I think there's opportunity.MIKE: I don't know. Ten years ago therewas. In all honesty, I would say that's apipe dream. But I would say if somebodyis exceptional and has perseverance, any-thing can happen.DENNY: I've only been doing this thelast few years, and if I can do it, they cando it.MIKE: I'm not saying it's not possible,but it's not what it used to be, and itnever will be.JEFF: I don't know, though. Rememberwhen disco started happening? Howmany cats do you know who moved toLA during disco? Right before disco wasbig, there were five drummers, five pianoplayers, five bass players, and five guitarplayers who did all the work. Disco camein and people wanted live drums. There'spotential I think with the acoustics goingfull circle and the demand for musiciansand not so much for programming. Sothere may be a surge in the businessagain. You can't wipe out the possibility ofwork starting to happen again, just like inthe '70s, when there was work for every-body.JIM: It's just like any other time. I reallydo believe that every generation thinkstheir time is special in a certain way—andit is—but there will always be room forsomebody who has the talent and perse-verance. That's become the tricky point;how do you know you have that? You don'tknow, do you?

There IsNo SubstituteFor Experience

by Roy Burns

I have several students who are quitefrustrated with their playing and theircareers, even though they are verytalented. They have all the tools, but theirown playing is still disappointing tothem.

I have also received a number of lettersthat echo the same sense of frustration.It seems, at times, that your own playingjust doesn't sound good to you, while somany other players seem to sound betterthan you do.

For all of you young drummers outthere who are experiencing thisfeeling—take heart! All young drummersmust pass through this stage at somepoint. You do not have a serious flaw; yousimply lack experience.When I was a young drummer in New

York City, I found that the most difficultthing for me to achieve was consistency. Iwould play very well one night, but anight or two later I just wouldn't be ableto get going. The feel had mysteriouslyleft me. What was so easy a couple ofnights earlier now seemed to becompletely lost.

Fortunately, I was working with manyolder players, and I sought their advice."What is wrong with me?" I asked. Inmost cases, the response was, "Relax!You just need to play more."

The answer, although sincere, seemedtoo simple. I was looking for some secretformula that would have a dramatic effecton me and my playing. I was disappointedthat no one had given me a little more togo on. "You just need to play more!"didn't seem to be enough.

Looking back, that advice couldn't havebeen better. I kept playing—at everypossible opportunity. I would go torehearsals just to play with a big band. Iwould attend jam sessions and go tonightclubs where I could sit in. I tookevery type of job—no matter what type ofmusic or what sort of money (if any) wasinvolved. Then I began to understand."There is no substitute for experience."

One of my students recently decided toenter a drum solo contest at a largemusic store in California. At his nextlesson he said to me, "Itotally choked. I started toplay, and I got so nervousthat I did everything I didn'twant to do. I really playedbadly." He was devastated,and his confidence was at areal low.

Basically his mistake wasthat he tried to playeverything he knew in fiveminutes—and he reallybotched it all up. For-tunately, there was anothercontest in about four weeks.So the first thing I did wasto put the contest intoperspective. "A five-minutedrum solo, no matter howyou play, is not going tomake or break your career.Let's regroup and decidehow to approach the nextcontest."

I told him, "To beginwith, you now have someexperience with the sit-uation. That is a benefit.Now let's figure out a solothat has some form, but stillleaves room for improv-isation. Select some of your best grooves,and don't try to play everything you know.Picture ahead of time what you aregenerally going to do. Play the solo inyour mind. Don't memorize it—just playwithin the form you have set up foryourself. And most of all, go have somefun! It's not the end of the world."

Well, I am pleased to say that heactually won the next contest. He alsowon the following contest, and later thisyear will perform in the "finals" for somebig prizes.

The point of the story is that allexperience, whether positive or negative,can be helpful—if you learn somethingfrom it. However, if you are too frustratedor discouraged to try, no learning ispossible.

You really can't practice playing. Theonly way to improve your playing is by

playing. This is why somedrummers play well eventhough they have had verylittle training. Contrary tosome people's opinions, itis not the lack of drumlessons that makes themgood. It is all the playingthey have done. Now, if youhave both studied anddone a lot of playing,chances are that you willbe an even better player.Naturally, we don't all havethe same amount of talentor the same opportunitiesto study, play, and learn.But in order to play well,you simply must do a lot ofplaying. This is the onlyway to break through thefrustration phase that allyoung drummers gothrough. If you do notget—or create—the oppor-tunity to play a lot duringthis phase, the chances arethat you will never reachyour potential.

The key word is"experience." You must

get out of the house and play. You mustget out and hear other players. Practicingand taking lessons are great ways to learn,but you must play in order to developyour skills. Remember, "There is nosubstitute for experience." Go for it!

"I took every

type of

job—no

matter what

type of music

or money was

involved.

Then Ibegan to

understand."

of the stage to take a bow, and I wasstanding next to Susan Maughan. Ithought, "Hey great! This is showbiz!"Here I was, a 19-year-old kid fromLancashire who "should have had a tradein his hands," and I was standing on aconcert platform in London looking downa glamorous singer's cleavage! [laughs]

Then the original drummer in theHollies left, and I was invited to join.That was in 1963, when the whole musicthing was really starting to take off, and Ibecame a member of the Hollies.SG: The Hollies came from the samepart of the world as you, and Tony Hickswas already a member, but did youalready see their potential as beingstronger than that of the Fentones?BE: Tony and I were almost family, sothere was a strong bond there. But yes, Iwas very keen to join the Hollies. I couldhear what I could do for them. They hada lot to offer me, and I had a lot to offerthem. There had been quite a few bandsaround for a while that consisted of asinger and a backing band, like Cliff

Richard & the Shadows. Shane Fenton &the Fentones were in this category too,but the Hollies belonged to the new waveof bands who used strong harmony vocalsas a cornerstone of their sound. Theywere a very exciting band. It was a veryexciting time.SG: Listening to those early Holliesrecords from '63 and '64, you werealready showing a maturity of taste and anindividuality of style that seemed to belacking from most of the drummers insimilar bands at the time. Can youexplain this?BE: Well, I had listened to a lot of jazz,and I'd had experience playing it. I hadalso played in a big band, which requireddiscipline. But I also liked rock, and I feltthat often it wasn't getting the drummingit deserved. Okay, you would get the purerock 'n' roll with the straight backbeat,which was fine, but I didn't just want tobe a pulse. I wanted to be up there build-ing frameworks and enhancing what wasgoing on. My experience prior to theHollies had given me all the ingredients,so that when I joined them I was able toput it all together. It was as if it wasmeant to be.

