Captain's Log; 10/15 Old dog learning new tricks

This blog is taking the place of the old editorial column that was in the print magazines and the email newsletters. There won't be an editorial in the newsletter anymore. The monthly  periodical format isn't working for  NSMD so I'm going to post whatever is on my mind whenever it's on my mind! Here! Personal, business, gigs, music, past articles on a variety of subjects, fleeting thoughts and floating molecules, whatever, I'm going to be writing it here.

What's going on? I just finished two months submersed in the bowels of this new website and new newsletter. I have never built a website before or composed a digital newsletter. Thank the Great Pumpkin for Squarespace.com, a web building and hosting site, and the Constant Contact email service which have it all  dumbed down to where even I can do it. You may have noticed there was no September  2015 issue of the newsletter. That was due to delays in building the new site and delays in switching over from the old site to the new site. 

I bought Not So Modern Drummer magazine in 2008 with the intent of "modernizing" it. Well, three websites, two newsletters, three webmasters, and three business overhauls later, I'm flying solo and I'm on a mission to come up with my "final answer". I put everything on hold this year (2015): the Nashville Drum Show, the Snare Drum Olympics, while I figured out the new direction for Not So Modern Drummer. (Yeah, yeah, you've done this before, yawn). Well not to this extent. I realized this year that in order for Not So Modern Drummer to best serve the drumming community, I needed to immerse myself 24/7 in the process of running it, building it, promoting it, growing it, etc. And I've done just that!

I've been in hyper focus mode for weeks on end, many hours a day, just figuring out what NSMD is so a new direction and mission could be defined for it. NSMD is not a magazine anymore, obviously.  We quit printing the paper magazine in 2012. It's not the email newsletter which replaced the paper magazine. It's not this website either. The old periodical format is not effective for it anymore.  I finally figured out that NSMD is the 27 years of content that has been contributed to it, and the people who contributed it. So, I started a  new mission to make that evident to everyone: To store/document/publish all the content since 1988 on this site and make it available to all for free. Long term project, I know, but it's off and running. I'm daily adding old content from the first typed newsletters, the old print magazines, and the three different websites and newsletter formats we've had. 

The other part of the mission for 2016 is to re institute the buying and selling of vintage, custom, used and new gear by its readers that was the bread and butter of the original Not So Modern Drummer. It was originally a classified ad rag for drummers! Well Ebay did that in, but I've seen the need for a more vetted venue where buyers and sellers must use their real names and establish trust. So I've added a new forum that has a classifieds section in it. I thought that forums were passe since Facebook took over, but I think people are growing weary of Facebook. It's too much to keep up with and no one really owns their pages or groups. It could blow up at any day now when the next new online thing comes along. Forums can be more focused and niched, ..... and owned! I've noticed since I launched the new site that the page with the biggest number of hits is the Classifieds, so that's a good sign. If you have gear to sell, or or looking for specific items, please help me get this Classified forum jump started by posting there.

Captain logging off.

Dorado by Gretsch - Made in Japan

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

This was sent to me by my drum nerd buddy Jay in Knoxville TN. He is the administrator of the Facebook group "Knoxville Drummers Union". He goes by the code name Jay Options over there. I think he is hiding from someone. You have to know the secret password to join that group and they are a shifty bunch :-) . Dorado Drums were added to the Gretsch Dorado catalog in 1973. They were cheap Japanese stencil sets; imports and didn't hang around too long. That's about all I know about them. I would put that particular set of Jay's in the $200 category just because they are in good shape. If the floor tom and snare drum were there they might be worth $300 to $350  -  George Lawrence

Here is a quote from author Mike Jones about Dorado guitars. Some of this may be applicable to Dorado Drums.

" I love the Dorado myself and have the same model 12 string as you. I also have 2- Model 5985 solid-body electrics. They are extremely well made and very playable. I am including information about them in a chapter of my book "Gretsch's Lost Weekend; The Guitars of Booneville and The Hagner Musical Instrument Company, 1970-1981" I am not going to be devoting much to the acoustic models but here's what I can tell you.

The Dorado guitars were made by Matsumoko of Japan between 1971 and 1973. The most intersting thing is, other than minor cosmetic differences, Matsumoko made the exact same guitar for Epiphone, Aria, Conrad, Granada and Lyle, though less so, their acoustic guitars. The ones that were marketed by the other companies were manufactured between 1970 and 1976. The Headstock design seem to be the only real variable on all of the models. As to why they were distributed by Gretsch, there was a long standing rumor that the Dorado was imported by Gretsch/Baldwin to make up for the lack of inventory after the Booneville factory fire in January 1973 destroyed the Gretsch production facility. While a plausable theory, It doesn't work with the time line. It appears to be more of a deal worked out by Fred Gretsch (still on the Gretsch/Baldwin Board of Directors) and Bill Hagner to work with Japanese suppliers. Gene Haugh told me that the decision to import was made in the spring of 1972 by Baldwin and Fred Gretsch. The first catalogs with Gretsch's name appeared in the fall of the same year and offered only acoustic models. In the 1973 catalog they offered an electric 6 string solid-body as well as a solid-body 4 string bass. Your 12 string model was one of two 12 string models offered in the 1973 catalog. Interstingly they also offered drums that year. A little known fact that you might enjoy. Gene told me that Fred brought a Dorado acoustic to Booneville one day in early 1972. According to Gene, Fred had put some masking tape over the logo, came into Gene's office and asked him to try it out. Gene played around with it for a few minutes then Fred asked him how he thought it played and what he thought it was. Gene said it played great and thought it was a Gibson. Fred peeled the tape off to expose the Dorado logo and said "That's what I thought too. Were gonna start distributing these." Gene told me he didn't care much for the electric solid body model's finish but the acoustics were as good as anything anyone was making during those days. Dorado had 3 logos. Plain Gold screen in fat block letters, Gold silk screen normal block letters in 1971-72 and in 1973 they introduced a Stylish in-laid mother of pearl logo. Yours is a 1973. I'll see if I can find some acoustic pics of the Aria, Epiphone, Conrad, Lyle acoustics so you can see they are all the same. For now, here's how the Dorado solid-body electric compares with all the other Matsumoko solid-body electric guitars. I hope this helps.

