Drum Heaven & The Galaxy Snare Drum - My Very Own Drum Company

Back in the early 1990's I had a nice little sideline business buying, selling, and restoring vintage drums. I called it Drum Heaven. It was a great way to get my feet wet in the drum world and learn the ins and outs of what made those great American drums so great. At that time, unlike nowadays, the major drum companies weren't putting a lot of imagination into the design of their products. Sure there were some nice drums being made by the Japanese drum manufacturers and DW was making inroads into the market, but the once dominant American companies like Ludwig, Gretsch, and Slingerland (Leedy and Rogers were all but nonexistent) were foundering under poor management, lack of innovation, and disinterest by parent companies. They were losing huge chunks of market share to the Japanese, who were making big advances (and profits) in the drum biz by applying the same creativity and design ingenuity they had used to capture the American auto market.


In the meantime there were growing rumblings by a small handful of craftsmen who were committed to building quality hand-crafted instruments for the growing number of discerning drummers and collectors who were demanding more quality from their drums than what was available from the major makers. It was in this environment that I started daydreaming about building my own custom snare drums. I knew the vintage drums I was restoring sounded and looked better than any of the modern products I had played. There was an attention to detail in the choice of materials, visual appearance, and quality of construction that had somehow been lost over time. Just take a look at a Leedy Elite, a Slingerland Radio King kit, from the 30's and 40's, or a 1920's Ludwig Black Beauty and you can see the marriage of form and function that these drums personified.

I had also developed a nice full Rolodex (remember those?) of contacts who were willing to share info and knowledge about drum building. I had a good relationship with Joe MacSweeney of Eames Drum Company who made amazing hand-crafted birch shells and was willing to share his thoughts about what made a good sounding snare drum. John Aldridge, master drum engraver and publisher of NSMD magazine was a good friend. Other custom snare drum makers were happy to let me pick their brains. This was before every Joe RackTom or Sally SnareBed knew about the Internet, so very little information was available about drum making and design. I had noticed what a big difference real brass hoops had on the sound of a snare drum, compared to alloy hoops, so I searched out a manufacturer who was willing to make them and imported them from China and then had John Aldridge engrave them. I used an undersized Eames 15-ply birch shell to replicate the Leedy Floating Head design and cut a rounder bearing edge and longer snare bed that mimicked the full bodied drums made by Slingerland and Ludwig during the 1930's. At first I used the fine brass tube lugs made by Don Corder, but later switched to a local machinist here in the Boston area. I also stole/copied duco finishes from vintage drums, but made them translucent so the beautiful figuring of the birch could be seen through the nitrocellulose lacquer. All of these elements were fairly radical at the time and unlike now, you could count the custom drum makers in the USA on two hands .


I received a great response when I debuted the drums at the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim. I knew I was onto something by the amount of reps from the major drum companies that came by to examine my Galaxy snare drums. Drummers like Dennis Chambers, Peter Erskine, Richie Hayward, and guitarist Ry Cooder all stopped by my booth to check out what the buzz was all about. The engraved brass hoops, brass tube lugs, luxurious finishes, and thick birch shell combined to make an impressive looking and sounding drum (if I do say so myself!). In designing and building the drums I gained a lot of valuable knowledge through making and fixing mistakes (at one point I had to recall some ten drums because of improperly cured lacquer finishes and poorly seated tube lug stems!) and by tireless trial and error.

Eventually, due mostly to my lack of bottom line business acumen, I retired from drum making and watched as the custom drum industry grew into what it is today. There are quite a few Drum Heaven Galaxy snare drums out there and every once in awhile I'll get an e-mail from an original owner or someone who has purchased one on EBay telling me how much they enjoy the drum. It made it onto a lot of recordings, one of my faves being "Early To Bed" by Morphine with my friend Billy Conway on drums. You can check out the video below...

Mitch Mitchell remembered in The Guardian UK

Blog posting by David Stubbs - Original here.