SG: Were you given confidence by theother guys and the producer?BE: On the whole, yes, although RonRichards, the producer, did occasionallytell me to simplify things. I quicklylearned to knuckle under more in thestudio. It wasn't like playing live. Therewas more to consider: Keeping good timebecame more important, playing consis-tent hits on the drums. More control wasneeded. We used to be pretty wild live,but we found that we had to curb it a bitin the studio. It took time for me to getinto the habit of really laying it down. Asyou get older you appreciate the value ofunderplaying. But I wouldn't changemuch of what I did in those days, becauseit is an expression of what was happeningmusically at the time, and chronicles megrowing up as a person. What you hear onthe drums is the story of my life, from '63up to now.SG: When you play '60s numbers in yourconcerts these days, do you reproduce theoriginal drum parts?BE: In places, yes. Like in "LookThrough Any Window," I do the fills andphrasing very much like the original. Butthat's mainly because it's "show-off

time." If I re-recorded it, though, Iwouldn't do it in the same way. I'd under-play rather than overplay. Otherwise,when I'm on stage I'm there to enjoymyself. I like to surprise the band, do theunexpected, but ultimately coax the bestpossible performances from all con-cerned.

You must remember that with thoseearly records we were playing onto quar-ter-inch tape—two-track. You'd go intothe studio and perform the number withthe whole band together. There was noneof this spending months in the studioconstructing things in layers. The Beatlesrecorded their first album in one day, andI think the Hollies took about the sameamount of time with theirs. There wassometimes the option of double-trackinga vocal, but apart from that we didn't useoverdubs. The early albums from most ofthe northern bands tended to be theirstage show. We all did a lot of AmericanR&B numbers. The trick was to find agood one and record it before someoneelse did. But if there was a shortage ofmaterial, it was an incentive to write ourown songs.

I remember getting into miking up thedrums in the studio very early on. Thisengineer we had at EMI just didn't seemto be on the case at all. He put one mic'above the drumkit, and that would be it.And yet I'd done a radio broadcast at theBBC, and the old guy there had put oneabove the kit and one in front of the bassdrum, and the sound had been reallygood. So I asked the guy at EMI for one,and he said, [putting on a pedantic south-ern accent] "We find at EMI that we canget everything we want with one micro-phone." I said, 'Yeah, but the bass drumreally needs to come out on this number;I phrase with the vocals, you see." Hesaid, "Yes, well, I think it'll be fine." So Isaid, [with a sense of urgency in the voice]"Look, I've got my granny's curtains withme for wrapping the drums in. If I drapethem over the bass drum and we put amic' in front, we can get a really tight,clear bass drum sound." "Well," he said,"I don't know, but we're having a breaknow." So we all trooped over to the pub,then it was, "Peter, what are you having todrink?" "Thank you, I'll have a whisky-mac please." "Peter, about this bass drummic'..." "Yes, well—could I have another

whisky-mac please? Yes, Bob, I supposewe could try it." So I got the bass drummic' as well as the overhead, and I hadthe curtains over the bass drum, and thatrecord was "Stay." You can hear the bassdrum really well on it.

I was aware that when I was playing liveI needed to have everything live and ring-ing to get as much projection as possible,because we didn't mike up the drums inthose days. But when I went into the stu-dio I had to play for the studio. I was intotuning and damping for specific situa-tions right from the word go.

SG: It's interesting that you made yourmark so that people like Cozy Powell andPhil Collins now cite you as a primaryinfluence.BE: Cozy Powell, yeah. He's great, he's agood friend. Last time I went to see himplay was with Whitesnake. We were talk-ing before the show, and he said, "You'llsee that I put some of your early stuff intomy solo." I thought, "What? I never did adrum solo—not really," but when I heardhim I knew what he meant. There weresome recognizable licks that I used toplay.

While we were recording the Evolutionalbum, I got a burst appendix. The othersdidn't want to carry on without me, butfor various reasons it was necessary to getthe album completed. They used MitchMitchell, Clem Cattini, and DougieWright. Graham Nash told me that Mitchcame into the studio and said, "You'd likeme to play the way Bob would play?" andproceeded to reproduce my style. It's veryflattering when people do that.

On "Just One Look" I did a slightlyunusual bass drum pattern. There was aTV drummer in London called Frank

King, who used to do a lot of teaching. Hetold me that he had written out that bassdrum part and was teaching his studentsto play it. This made me feel a bitstrange. I've never been one for writingideas out—except if you're arranging fora band. It should be natural, it shouldcome from the heart. Perhaps it's a goodidea for teaching particular techniques,but there's something almost dishonestabout writing down a part that was origi-nally created spontaneously. It belongs aspart of the piece it was createdfor—nowhere else. My jazz background

