I had a drummer watch me play my entire set the other
night. This was at a rehearsal, and I
have known this drummer for over 30 years.
Still, it can be a bit unnerving to have a colleague watch you work,
staring at your every move. We were kids
when we met, and he didn’t play drums at the time. Soon after, he started playing music, and
that meant we would most likely never be in a band together. After all, how many bands have two guys on
the drums at the same time? Watching him
watch me, took me back to the night that he broke some of my drum gear.
I do recall that night where I lent him my kit. Their band opened for ours. When they
finished their show, I noticed that he had broken my ride cymbal, and my drum
pedal. $400 dollars damage, to be exact,
and there was no way he could afford to pay me back. That’s when I learned the lesson
that most drummers should know without it costing them money. “Do not lend out your snare, cymbals, or drum
pedals.” Why? Because, those items are the ones that receive so much force and
pounding from drummers. You reduce the
risk of that drummer breaking something when you eliminate those items from the
“lend out” mix. Rarely do I break that
rule. Sure, someone can ruin the skins
on your toms, but that risk is pretty low.
My current Milwaukee band played a show last month in a very
tiny club. The place was so small that
it was vital that both bands use one drum kit.
I lent the “opener” my drums, but kept my rule, mostly. He used my drum pedal, and my sticks. (What
drummer comes to a show without sticks? A bass player that was forced into
playing drums for a few gigs, that's who.)
This guy was a light touch on the drums, and it was amusing
to watch him play. When he hit the
skins, he looked “like someone doing a dog paddle, while sitting upright.” He had obviously taught himself how to play.
It almost worked. Sadly, the band had
some talented members, but the drummer dragged the whole thing down a notch or
two. So did this guy break anything? No. What he did do was totally rearrange
my drum kit, and that’s also a huge pain in the butt.
In a previous post, I mentioned that I’m an open handed drummer. For me, that means my ride cymbals are placed in the opposite spots
where most right handed drummers would have them. That also means that my
second rack tom is usually taken down if another drummer uses my kit. That’s where they tend to put the ride
cymbal. Not only did this “dog paddling
drummer” put his ride over there, but he pulled apart the tom holders and repositioned
the rest of the kit to his liking. What
does that mean to me? It means that it’s going to take just as long to get the
kit back to the way I like it, as compared to having that drummer bring up his
own drums and strike them after they are finished. I forgot about that, and it
took 15 minutes for me to get my kit back in place, about 10 minutes longer
than it should take to do a set change.
So that’s lesson number two. Avoid lending out a drum kit,
if the first person using it is going to completely dismantle the darn thing! This
brings me to another point. If the
opening band’s drummer plays a modified drum set, where half of the kit is set
up for left hand drumming, and the other half is set for a right handed drummer,
let that person use their own kit. My
old band opened for a (crappy) cover band back in 2009, and the club owner
insisted that all the drummers on the bill use the house kit. When I explained that it would take longer
for me to rearrange that house kit to my liking, compared to letting me bring
my kit up for our set, he said no. So
there I was, after my set, watching the next drummer fiddle with all the stands
and toms. He was not happy. I had no
problems, because we were first on the bill, so the kit was a mess for the next
guy, not me.
Finally, have you ever played someone else’s drums and that
drummer told you that you couldn’t arrange them to your liking? I did.
Way back in the 1980’s we were opening for a pretty big local act. Their drummer didn’t want to break his kit
down, and there was only room for one set on the riser, with no room in front. He insisted that I use his kit, but I couldn’t
change anything. That meant that I
couldn’t even move the stupid Roto-Toms that he had in place of rack toms! The
ride was on the right, opposite of how I play, and the snare was nearly
impossible to adjust to my desired height. It was possibly my worst night of
drumming in a long time. When it was
over, he came up to me and gave me one of those “good show kid” compliments. I often wonder if he did that just to make
sure that he was the better sounding drummer for the evening. After all, the
band took over 30 minutes to get up and play after we finished. What was the
point of making me play his drums, if there was all the time in the world to
strike my kit? It was to make me look
bad. (I’m kidding here.) By the way,
that drummer who watched me play, we did end up in a band together. It was a “four drummer” band.
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