I LOVE my two drum kits: my circa mid-60s Ludwig Downbeats and my circa 1940s Slingerland Rolling Bombers. These kits have served me well and they’ll continue to serve me well. I just got to feeling like it was time for some brand new tools. New drums, new sizes, new sounds, new sweet spots to find, new head combinations to test out, new tuning puzzles to unravel. I love that stuff. It can take YEARS to figure it out. But it’s all good. I’ve got lots of time for that. That’s part of the joy of playing any instrument - the long-game of finding out what it’s capable of.
So my mind was made up - I was getting a new drum kit!!! It was high time. The last time I purchased a new kit was January 1991. A six-piece Tama Granstar. With a curved hardware rack. And a piccolo snare. Things were different then. After talking it over (and over, and over) with a friend who works for Noble and Cooley (whose drums I played on a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah tour in 2017 and fell in love with) we decided on the model, sizes, shells, finish, budget and all that good stuff. I was so excited. Maybe too excited.
Even though I was about six weeks out from making the first payment (you place the order, then they custom build the kit), I was so over the moon about the prospect of playing and owning NEW CUSTOM BUILT Noble and Cooley drums that I started telling people about them. And I’m not one who likes to count or talk about his chickens before they’re hatched. And yet here I was clucking about these damn drums that didn’t even exist yet (again, they’re CUSTOM BUILT - you can see why I was so excited).
Now I’m not much for superstition but it’s worth pointing out that not long after I uncharacteristically started talking about my plans for something I didn’t have yet that a lot of stuff started going south financially. First my wife’s car needed a bunch of work. Then our dog, who’s getting older and is living with a treatable disease, required some pricey medical care and will continue to require some pricey meds. After that MY car needed some work. Then we realized we needed a new roof, and just after we realized we needed a new roof, we realized the chimney needed some repairs. Oh, and then last week I lost my full-time job of 12 years (and two weeks!).
(Why do I feel like George Costanza pleading his case to the co-op board?)
Needless to say, after sustaining one financial kick to the nuts after another, the drums are on hold for now. That’s what I get for popping off about something I didn’t even have yet. Never again.
Hopefully losing my job (which was a great job for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was there for a long time so I could get a fair bit of time off to go play drums - because that’s a helluva lot more fun than a day job!) will be the end of this carnage. I’m not disclosing these financial hardships looking for sympathy. Our situation is certainly not unique. People deal with stuff like this all the time. It sucks. But I’m confident we’ll manage. I’ve got a few things lined up in the short term, and I’m looking longer term. If you think you might have work for me - drumming, writing, whatever.. hit me up!
In the meantime, I can assure you that never again will you hear me utter a word to anyone about my intentions for getting a new drum kit. You’ll just see me playing it one day.
And you WILL see me playing it one day. Hopefully in the not too distant future.
-pb, 2/12/19