coming out, I suppose.SG: These days it seems drum machineshave taken away much of that sort ofspontaneity.BE: Well, we're copying drum machinesnow. But I do think that for the moderndrummers, they have been a great spur.They really keep you on your toes.Compared with the early '60s, when I wasgetting it together, some of the new guysare quite frightening. They are technical-ly wonderful—and that's a good result ofdrum machines. Also, for young guys whoare learning, practicing to a drummachine is much more interesting thandoing it with a metronome.SG: Can we talk a bit about the Hollies?You are one of the few bands who "madeit" in the '63/'64 period and who havekept going with principally the same line-up. It's probably just you and the RollingStones.BE: Yes, but the Stones have had longgaps during which they would disappear,and we've never stopped working. Okay,we've had months off—sometimes a fewmonths—but we've been working consis-tently. Since we've had the Number-onewith the re-release of "He Ain't Heavy,"people have been coming up to us saying,"Great! You're back on the road again."But we never went away. Britain,Germany, Australia, the States—nothinghas ever stopped!SG: What's the secret of your longevity?BE: There are a few things that havecombined to give us longevity. Thechanges that we've had, funny enough,have spurred us on to greater things. Forinstance, Graham Nash left us onDecember 8th 1968—I rememberbecause it's my birthday—and we gotTerry Sylvester in, and he did a great job.Eventually he was singing the harmonyparts even better than Nash did. EricHaydock, our original bass player, was areally firey player. He had a lot to do withgiving those early records their excite-ment. When he left we got BernieCalvert, who wasn't such a great techni-cian on bass, but he also played piano,which gave us another dimension to useon stage—with Bernie on piano and TonyHicks switching to bass. From about '69onwards we used regular keyboard play-ers on stage and on records. Elton Johnwas on a lot of the things from that peri-

od, including "He Ain't Heavy."We've always swung towards the right

people. It's been spooky in a way, becauseeverything has always worked out.Coupled with this, we've always been ableto sniff out a good song—something thatwould work well with the Hollies' three-part harmony, something that sat justright with the overall sound. If we likedsomething we would record it.

Also there's always been a great deal ofhard work and dedication. Clarkie singshis balls off every night, and Tony spendsso much of his time making sure thatthings are just right. A lot of people justwalk on stage, plug in, and get on withit—maybe not so much the new guys, butcertainly the '60s/'70s bunch. But we'venever been like that; there's always been alot of care and attention to detail. We dofeel honored to be in the business. I thinkit goes back to the '60s, when we were abunch of northern lads who should havehad "trades in their hands" and thoughtmaybe this job wasn't going to last toolong. We had a feeling that it was all veryspecial; and we still feel that way. Whenthings are going right, it's sheer joy.There are problems sometimes: Forinstance, the other night we playedPortsmouth Guildhall, and the sound wasbloody awful. We do a series of theaterswith excellent acoustics—the overtonesare absorbed—then we come to a placewhere the sound is bouncing around allover the place and we've got no control.The audience was happy, but we weren'tbecause we knew that the sound wasn'tright. Things like that get to you.SG: I imagine that back in the '60s thesound quality was more or less irrelevant.Everybody was screaming at you, and youwere very quiet by today's standards.BE: Yes, bands were very quiet by today'sstandards. The drums weren't miked up,and we only had a bass amp and a guitaramp. Graham Nash used to strum acous-tically. I don't remember even having adecent PA system in those days. I thinkwe had a couple of Vox columns eitherside of the stage. We used to go out andtour big theaters solidly for seven or eightweeks at a time with that sort of setup. Itmust have been awful, but nobodyseemed to mind, [laughs]SG: Sticking with the "then and now"theme for a bit longer—some of your '60s

hits were very "teenage" both in style andlyrics. How do you feel about still doingthem in the'90s?BE: We still do them because we're notfools; [laughs] we know they're still want-ed. "Carrie Ann" was a very successfulrecord. Then we did "King Midas InReverse," which was a flop by our stan-dards at the time; it got to number 16 onthe singles charts, when we normallyexpected to get into the top three. SoClarkie and Nash put their heads togeth-er and said, "Let's come up with another'Carrie Ann.'" Allan's wife's name was

Jennifer, and Graham's then wife's maid-en name was Eccles. So we wrote"Jennifer Eccles," recorded it—top of thecharts. That's how easy it was in thosedays. We knew what we were doing withthose songs; we could smell money, wewere making commercial records.

It did work against us in other ways,though. I feel that the Hollies have oftenbeen looked on as an "uncool" band. Youdon't find so many drummers admittingto being influenced by Bobby Elliott as byother drummers from the '60s. And Nashhad a good deal to live down when he

joined Crosby, Stills & Nash. He used togo onstage in his kaftan and say to theaudience, "Can you imagine me with theHollies in a white suit?" while Crosby andStills were giggling with him. But dearGraham would fail to mention that it washe who had suggested that we shouldwear white suits!

We made so many successful singles,some of them about teenage memories,that it unfortunately worked against uswith the albums we made. There weresome great albums that were very well-received critically—people talk about

them as influences: Evolution, Butterfly,For Certain Because—but we neverachieved the big sales. Then we could putout a Twenty Golden Greats and it wouldgo straight to Number-one. What wewere doing on albums wasn't the same aswhat we were doing on singles. We usedthe albums for experimenting and enjoy-ing ourselves, but they never matched upto the success of the singles.SG: Was it frustration about this thatcaused Graham Nash to leave?BE: At the time the press made a bigthing about him not approving of the

Hollies Sing Dylan album, but it wasn'tas simple as that. We'd been doing"Blowin" In The Wind" with him forsome time, and it used to go very well. Wetook an orchestra on tour with us at thattime, and I used to conduct them with astick over my shoulder. It was a verypleasant time. We added "The TimesThey Are A-Changin'" to the repertoire,and that went well; so it was an obviousprogression to do a Dylan album. ThenGraham said, "I've written this thingcalled 'Marrakesh Express,'" so werecorded it. We reckoned that it was agood album track, but we decided to stickwith the idea of making a complete albumof Dylan songs. We'd been molded by ourrecent history, and we felt we had to do aDylan album, because there were ready-made songs that we could stamp ouridentity on. So we did the Dylan LP withTerry Sylvester's voice replacing Nash'son "Blowing In The Wind," and it went tothe top of the album charts. We took theeasy option, but it was the successfuloption, and it was a very enjoyable periodfor all of us.