Mitch Mitchell ... one of the few who could hold their own when jamming with Jimi. Photograph: Joel Elkins/Rex Features

The death of drummer Mitch Mitchell, aged 61, marks an unwanted milestone in rock mortality. Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, all have suffered fatalities over the years. However, with the passing of Mitchell, all three members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience are now dead. This is especially poignant since, with 1968's Electric Ladyland, the three of them created a double album of such sheer volume, incandescence and pyromaniac creativity that it remains unmatched and undimmed. It still has the power to knock you off your seat and Mitch Mitchell's percussive ferocity is a significant contributor to that.

Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding were selected for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966 as much for their ability to look the part for the psychedelic novelty act the band were being promoted as. They were two kooky, pseudo Afro-sporting innocents standing alongside the Wild Man of Rock, and critics have occasionally been condescending towards Redding and Mitchell as a result. Writers like Nik Cohn suggested that they were uncommonly lucky to be playing alongside a genius like Hendrix, while biographer David Henderson wrote of the "strange contempt" he divined in Mitchell towards Hendrix. However, Mitchell deeply resented these remarks and, while he may not always have been happy with the lack of attention or remuneration he received in comparison with Hendrix, all of this was channelled as grist to his percussive mill.

Mitchell had been a child actor, a skill he brought to bear in the spoken word intro to Axis: Bold As Love, and at ease with the extroversion of rock showmanship. He had the same boundless, manic qualities as Who drummer Keith Moon – it seemed at times that he was not so much playing his kit as trying to smash it to smithereens. However, he really could play. He was steeped in jazz and particularly indebted to the post-bebop drummer Elvin Jones.

Playing with Hendrix was no second-fiddle indignity for Mitchell but a challenge to be risen to, time and again. On a track like Manic Depression, it's as if he's about to be pitched off his drum seat over the top of the kit, propelled by the sheer tsunami of his drumming. He is almost the dominant force. By 1968, as Hendrix really began to experiment, bassist Noel Redding found himself marginalised and eventually jettisoned. Mitchell, however, rose again to the occasion, holding his own in the jam session with Hendrix and Steve Winwood that gave rise to Voodoo Chile. Even when Hendrix went the way many of his black followers had hoped he would and formed the African American trio Band of Gypsys, Mitchell was never out of the loop. On the last Hendrix recordings, he was part of a trio that included bassist Billy Cox. He worked with him to the end, and beyond. For on October 19, 1970, it was Mitchell's grievous duty to go in and lay down the studio drum part to Angel, over the guitars and vocals of his colleague who had died tragically just a month earlier, aged 27. The rising swell of cymbals that concludes the track feel like a final embrace with the ascended soul of his old friend.

Although he played in a supergroup involving John Lennon, Mitchell never
really found a major role for himself following Hendrix's death, and towards the end of his life he had been playing on the Experience Hendrix tour across America. However, rock historians should always remember to open their ears beyond Hendrix's dazzling playing and recall that Mitchell was, then and forever, an indispensable part of the Experience.

Bass Player's 23rd Psalm

Thanks to Hal Blaine for sending this:

BASS PLAYER'S 23RD PSALM
The Lord is my drummer, I shall not rush,
He maketh me to layout in tasteful places,
He leadeth me beside cool meter changes,
He restoreth my "one."
Yeah, man, though I read through the
trickiest of charts, I will fear no train wrecks,
For you are with it.
Your ride and your snare they comfort me,
You setteth up a solo for me
In the presence of mine guitarists,
You anointeth my lines with drive,
My groove overfloweth.
Surely good feel and swing will follow me
through all the tunes of each set,
And I will dwell in the pocket
the whole gig long.
Amen

Jimmy Carl Black (the Indian of the group) dies at 70; original drummer in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-black6-2008nov06,0,4496764.story

Jimmy Carl Black's (The Indian Of The Group) website

Thanks to Tom Donati for the heads up.

New Yamaha Snare Drums - Loud, Sensitive, & Vintage

I'm reviewing three new Yamaha snare drums for DRUM! magazine. Top in the above photo is the 14x6.5" 7-ply maple Yamaha Sensitive Series drum. In the middle is the 14x6" 4-ply maple Vintage series drum, and the 14x7" 8-ply oak (!) Loud Series drum is on the bottom. I've gigged and rehearsed a few times with the Sensitive drum and got to hear the Loud Series drum miked in the studio the other day.