Mike Jones

1920s Sonor Drums & Hardware

Check out the 1920s Sonor drums and hardware! a double pedal? In the twenties? Really?

Gretsch 12x16 Bass Drum

Here's something you don't see very often, Gretsch 16" x 12 " bass drum, restored with mostly original parts, all parts are period correct..

Yes it's the real deal.

Ronnie Owens Drums

Goodman Quilted Maple Stave Snare

The Goodman Drum Company sent in a very high-end snare drum for review that sounded great on my gig last night (and I’m pretty picky). The instrument’s body is a 14 by 5.5 Quilted Maple stave shell that is 5/8” thick and has a double 45 degree bearing edge. It has wide and deep snare beds similar to the old Slingerland Radio King bed which I personally like because of the responsiveness. The flawless, grade A quilted maple wood has a beautiful hand rubbed clear coat that takes two weeks to apply and has a UV inhibiting agent. The hardware on the drum includes ten polished solid aluminum center lugs with receiving tubes that give it the look of a tube lug drum, die-cast hoops, a Trick throw off, and Pure Sound snare wires. The 3 small unique snare vents in the shell are aligned vertically in one panel of the drum and sit flush with the shell. No cheap hardware on this drum. It appears they using only top shelf parts. The badge is die-cast with a script logo on a glossy oval background trimmed with a silver/chrome-ish border. Very understated tasteful badge.

Sound? This is a full-bodied snare drum sound. At high, medium and low tunings the fundamental note of the shell is very present.  It was very easy to tune and the feel of the tension rods turning in the lug threads was very smooth.  The resonance and sustain in the head was very pleasing and musical from the edge to about 2/3 the way in to the center at which point the head became progressively drier until it was very controlled at the very nodal point in the center. I like a snare that allows me to hit in the center for a dry, short, snappy sound but with the option of moving away from center to use the natural ring in the head for longer tones. The snare wires respond very well from edge to center and I was able to dial out sympathetic buzz from other drums with the Trick throw off . The snares sounded great at tight, medium and loose settings. I think this can be attributed to the superb bearing edges snare beds as well as the superior Trick throw off and Puresound snare wires. I’ve noticed that some snare drums with die-cast hoops can be very one-dimensional; too much fundamental and not enough overtones or splash, all crack and no tone. Not with this drum. The die-cast hoop did not “choke” the drum. I usually prefer a triple flanged hoop because I find that die-cast hoops don’t give me enough tone and splash. Not so with this drum. It had a lot of what I call nice “gonk” tone in the sound (think Bill Bruford), which I find is usually missing in many drums with die-cast hoops. I also noticed that the difference between a regular loud hit and a rim shot was not that different in volume, but it was different in tone, which was nice. I play a lot of rim shots on backbeats but did not feel the need to with this drum. Most drums have a much seemingly louder report with a rim shot but the wide range of dynamics of the head hits on this drum with regular hits speaks to the superior response of this drum’s design.

Performance; I took this drum on a three-hour gig with an Allman Brothers tribute band. It was a very loud gig in a small club with another drummer right next to me. I had no problem hearing this drum even though there was no monitor and I had a hard time hearing the little 18” bass drum I was using. I didn’t feel the need to hit rim shots to hear the drum. The tuning held up well. No de-tuning of the tension rods.

Cons? Nothing. A+

The Goodman Drum Company is a three-year-old boutique company run by Chris Goodman Jr. and Sr., who also make other wood products. They make their drums out of rare, re-claimed, exotic and high-end tonal woods. The moisture content of the shell is very controlled at 6 to 8 percent until the final clear coating step. The drums are trued on granite and it is obvious that they are very concerned with producing a flawless instrument with much attention to detail. The Goodman's have plans for expansion in the near future.  Their first 13” snare will be introduced in a few months. Lugs, hoops and tension rods will be made in-house in 2016 and their first drum kit will debut in 2016. Their goal is to go national with distribution in 2017. While their website is under construction you can reach them on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/GoodmanDrumCompany

Joyful Noise appoints Todd Trent as Chief Operating Officer

Joyful Noise Drum Company is proud to announce the appointment of Todd Trent as their Chief Operating Officer. Todd is excited to bring over 3 decades of percussion industry experience to Joyful Noise. Having been in music retail, artist relations with Ludwig Drums, wholesale / OEM sales and marketing with Taye Drums as well as pro touring management, Todd is well suited to propel Joyful Noise.  He has been a fan of the product, their mission and leadership team since the beginning of the company and now feels the time is right to add his abilities to such an outstanding company.