The press tried to make out that thatwas the main reason Graham left, but itwasn't. We had worked in the States withpeople like the Mamas & the Papas andthe Buffalo Springfield, and Grahambecame particularly good friends withthem. We all did, but he was in love withAmerica. He wanted to go out there andcarve out a new life for himself.SG: You did a reunion album and tourwith him in '83.BE: That came about because of a singlecalled "Holliedaze," which was a medleyof old hits strung together with a discobeat added. There was a spate of theserecords in the U.K. at the time. You had aBeatles medley, but it wasn't the Beatles,it was a bunch of session guys fromHolland. We decided that if anybody wasgoing to do this with our songs it wasgoing to be us. So we went into AbbeyRoad, got out the original quarter-inchmasters, and edited them together by"varispeeding" individual tracks to matchthe tempos. Then I added bass drum"fours" on a Linndrum and offbeat claps,and I put in a few cymbal crashes to coverthe "joins." That's all we did, and thatwas "Holliedaze," another Top-20 hit sin-gle. We were asked to do Top Of The Pops

[a weekly chart show on British nationalTV], and they suggested that we might doit with the same guys who were on theoriginal records. So we got hold of EricHaydock and Graham, who came overfrom the States specially to do it.

The following day we were in the stu-dio recording tracks for an album, andGraham came along to have a listen. Butif there's a microphone around, Nash ison to it. [laughs] So there he was singingharmony again. We did the whole albumwith him—What Goes Around—and thatculminated in us doing an American tourwith him. It was very nice; it was good tobe working with Graham and a joy towork in the States again. Graham carriesquite a lot of "clout" over there—not justbecause of his music, but because of hiswork with the peace movement and hisinterest in the oceans of the world. Soinitially "Holliedaze" might have been arather questionable project, but it had amarvelous beneficial spin-off in this par-ticular reunion.SG: Can we talk about drums?BE: [with feigned reluctance] Oh, go onthen.

SG: You've had a few changes over theyears.BE: We talked earlier about the "mucky"Premier kit of the early days. That wastraded in for a Trixon in ruby red pearl. Iused the Trixon snare drum for a shorttime before changing it for a LudwigAerolite. I had that setup on a few of theearly Hollies recordings, including "Stay."The Trixon bass drum had a plastic headon the front, and a calfskin head on thebatter side. It gave a great cracking "DonLamond" sound. The odd thing aboutthe Trixon kit was that standard-sizedheads wouldn't fit it. They were generallyslightly bigger than the shell, so that theywould go on the drum, but the hoopwould block up the holes in the rim thatthe tension bolts passed through. Toovercome this problem, I would place thehead on the drum and the rim on thehead, and run a drill through each hole,channeling a clear passage for each ten-sion rod. A case of build your own drums!

After the Trixon, I got a Ludwig SuperClassic in silver sparkle, which I wish Istill had. It was a bass drum, hangingtom, floor tom, and a 400 snare drum. At

about that time I bought my first Paistecymbal; it was an 18" Formula 602, whichI put rivets in. That cymbal is on all theHollies records right through the '60sand into the '70s. I've still got it. I've beenusing Paiste cymbals ever since. I lovethem; they are so musical and so consis-tent in quality. I now have some of theSignature series, which are the best cym-bals I've ever heard.

The reason I didn't keep that Ludwigkit was that there was a guy from Premierwho was following me around various stu-dios, pestering me to use their gear. Thedeal was that they would give me twoPremier kits, but I had to give them myLudwig. The main Premier set I usedwas in gold sparkle, and it was quite good,but I couldn't get through to them thatthey should make a 13" tom-tom. Theywouldn't have it. They said that the 8x12and the 10x14 were what people wanted,and there was no demand for a 9x13.Every other drum company at the timewas making a 9x13, but not them.Another thing that annoyed me was thatthey used to make a flush-base hi-hatstand that used to slide around all over

the place. I didn't use this myself—I had a Rogers—but earlieron I had designed a spur to stop these things from slipping. Ithad a clamp to go around the stem and a couple of spikes point-ing forward; it worked very well. I suggested they might like tomanufacture this. They said, "Fine, we'll send it to the factoryfor them to have a look at," and that was the last I saw or heardof it. They later said that it must have gotten lost. Premier justdidn't seem interested in progressing at that time; but theylooked after me quite well. The publicity was good. I used tohave half-page ads in Melody Maker, saying, "Bobby Elliottwouldn't use anything else." [laughs]

I had a three-year deal with Premier, and when that threeyears was up in 1968,1 happened to be in Chicago. I was invitedto the Ludwig headquarters at 1728 North Damen, and that wasit—the temple of all my idols. For years I'd been looking at pic-tures of people like Joe Morello playing Ludwig, and there I wasin the factory. I became a Ludwig endorser, sporting a bluesparkle Super Classic kit. I had to leave the Premier over thereso that I could bring the Ludwigs back in the cases, but it didn'tbother me. In 1970 I got another Super Classic kit. This one hadtwo rack toms: a 9x13 and a 10x14, with a 16x16 floor tom. I'vestill got that kit; it's lovely. The only slightly disappointing thingabout it is that it was made just after they changed the badge tothat '70s design. I much prefer the old badge.

My fourth Ludwig kit, which I got in '78, was in natural maplewith a full set of concert toms and a 16x18 floor tom. Therewere two Black Beauty snare drums: a 5 1/2" and a 6 1/2". I wasusing a 6 1/2" Super Sensitive on records. I love those drums, andI've still got them, but I changed to Remo about three years ago,

when [Kinks drummer] Bob Henrit persuaded me to try them.I'm very pleased with them.SG: What qualities do you look for in drums?BE: I like the "stinging" quality in my Remo toms. They arerather like timbales, with that sort of cut. I like a cutting qualityin a drum sound; it gives you penetration. I think it goes back tothe early days when you had to fight to be heard.SG: Do you do much practicing?BE: Not as much as I should. Actually I've never been one topractice for long periods. When there's a tour coming up, I'll setup some stuff in the barn and play a bit to make sure I can stilldo it. When I'm at home, not working with the Hollies, I'll sit inwith local bands, or play in local jazz clubs. They know me andthey know that they can call on me if their regular drummer isoff for any reason. I find that stimulating. I get almost as ner-vous doing that as I do when I'm playing with the Hollies. I findit quite a challenge to do a gig when I don't know what the hellI'm going to be playing.SG: When you say that you get nervous playing with the Hollies,this must be adrenaline rather than nerves, correct?BE: I think the two are connected. When you know that some-thing's coming up and you have got to be in form and deliver thegoods, your body reacts. I think it's a mixture of nerves,adrenaline, and perhaps self-doubt. Sometimes you do a fantas-tic show and you think, "That was great!" Then the followingday when there's another show coming up, you start to worryand say, "Can I do that again?"SG: Without wishing to be rude or unkind, you've been doing itso long that you might be expected to be almost blase about it.