An interesting feature of the Sensitive snare is a 60 degree top bearing edge and a 45 degree bottom edge. The wider top edge gives the head more land to sit on and allows a fuller sound and more snare response. This drum has a lot of uses and I've found it very musical and easy to tune and play.

I use to own an oak shell Craviotto snare drum and have found the Loud drum to be similar in character. The best way I can describe the difference between oak and the more commonly used maple and birch is that, while oak has less identifiable character, it does project very well. It's a dry sound that is very focused, which makes it excellent for playing at higher volumes. Further drying the sound are the eight vent holes drilled around the shell. I really liked the throaty snare response and the clean note the drum produced when I heard it over the control room speakers in the studio.

I'm still tinkering around with the Vintage drum but it seems to have good potential. Check out DRUM! mag in a few months for the official review.

Blue Moon Harem at The Outpost 11/2/08

Worked on three drum tracks with drummer Brian MacDougall for Blue Moon Harem's upcoming CD. Brian had expressed interest in using his Sonor Force Maple toms (as we had in previous sessions) and I'm really glad we did. I liked these 9 horizontal ply drums once I sussed out the proper way to tune them. They have a nice low end roundness that worked nicely in the studio. I also had a chance to play and hear the new "Loud Series" snare drum from Yamaha I'm reviewing for DRUM! magazine and will feature in an upcoming post.

Brian made quick business out of the songs and I had a chance to enjoy the last hours of a beautiful but chilly New England autumn day...

With Woody Giessmann at The Outpost 10/11/08

I spent the day at The Outpost in Stoughton, MA laying down basic tracks for a record by my good friend Woody Giessmann. I'm wearing two hats on this one, producer and drummer, and I'm having a blast! With expert backing by Richard O'Connell (Bryan McPherson, Bean Pickers Union) on bass and Mike Pyle (The Beacons) on guitars it's the best rhythm section I've been involved with for a long time.

Besides being the former drummer with 80s rockers The Del Fuegos, Woody is also a a great singer/songwriter who plays a mean piano. I used my 1950s 22x14" 3-ply Gretsch bass drum, the 13x9" and 15x15" Eames toms (with coated Emperors) and the ever-present 14x6.5" Pearl Steve Ferrone snare drum with a CS Batter. I played 13" Paiste signature hats, and alternated between a 22" K. Constantinople Light ride and my prized 20" Avedis Zildjian Ride from the 50s that's as pretty as any cymbal I've ever heard. We got great sounds thanks to Jim Siegel and my buddy Keith Cornella hung out and helped with the Pro Tools.

Here's a quick montage of some of the basics, unmixed, with scratch vocals:

Historic Drum Set #1: Hal Blaine's Monster Kit

Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame drummer Hal Blaine played on more Top 10 hits than any other musician. In fact, he played on 40 #1 singles, 150 Top Ten singles and 8 Grammy Records of the Year. If you don't know his name, you certainly know his drumming. As a pivotal member of the loose group of crack session musicians known as "The Wrecking Crew", Hal played the iconic beats on such diverse hits as "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes, "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys, "Strangers In The Night" by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley's "Return To Sender", and literally thousands of other songs from the 60's and 70's. The Monster Kit was developed by Hal along with his drum tech Rick Faucher and builder Howie Oliver. The basis for the kit was a Ludwig Super Classic Blue Sparkle set without the rack tom.The single-headed toms were made of spun fiberglass and Ludwig hardware was attached. Faucher and Howie Oliver created the mounting system in two pieces so it could easily roll into place in the studio. The kit grew out of Hal's signature tom fills - producers began to request the sweeping sounds that only eight toms could produce. Hal was so busy in his heyday that he needed two of these kits so he could leapfrog them between sessions!

I've known Hal for years and interviewed him about the Monster kit for my 1995 book "Star Sets : Drum Kits Of The Great Drummers" (shameless self-promotion!). He talks about using timbales for tom-toms to get a nice pitch bend decay on fills. "I was getting such great sounds with [the timbales], I started thinking 'Gee, if I had a whole mess of these I could do some really great fills.' Howie Oliver came up with the idea to use Klieg light stands for the mounting system. The idea was to augment a regular four piece Ludwig kit, where I could still reach every tom-tom with no problem."

