I've got the head through double-quick... I won't have a chance to skin up the Premier Elite until tomorrow night. I'm scouring Ebay for a Premier Elite 20" drum. Preferably in chromatic red, but not essential. A twenty inch Premier bass drum isn't essential either I suppose, but is a long term project.
Dusted off my red Premier Elite 22" x 14" bass drum last night. When I took it off the shelf it didn't look too big. When I put it down in the living room it looked enormous! Then after ten minutes it started to look normal sized again. I'm so used to using a 20" x 8" that everything looks big! I've a batter head on order so I can make the drum gig worthy, although I think I would prefer a 20" x 14".
A crop of vintage nineteen sixties Harmony guitars were on display Saturday night at The Pub in Leicester city centre... All played by Al Sansome with Mojo Hand. Very nice sound. This has made me eager to take stock of my own drums and sell off the surplus. I want to keep my Traps, Rhythm Traveler and Premier Elite. The rest need selling. That's the Premier Black Shadows; Premier concert toms; DW power tom; Pearl toms. The 'Shads' are worth actual money as they are collectable - they've kept their value and even increased in some cases. The others... who knows and in a way, who cares. I need the space - I'm consolidating. I've earnt my money back on a few of them, the concert toms are probably the least used... Anyway, I could start on the Ebay route, but would prefer word of mouth. Or the local paper. Or music store. I don't expect to make much money but don't want to just give the drums away either. One definate action - I have to photograph everything first.
Carrying a pocket book of manuscript paper is really handy. When I want to explore a musical idea all I need is a pen and I can note the idea down then try some variations. For example, Mojo Hand have been playing some new songs with a Ska/shuffle flavour, some original, some traditional. They all swing but have the characteristic guitar skank of ska and reggae. The traditional ska rhythm is a shuffle with the bass drum and cross-stick played together on the backbeat (called the 'one-drop), with the hi-hats played open for the most part and closed on the backbeat. I wondered what a beat combining the swing cymbal pattern and the one drop would be like, so I wrote it out. Its not two disimilar to the regular one-drop shuffle and when the swing open hi-hat is added the beat becomes a lovely combination of the two ideas. A back shuffle played one-drop style would be very unusual but sound cool. The snare drum strokes would nicely match the off-beat guitar skanks. Worth trying o!
ut.
I've used a Behringer Ultravoice vocal mic for three or four years. They were recommended to me by Neil Haywood of Top Secret - high quality sound, robust construction but very cheap. Remarkably so. Now everybody wants one, first Mick Ridgway now Bob Dayfield. And I, the drummer, am their 'dealer'! Actually I'm the Ebay savvy one who can get the best prices, under twenty pounds.
The addition of the crash ride to my set was marked this weekend. It made a huge difference to the sound of Blues Demons, giving the band a fuller sound. A regular kit helped too, although I will continue to use the Traps Drums due to their space-saving dimensions. We usually like to fit three band members in one car, so small size is essential.
Adding a crash ride to my mini-kit proved a hit from the first song. The Dezerters were at The Criterion, our first gig this year. Mojo Hand keeps us very busy and if you add Blues Demons to the mix there's little time for much else. I used a Paiste 502 crash ride - through accident not design - which proved a surprisingly nice addition to the set. Although not a 2002 by any means, the cymbal is great value pound for pound. Most crash rides are good as one thing but not the other, but the 502 would make a great addition to any kit. Even mine! The more I play these days the more I find myself gravitate to my original setup back in the day - 20" bass, 14" snare, 12" tom, all classic depths, with a hi-hat and crash ride. The big difference would be Paiste cymbals and Premier drums. We'll see how this proceeds.
After a fairly light month with only one gig each Friday night, I've three gigs this weekend, one tonight and two tomorrow. Looking forward to using my crash ride again, which I've dusted off to try with my mini-kit. After months of just using a hi-hat I feel its time to expand a bit.
I've finished designing the Blues Demons cd and have emailed it to everyone to check over. Once everyone has had a look I'll ask one of my colleagues at work to text edit the cover one last time.
After a disappointing listen to Sgt Pepper, I've been enjoying The Beatles 1, the compilation album of number one singles. Much better. Still find myself gravitating back to the Small Faces though.
A copy of Sgt Pepper landed on my desk at work today. After giving it a listen I was left feeling rather disappointed and I found myself switching onto Small Faces with great relief. As I've often said, Small Faces turned out to be my big musical discovery of 2008 and the magic midjits continue to entertain me. Fresh and innovative, their sound is effortless and of all the bands from the nineteen sixties, particularly the big four (The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks), Small Faces win hands down every time.
I've been daydreaming today about getting a classic-depth twenty inch bass drum. I already own a classic Premier drum set - a bright red Elite from the nineteen seventies. It has a twenty two inch bass drum plus a good range of toms - 12/13/14 classic toms and a 16 floor tom. Nice sounding kit too. Adding a twenty to this kit would be the most logical step. Problem is matching the colours... I'll look out for a polychromatic red drum (after all, I did manage to get the fourteen incher) but, if I really want to use a classic size kit again, I can always re-cover the drums using the black gloss laminate 'sticky back plastic' I used to recover the twelve inch snare I bought a while back. Then all I have to worry about is getting the right size drum. Of course even if I go for this I'm likely to stick to my minimal style set up - bass, snare and possibly a tom. Anyway its only dreaming.
What a night! Played a blinding gig at The Hind yesterday with the Blues Demons, followed by a mad dash to catch the last song from tenth anniversary ska heroes Kingsize at The Y Theatre - a hundred yards down the road from the Hind, were Maria and her friends Martha and Shirley had already spent the evening.
The Hind was packed - we started an hour later than normal at the pub (usually eight now nine) and that really helped build up the numbers. Not only did we play at the top of our game but Bob Dayfield's wife Jenny got a top sound too. Lots of new songs, including Mannish Boy/Bad to the Bone plus an altered set order helped freshen things up. On the subject of The Demons I've been cooking up a CD cover for the new recording at The Musician... a deliberately mystical and graphic design, based on a pentagram but without any 'metal' imagery, shall we say...