BE: No, we are very aware of our respon-sibilities as performers. Clarkie still getsvery nervous; there was a time when hewould be almost physically sick before hewent on stage. I think you grow into thesituation as a tour progresses. You sweat alot at the beginning and then you get intoit. I enjoy the tension. When I'm notworking I miss it. The normal timecomes to play and you get restless. I can'tjust go into the barn and play; thatdoesn't do any good. It's like sufferingfrom withdrawal. On the other hand,when you're in the middle of a toughtour, you look forward to a night off.SG: You said that your influences helpedyou form your style in the early days. Doyou still have influences who might affectyour playing?BE: Oh, yes. I'm very interested in thenew kids like Vinnie Colaiuta and SonnyEmory, but I haven't actually seen themplay. I did get to see Ricky Lawson do aclinic in Liverpool, and I was knocked outby him. He's such a powerhouse drum-mer. I can see why all the big names likeMichael Jackson want him behind thedrums. Yeah, I'm still inspired by greatplayers that I see and hear; but I don't goaround looking for new licks that I mightuse to make the Hollies sound different;it isn't as blatant as that.SG: You seem to have maintained afreshness over the years. Are you aware ofany stimuli that helps with this?BE: It's sheer enjoyment coupled withloyalty to the Hollies. There has been astrong bond over the years, particularlybetween Tony Hicks and myself. Therehave been "ifs." I used to be offered stu-dio work, which I hardly ever took—partlybecause my equipment was always in theback of a van somewhere—but mostlybecause the Hollies have always workedso hard, and I wanted to give all my ener-gies to the band. If I had branched out,things might have happened differently,but I believe that the loyalty would haveremained.

It's a great musical adventure, one thatI feel privileged to be part of. As I oftensay, it's a boyhood dream cometrue—playing rock 'n' roll and gettingpaid for it! Come to think of it, maybe I'mlike my father the master cabinet-makerafter all—a craftsman working with wood.

Fast Clamps, which have completelyreplaceable parts all the way through.RVH: The clamps in most other racksystems are of a prismatic design so thatthey can accommodate a wide range ofsizes without having to change clamps.The Collarlock system employs a differ-ent clamp for each different size accesso-ry. Why did you choose what appears tobe a much more complicated system?MG: There are two basic types of clamp-ing designs: the prism clamp and the cir-cular split clamp. If you look in anymechanical textbook, you'll see that theprism clamp was originally designed forclamping solids. On a solid part, you can'tdamage the item that you're clampingbecause it's a solid piece of material. Theprism clamp was originally used in metalworkshops, where you had vises that hadto clamp a great variety of sizes of materi-al.

The circular split clamp design wasoriginally created for clamping tubing.With anything that is tubular in nature,

you have to clamp 360° around the part sothat you don't crush or dent it from thepressure—as would happen with a prismclamp. We decided to stay with the circu-lar split clamp design primarily for thisreason.

The other disadvantage to a prismclamp is that the flat surfaces of theprism meet the circumference of the tub-ing at only four points. This not only hasthe potential for denting, but doesn'toffer maximum grip strength, which canlead to slipping. With the circular splitclamp design, you have surface-to-sur-face contact 360° around the tubing,thereby gaining maximum grip strength.

Some people do a variation on the splitclamp design, where they hinge one sideof it and apply pressure just from theopposite side. That doesn't create thesame type of clamping action as a splitclamp, which you are clamping from bothsides of the circle. With that you canapply more even pressure all the wayaround the tube, and have less risk ofslippage than with a hinge design, whereyou're clamping all on one side.RVH: When the Collarlock ad appeared

in Modern Drummer around 1982, the concept seemed toinvolve clamping a horizontal bar on a drummer's existing cym-bal stands. Is that how the system began?MG: Actually our very first racks were all free-standing; wedidn't make anything that attached to cymbal stands. The origi-nal rack we made for Rocket Norton was basically the Collarlocksystem that went into mass production in 1982, and it had free-standing legs. The cymbal-stand idea came afterwards, in aneffort to offer something to drummers who already had a sub-stantial investment in hardware and/or were still pretty tradi-tional-stand oriented.RVH: It wasn't until 1983 that we saw an ad for a Collarlock sys-tem that involved legs and was self-supporting. By that time,both Pearl's and Tama's racks had come on the market—both ofwhich became very big sellers. How did that affect Collarlock?MG: The proliferation of other racks helped me tremendously.When Tama, in particular, started running their first ad, mysales quadrupled. They brought the idea of the rack system tothe public in a very big way. And since I was the only other com-pany at the time offering a similar type of rack made out of cir-cular tubing, I got all the additional sales to people who didn'twant to have Tama equipment with their particular brand ofdrums. I was the only generic brand out there, so people wouldbuy my stuff because it had no particular name. They weren'tmixing Pearl with Yamaha, or Tama with Pearl. That may not beso much of a problem now, but at one point in time drummersseemed to want to keep their sets a little more consistent.RVH: Where would you place the popularity of the rack concept

now—as opposed to traditional stands? Is it mainly somethingfor professionals, or do you also see interest from less-experi-enced players?MG: Many people think that racks are only for high-level proswith enormous kits, but I actually find that I'm probably sellingmore systems for your typical five-piece kit with two mountedtoms over the bass drum than just about anything. Our CBS 21,which simply stands for "Collarlock Bar System, two toms overone bass," is our most popular system. Kids are coming intomusic stores and saying, "I want a drumset and I want a racksystem with it." We sell all kinds of systems with the TamaRockstar and Pearl Export kits, because kids have gotten so con-ditioned to seeing drumsets with racks now. It seems everyadvertiser is doing it, and all the bands on videos have rack sys-tems. It's part of the image.RVH: To some less image-conscious drummers it might seemthat a rack system is impractical for a small kit.MG: Well, of course, once you start with a rack, you can alwaysadd to it. That's a benefit. But there is also a comfort factor,even on a smaller kit. If you're talking about a small kit withlightweight stands and just a couple of small cymbals, then arack system would actually be bulkier and there would be noth-ing gained. However, if a drummer is going to play a four- orfive-piece kit with massive, double-braced stands that weigh 13or 14 pounds each, then a bar system—even to replace one tommount and two straight cymbal stands—becomes not only com-fortable and practical, but lighter in weight.