Ludwig thought so much of the setup they stole Hal's idea and created the Octaplus set, which in turn was copied by other drums companies. The single-headed toms set the tone for the drum sounds of the 1970s and in the 80s, drum companies introduced the drum rack, again inspired by the Monster kit's innovative mounting system.

To learn more about Hal Blaine check out his wonderful autobiography "Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew: The Story of the World's Most Recorded Musician"

Badge Of The Month: Meazzi Hollywood Drums

Here's a fairly rare badge I found at Rick Smith's drum show in Connecticut a couple years ago. I don't know much about Meazzi other than they were an Italian company that made really funky guitars, basses,drums, and as you can tell by the picture, drum badges. I know that Max Roach endorsed the company and they released a signature kit in his name. I've seen photos of him playing the kit onstage. If you have any more information on Meazzi Hollywood drums, please drop me a line. I found some Meazzi catalogues on the wonderfully extensive drumarchive.com

An anonymous All Things Loud follower left this comment about Meazzi Hollywood Drums:
" Hi, I own a couple of these sets. Really great. The President model is the top of the line and includes a tunable floor tom. I have a jazz set with a 14" floor tom and a 20" bass drum and what I would describe as a big band set with a 28" bass drum and tunable 16"floor tom. Max Roach used them and also Billy Cobham. They were way ahead of there time and very well made and look great. All mine are very thin shells and I believe the wood is Beech. Watch out as the Jolly series and some others do not sound as good. Check out there [sic] acrylic sets which to me sound better than Ludwigs. I am a little addicted to them. You can find them cheap on ebay from time to time as no one really knows what they are, however in Italy you may have to pay a lot more. There is a clip of Billy Cobham on YouTube playing Nutville and his solo is from 2.25 and Max Roach can be also seen playing them, but I do not like the sound on the recording and feel its not a good representation of how the drums sound, but the Cobham one is close."

Thanks for the info!

NAME THAT DRUMMER

Here's a photo I took at a sound check at Madison Square Garden in 2006. First person to correctly name the drummer in the pic gets a shout out on this blog. Leave a comment below.

ANSWER: It's Nick Mason at a sound check for a Roger Waters show . "Anonymous" had it right. If you look closely at the design on the drums it is from the Hipgnosis-designed cover art for Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon".

Hall of Fame drummer Earl Palmer dead at 84

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Earl Palmer, the session drummer whose pioneering backbeats were recorded on such classics as Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin,'" has died. He was 84.

Palmer died Friday at his Los Angeles home after fighting a lengthy illness, his spokesman Kevin Sasaki said.

Born in New Orleans in 1924 and later moving to Los Angeles, Palmer worked extensively in both cities, recording with some of the music world's all-time greats on thousands of tracks.

His beats form the backdrop on Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High," Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" and "I Hear You Knockin'" by Smiley Lewis.

From his Los Angeles home, Palmer drummed for music producer Phil Spector and Motown, and his session credits include artists as diverse as the Monkees, Neil Young and Frank Sinatra.

Palmer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. According to the institution's Web site, Little Richard wrote in his autobiography that Palmer "is probably the greatest session drummer of all time."

I had a chance to spend one of the most memorable days of my life with Earl about three years ago. Chad Smith invited me along to hang with Earl, Hal Blaine, and Jim Keltner for an interview Chad was doing for Modern Drummer. Jim, Chad, and I picked up Earl and his wife and drove to Hal's house in Palm Springs. I set up my video camera and filmed about three hours of Earl and Hal reminiscing about the glory days of studio drumming. There were lots of laughs (and lots of unpublishable stories!) that day and it was an incredible treat to see these two Hall Of Fame musicians, who practically invented Rock and Roll drumming, cajole each other and enjoy each others company. Earl was in declining health but he didn't miss a beat with his warm humor and his easygoing manner. We became friendly and talked a few times after that day. There wasn't a nicer, more generous musician who ever sat down at a drum kit. If you're interested in learning more about Earl's incredible contribution to popular music and the art of drumming, check out his wonderful autobiography Backbeat. So long Earl, keep swinging!