And when it comes to mounting toms, I think the popularity

of racks is partly due to the influence ofRIMS. People are trying to get the hard-ware off of the drumshell more. Whyshould the bass drum be saddled witheverything? By the time you attach twotoms and your ride and your splash cym-bal to it, it's just become a cylindricalplatform for holding hardware. If you'regoing to spend your money on RIMSmounts for your toms, why shouldn't youfree up your bass drum too?

Most of the features of our system aresimply based on common sense. I reallydon't take credit for coming up with any-thing original. Anything that we're mak-ing is used somewhere in some otherindustry. All we've done is bring it to themusic industry.RVH: So you don't consider yourself somuch an "innovator" as an "adapter."MG: Right. And that's what my productis. It adapts to everything. We make

adapters for everybody's drum brackets,we make clamps to accommodate every-body's different cymbal and mic' arms,and everything else.

I guess we have brought a few innova-tions to rack systems, though. One ofthose is the Bar Connector that we man-ufacture. It's the only one on the marketthat allows you to create a framework—inwhatever shape you can imagine—all onone level. With anybody else's system, ifyou want to create a different shape offrame, you have to have the bars at differ-ent tiers where they meet—and there hasto be a vertical support leg at that point.But our Bar Connector can bend withoutthere being a vertical support at that spot.It's designed in five-degree increments,which is much more refined than anydrummer would ever require.RVH: Playing devil's advocate for amoment: I use a rack system, in essen-tially a rectangular configuration. I'venever had any particular feeling that Ineeded to bend or redirect any of the barsat their midpoints.MG: It's more of an aesthetic thing. Youcan generally get your drums in the posi-tions you want with a rectangular rack,but one may end up having to overhangthe bar further than another. With ourBar Connector, you can create a framethat conforms to the way you want yourdrums to mold around you. Also, the wayto avoid drums slipping is to keep theirfulcrum points as close to the bar as pos-sible. Keeping the rack tight and thedrums in close to the player helps to dothat.RVH: One criticism I have heard aboutrack systems is that when the drums arehit hard, the whole thing starts bouncing.But part of that may be that they areabusing certain principles of physics,which they could easily avoid doing.MG: I can't tell you how many times I'vewanted to say that in an ad in some formor another. Rikki Rockett plays a doublebass drum configuration with two toms inthe center, and refuses to have a centersupport. He wants the toms to move upand down like a trampoline. He loves thelook of it. It makes it look like he's hittingwith so much power that he's just bounc-ing those drums around.

To maximize the savings in weight aCollarlock system can offer over tradi-

tional stands—or other rack systems—wehave the only vertical leg supports forholding up rack systems that actuallyincorporate cymbal stands into them. Wefound that a lot of people were puttingcymbals at the corners of their racks,where the vertical supports were. Whyhave a clamp holding a cymbal boomright beside another clamp that's con-necting the crossbar to the support? Whynot just do it all in one? And if you addtwo clamps and two L-arms, you can sus-pend your tom-toms. If you were usinganother rack manufacturer's product,doing exactly the same thing wouldrequire two more clamps with cymbalarms coming out of them. So you wouldactually have more equipment and moreweight. So that's why we did that. It's aunique feature we haven't had copied yet.Of course, somebody will read this articleand say, "We'd better start offering thatfeature." [laughs]

There's another interesting thing that Ithink every company missed the boaton—although it was the simplest thing inthe world and something that we'vealways had. We have always scribed height

lines on our vertical tubes—every twoinches—so that whenever you set up, inwhatever configuration, you can alwaysuse those lines as a ruler; you don't haveto get out a level or a yardstick and mea-sure to make sure that both ends of thebars were the same distance off theground. It makes setting up your kit thefirst time a lot faster.RVH: You mentioned that you haveclamps for every size of accessory. Does

that include memory clamps?MG: Yes, and I guess that's anotherinnovation we've made, because we're theonly ones who do that. Other manufac-turers only offer memory clamps to fittheir own rack tubing. If it doesn't fitwhatever you have, it can't memorize thepart. And when a drummer uses thememory clamp that comes with theaccessory part, it only memorizes height.It can't memorize angle, because it has

no way of mating with the rack clamp.We've always had memory clamps forevery single size since the very begin-ning.

I really feel that the greatest asset of arack system is its potential. It's really nicefor adding accessories on, even if youstart out with that little two-tom set.Suppose you want to add a splash cymbalor some sort of electronic trigger in frontof you. If you have a bar system, it's easy:your mounting spot is right there. Youdon't have to worry about buying a newstand and finding a place to fit it into yoursetup—not to mention your trap case.Another thing that I've turned a num-

ber of people onto in my local market isusing legless hi-hat stands attached tothe rack system. I find it just fabulous tohave my hi-hat stay exactly where I wantit all the time. And you don't necessarilyneed a rack system to accomplish this.You can use two clamps and a straight barto attach the hi-hat to one of your cymbalstands. With the two stands locked toeach other, they won't "walk" any-

more—and you don't need a tripod onboth of them to do it.RVH: In this day and age, with traditionalhardware being the size and weight it is,it's hard to think of any disadvantage thata rack system might have vs. all of thevarious advantages it offers. I assume youfeel the same way or else you wouldn't bein this line of work.MG: Our original concept was stated onour first brochure: Our system memo-rizes the heights between all your things,the distances between all your things, andthe angles between all your things. Wecover all three bases in order to offercomplete memorization of your drumset.You could put it together blindfolded.

Editor's note: As we went to press,Mark Gauthier informed us that the legsfor Collarlock's Bar Systems had under-gone a major redesign. The T-shapedlegs—with a square, horizontal membersitting flush to the floor and an oversizedkey screw to facilitate its assembly—had

been discontinued, in favor of a folding A-frame design (involving l 1/2" tubular steelmain supports and polycarbonate hinges)available in either fixed-height or tele-scoping models. Both of these modelsincorporate height lines every 2" and canaccommodate a 7/8" diameter cymbalboom arm by means of a telescopic con-nector. The T-shaped legs will be avail-able only as special-order items for indi-viduals who already own Collarlock BarSystems of that design.

Brazilian cultural center. A lot of people used the studio forrehearsals—people like Gerry Mulligan, Art Blakey, McCoyTyner, Slide Hampton, and Olatunji. But then we started to haveproblems with the neighbors about the noise and the number ofpeople there after a certain time of the night. On Sundays wewould have jam sessions and an afternoon feijoada [black beanstew]. I would like to open another studio, but nowadays that's amuch more expensive proposition. I just organized a BlackBeans Revival over at Cuando, a club on the Lower East Side.All the Brazilian artists living in New York participated, fromAntonio Carlos Jobim, to Tania Maria, to Astrud Gilberto...thelist just went on. There's no way any promoter could possiblyhave assembled this all-star cast at one place for one continuousshow. The turn-out was simply amazing! Unfortunately, notenough money was collected in order to re-establish the BlackBeans again.FC: You have released three albums as a leader, right?DUR: Yes: Dom Um Romdo, on Muse Records, and Spirit OfThe Times and Hotmosphere, on Pablo Records. I've been awayfrom the recording scene for a while now—I guess in partbecause of some dissatisfaction with the financial outcome ofthose projects. But now I'm ready to go back into the studio andput together another album with the group that I'm workingwith. The concept will be more towards reaching down into myBrazilian roots again. And there will be no electronic instru-ments on this record!

FC: You say this with a certain emphasis, as if you were not toofriendly towards these instruments.DUR: You're right. I don't like these new drum machines andall these sampling machines that exist now. These machines aretaking away jobs from musicians, and that is not right. It's ashame, because people's ears have become machine-oriented,and so now musicians have to learn how to program thesemachines or else learn how to play so that they sound like amachine. There used to be more recording where everythingwas done "live," while now human participation is down to abare minimum. It's not just percussionists and drummers whoare affected, either. I know a lot of different musicians who areall going through changes because of this situation. So on mynext album every instrument has to be acoustic. I don't want anymachines playing on this album. If I could set fire to all the elec-tronic instruments, I think I would. [laughs]FC: What would your advice be for today's youth, as far as mov-ing forward in their pursuit of musical realization?DUR: I would advise them to listen to and study the old mas-ters—like Bela Bartok and Hector Villalobos—and rememberthat music came first from the Indians putting their ears to theground listening for sounds of communications, and from theAfricans' message-sending drums. We should always rememberthis. Beware of technology taking over your life. You mustremain in direct contact with your instrument in its purestform.

PEARL SNARESAND HARDWAREPearl has added a solid-brass, hand-ham-mered snare drum to its Custom Classicsnare drum line. The drum utilizes tenbrass-plated "bridge-type" lug casingsand features solid 2.0mm Super Hoops,an adjustable S-012 strainer, and gold-plated, high-carbon steel snare wire. The100% solid brass shell is totally hand-

Pearl's new solid-brass

Custom Classic snare drum.

crafted, and is only available in a 6 1/2 x l4size. The drum is also available with allchrome-plated hardware. Pearl has alsointroduced a new 3 x 13 Soprano Piccolosnare drum, available in brass and maple.

Pearl's new H-880 hi-hat stand hasbeen introduced with a newly designeddouble chain-drive foot board and Pearl'sPivoting Chain Channel Roller PulleySystem. The Pulley System allows thepull rod to be completely independentfrom the foot board motion, thus elimi-nating any unnecessary friction.According to Pearl, the binding of thepull rod is completely eliminated, result-ing in a smoother response. The H-880 isalso equipped with a new multi-position-able tripod base, and allows full controlover pedal angle adjustments.

In the bass drum pedal department,Pearl has added a full-length, solid steelbase plate and two anchor screws to its P-880 bass drum pedal for more stability.The new pedal has been dubbed the P-

880P. Pearl International, Inc., POBox 111240, Nashville, TN 37211,(615) 833-4477.

REMO PHOTO FINISHDRUMS AND DYNAMOSRemo, Inc. has formed a Percussion Artsdivision to develop and market advancedtechnology that can reproduce pho-tographs, logos, and design art from vir-tually any source onto drum coveringsand drumheads. To illustrate the tech-nology, Remo has introduced limited-edi-tion drumsets featuring full-color photo-graphic reproductions of exotic cars onthe drum covering, and is making tam-bourines and drumheads with cus-tomized photo images.

The drumsets are available in fivedesigns, each featuring images of anexotic car on Quadura drum coveringmaterial. No more than 250 sets of each

design will be offered for export. Eachdrumset will be made to order in any ofRemo's Encore or MasterTouch models,and will be priced 20% above the regularsuggested retail price.

Remo's decorative tambourines anddrumheads can incorporate high-qualityreproductions of school logos, photo-graphic portraits in color or black andwhite, or special designs. Customizeddrumset coverings are also offered.

Remo has also introduced theirDynamOs, adhesive-backed decorativerings designed to help cut precise, circu-lar air-holes in the front heads of bassdrums. DynamOs come in sets of threesizes, and are available in black or white.Remo, Inc., 12804 Raymer St., No.Hollywood, CA 91605, (818) 983-2600.