Here's Earl on the classic Fats Domino track "I'm Walkin'"

EXCLUSIVE PICS - CHAD SMITH SUPERGROUP PROJECT

You saw them here first! Courtesy of Chad Smith come these exclusive photos from his new project with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, And Michael Anthony. Tentatively titled "Chickenfoot", the band is in the studio recording their debut with British engineering/producing legend Andy Johns. The material I've heard from these guys sounded exactly like you'd expect: heavy, riff and groove driven rock, with great vocals by Sammy and great VH'esque harmonies by Michael Anthony.

Swell Kids Choose Leedy Drums!

Country Drumming Legend Buddy Harman Dies

Associated Press

August 24, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — - Buddy Harman, one of Nashville's most-recorded drummers, has died. He was 79 years old.

Harman played drums on more than 18,000 recordings, including Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman," Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" and Elvis Presley's "Little Sister."

He was an early staff drummer on the Grand Ole Opry and among the first prominent drummers in country music history.

The Omnipresent Eames Tom Toms

You might notice an ongoing theme in many of my session posts - The ubiquitous Eames tom toms. Why, you ask, do you use those Fire Engine Red beauties on almost every session? Good question.

Short answer: Because they rule!

Longer and more labored answer: Because they simply sound better in most studio environments than any other drum I've ever used. At this point many of the engineers/producers I work with ask for them by name. Why? (See short answer)

Seriously though, Eames drums are completely hand-crafted instruments made one at a time by Joe MacSweeney at his workshop in Saugus, MA. Joe took over the company from Ralph Eames a number of years ago and is one of the only drum smiths in the country to actually make his own shells. (Most so-called "Custom" drum companies use shells made by Keller or Asian suppliers). Eames shells are made from North American birch and Joe actually uses the same 19th century drum lathe that was used by the iconic drum maker Geo. B. Stone at his Boston factory. It is quite a site to behold; the inside of the shell to be sanded or edged is grabbed and secured by the chuck arms of the lathe and then the drum is rotated by an adapted alternating current motor.

The toms I own are 9 ply shells, but Joe offers 6, 9, 12, and even 15 ply drum shells. He was the first drum maker to build a monster hi-plied snare drum shell - before Ayotte, Pearl, or anyone else. There is a clarity of attack and a pure note to the drums that makes them my go-to picks 9 times out of 10 for recording. They have more character than any production maple shells I've heard.

You can have Joe drill the shells for any type lugs you want or he can supply the lugs and other hardware. I made a decision a number of years to go with Slingerland Sound King lugs because I liked the look of them and had access to a good amount. I put die-cast hoops on top and bottom (except for the 15x15 tom which seems to work better with a triple-flange on the bottom) and suspend the rack toms on Pearl OptiMounts (which I think are the best designed and most stable of the isolation mounting systems) .

I generally put a coated Remo Emperor on top and a clear Ambassador on the bottom. For bigger rock sounds I go for just a slight pitch bend by tuning the bottom head a little higher than the top. Too much difference between bottom and top and you get what I like to call the "Basketball Effect" or a rubbery pitch bend that sounds like a rubber ball hitting the floor.
Their favorite microphone seems to be a Senheiser 421 angled in around 3-6 inches from the head. Put the mic through an API or a Neve pre and you got yourself some big ass toms on your record.

Keith Moon

Study: Drummers Are "Top Athletes"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7518888.stm

Chawlie Talks About His Kit

Great insight from Charlie Watts about his legendary Gretsch kit and cymbals. Enjoy.

For that BIG sound

So for all of you that have asked, here's the kit I bring whenever a producer wants to get a really big drum sound...

That's old pal Brad Smith and I beating out our version of "When The Levee Breaks" with invisible sticks. The kit resides on the grounds of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's superlative 12 day music orgy known as Summerfest.

Call To Preserve @ The Outpost

Hardcore heroes Call To Preserve made the pilgrimage from Melbourne, FL to Stoughton, MA and The Outpost to record tracks for their new record "From Isolation". A grand time was had by all and Mike Aviles did a great job with his fast and furious sticksmanship. These boys ROCK!
We used the old standby setup: Eames 9x13" and 15x15" toms, Pearl Steve Ferrone 6.5x14" snare, and the beat-to-hell but still great sounding 16x22" Yamaha kick.