IP RIDGE RIDERLP's Ridge Rider is a molded piece ofspecially formulated plastic that is firmly

riveted to cowbells, conforming to theshape of the bell and creating a strikingedge more conducive to the pounding ofthe drumset player. According to LP, theRidge Rider also eliminates the need fortaping up a cowbell to reduce overtones.In addition, LP has redesigned their cow-bell's mounting system. The new designfeatures a drop-forged floating capturedevice, enabling the cowbell to be firmlyanchored to a 3/8" shaft with only hand-tightening. Latin Percussion, Inc., 160Belmont Ave., Garfield, NJ 07026.

VELLUM &PARCHMENT WORKSCALFSKIN HEADSVellum & Parchment Works, Ltd., succes-sors to one of the oldest established vel-lum and drum skin manufacturers, N.Elzas & Zonen, Ltd., are the makers ofKalfo Super Timpani drum skins. Inaddition to timpani heads, the companyoffers other transparent and white calf-skins under the Velvet line, which areespecially popular for marching drums,according to the company. The makersalso state that due to increased demandfor "natural sounds," the prices of theircalfskins have been reduced to encourageyoung professionals and amateur percus-sionists to try out calfskin heads. Vellum& Parchment Works guarantees that allcalfskins used in their tannery are fromanimals that died naturally or were casu-

alties, since these are the only types thatwill produce the sound and structure thecompany requires for their products.Vellum & Parchment Works, Ltd., POBox 1, Celbridge, Co. Kildare,Ireland, tel: (01) 628-8270, fax: (01)627-3319.

NEW CANNONSNARES AND SETSCannon Percussion has introduced theirnew Mega series drumsets. Mega seriessets feature power depths, maple/mahogany shells, heavy-duty mounts andspurs, hardware and head upgrades, add-on drums, and, according to Cannon, lowprices. Also available from Cannon aretheir Howitzer 11 snare drums, whichfeature die-cast hoops, maple/mahoganyshells, and hand-rubbed finishes andbearing edges, and are available in mapleor rosewood finishes. Available plastic-

covered finishes are black, white, red,blue, silver, or chrome. The drums comein depths of 4 1/2", 6 1/2", and 8". Univer-sal Percussion, Inc., 2773 E. Midloth-ian Blvd., Struthers, OH 44471, (216)755-6423.

ABEL STIXFor drummers seeking something differ-ent in the visual department, Abel Stixmay be just the thing. Hand-made ofdurable polycarbonate material and

rounded at both ends to form a double-butted 16" stick, Abel Stix may be filledwith a chemical light insert in a variety ofcolors. The chemical reaction causes theentire stick to glow with a colored lightsaid to last up to six hours.

Because they are the same at bothends, the sticks are balanced perfectly fortwirling, tossing, and other stage tricks.According to the manufacturers, thesticks also offer additional power and vol-ume on drums and cymbals. JTA Prod-ucts, 17 Santa Cruz Way, Camarillo,CA 93010, (805) 987-8124.

D&F SURE GRIPD&F Products offers Sure Grip cushiondrumstick sleeves. According to the mak-ers, Sure Grip eliminates stick vibrationsto the arms, provides a better grip onsticks, makes difficult stick manipula-tions easier, and reduces arm fatigue.Sure Grip can also be cleaned with soap

and water and transferred to new sticks.D&F Products, Inc. 6735 Hidden HillsDr., Cincinnati, OH 45230, (513) 232-4972.

IMPACT SIGNATUREDRUM BAGSImpact now offers top-of-the-lineSignature drum bags made of rip-stopvinyl. The bags are fully padded with 1/2"foam, and are internally covered with afleece lining. All zippers are high-strength YKK, and carrying straps are500# burst strength and come standardwith the soft grip Impact handle.According to Impact, the advantage ofrip-stop vinyl is that it is waterproof andcan easily be cleaned with water orArmorall, which returns the exterior to alike-new condition. All cymbal bags haveshoulder carrying straps. Hardware bagsare constructed of double-layer vinyl and

are available in 36", 48", 54", and 74"sizes. An eight-pair stick caddy is alsoavailable to complement the entire line.Impact Industries, Inc., 333 PlumerSt., Wausau, WI54401, (715) 842-1651.

AC-CETERARUBBER-NECKAc-cetera's patented Rubber-Neck"bendable" microphone arm features asmooth, non-glare black finish, and fea-tures "no creak" technology, according to

its makers. It comes in various lengths,and is ideal for goose-neck applications,but can be easily adapted to overheadmic' situations. Ac-cetera, Inc, 3120Banksville Road, Pittsburgh, PA15216, tel: (800) 537-3491, fax: (412)344-0818.

SLINGERLAND/HSSCORRECTIONA New And Notable item in the AugustMD regarding improvements to Slinger-land Spirit kits gave an incorrect phonenumber for the distributor, HSS, Inc.The correct number is (804) 550-2700.

WILLIAMCALHOUN

A Modern Drummer Exclusive:Simon Phillips Sound Supplement

Photo fay Lissa Wales

PLUS:TONY BRAUNAGEL

THE DRUMMERSOF JETHRO TULL

Columns byEmil RichardsJoe MorelloWill KennedyCasey Scheuerell

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Abel Stix/J.TA. ProductsABK RocksAcupad/Hart Systems, Inc.AKG AcousticAtlanta Pro PercussionBerklee College of MusicBrady DrumsCalato/Regal TipCana * SonicCappella DrumsticksCorder Drum CompanyDCI Music VideoddrumDrum • Baffle/Skyline Musical Prod.Drum DoctorsDrum WorkshopDrummers CollectiveDrums on SaleDrumStixEvans ProductsFalicon DesignFCN MusicGary Chaffee/CPP-Belwin, Inc.Geddit?Gibraltar/Kaman Music Corp.Glenn Weber Drum StudioGretschImperialIsland CasesJemm CompanyJohn Shearer's Talking DrumsKAT, Inc.L.T. Lug LockLatin Percussion, Inc.Ludwig IndustriesManny's Music StoreMapex PercussionMartin BradfieldMD Back Issue ClearanceMD Equipment AnnualMD & Paiste Trivia ContestMD SubsriptionsModern DrummerWear

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