This drum is definitely a 1920s Ludwig & Ludwig gold plated /engraved Triumphal Model. I did notice a few minor differences as compared to my Triumphal... 1. This drum has a 5-petal rose engraving as compared to my drum that has a 6-petal rose engraving... 2. This drum has the “Ludwig Chicago” in the same panel as the P-338 strainer as compared to my drum where the “Ludwig Chicago” is located 2 panels to the left of the strainer. Nothing earth shattering but interesting enough for me to pursue it further, ergo; was this a different engraver than my drum?
Read moreSeptember 2014 - The Nashville Drum Show is HERE!
The Nashville Drum Show is THIS WEEKEND!
We're busy making the final preparations... here's what's going on:
Read moreThe WWII Collection
"Here are a couple of pics of the World War II collection. The L&L is completely restored. The 1st version WFL (with the rolling bomber snare) werepurchased new, played for a year at home and put in the closet for 70+ years - they still have the original Calf heads on them. I am the 2nd owner. A BDP Rollin Bomber kit with a very rare 10" off set lug tom. I am the second owner as well. At the show I will also have a 1st version (Cecil Stupe design) WFL internal tune kit in WMP that I am restoring."
Read moreThe Dragon Drum
Recently I was asked by some friends if I could design a drum with a Renaissance Faire crowd in mind. So in true CT Pro Percussion / Charter Oak Drums fashion when left to our own devices, came up with the dragon drum that you see here. The prototype you see here has been made with a reclaimed shell and hoops and is fitted with calfskin heads both top and bottom along with custom ears. We will be offering this drum as a regular production item with choices of color including red/black, green/black, yellow,black or solid black as well as your choice of plastic, calfskin or Kevlar heads. Matt Alling CT Pro Percussion www.ctpropercussion.com
Read more1927-32 L&L DeLuxe Super Snare
Here’s another snare drum to enter the collection. I got this drum in May from a very nice gentleman named Mark Hamon. For those of you that are old Not So Modern Drummer subscribers you will recognize Mark as the photographer of all of those great NSMD cover shots. A thank you goes out to Bill Wanser for helping me to date this drum.
Read more1941 Leedy Autographs of the Stars
Here’s a snare drum that I have been looking for since my early days of collecting...thank you Ebay! This one wasn’t cheap but I wanted it so here we are. A little bit of history here in that the date stamp on this drum is 4112 (December 1941)...Pearl Harbor, WWII and The War Powers Act (Dec. 18, 1941) which caused the 10% Law that proved to be a pretty sorrowful era in the history of American made drums. It looks like this snare drum made the cut and was obviously built just before the “10% Law” manufacturing restrictions were enacted.
Read more1970s Camco Drum Set
Lately I have been bitten by the Camco bug. You might have been bitten by that bug yourself. There has been a rise in interest in these wonderful drums in recent times and I started wanting to own a Camco kit. I read the article about Camco drums here in the magazine with great interest. In the article the writer called them the "Stradivarius" of vintage drums. I have always thought they looked great, and wanted to own a set, so I finally made it a point to acquired a set for my collection. All the hype about these fine drums is true. They are very well built and sound fantastic. I think the first time I noticed them was when Dennis Wilson played a blue moire Camco set with the Beach Boys.
Read moreRogers Drums at Eastman School of Music
In 1962 I was asked to present a clinic with Louie Bellson at a local hotel in Rochester, NY. I was teaching at the Eastman School of Music and a local music store – Music Lover’s - was sponsoring the event. Ben Strauss of Rogers Drums contacted me and the date was set for November 7, 1962. Louie did the drum set and I did the classical snare drum. Since I also played drum set Louie and I traded fours etc. It was also at this time that I was teaching Steve Gadd and he was in the audience. I told Louie that he should hear this kid play. Louie invited him to the stage and Steve blew Louie away. It was at this moment that Steve, Louie and I became good friends for life.
Read moreIs it custom? Is it boutique? Does it make a difference?
I live in an area that has a lot of local breweries, and people around here talk and write about beer a lot. So recently, when I saw an article about the blurring of lines as to what’s considered a “craft brewery” and what isn’t, I realized that there’s a connection between drums and beer that I hadn’t considered: confusion about industry categories and how to describe them.
Read moreUPDATE: Nashville Drum Show & Snare Drum Olympics 2014
The Nashville Drum Show is just around the corner, September 20 & 21. Six weeks away! It’s not too late to rent an exhibitor booth or enter your snare drum into the Olympics. All of the information is available atwww.nashvilledrumshow.com.
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Who’s exhibiting at the show? Look at the list at the bottom of this post. The show is triple the size it was in 2012! The hall is really close to being full. We have 150 booths, new exhibitors are signing up daily, and there is always a last minute rush - so if want a booth you need to act now! This isn’t a sales pitch, just a heads up. We ran out of corner booths already, so we created some new ones – and we also have outside “demo” booths. Anyone can rent a booth as long as it’s music related.
Read moreThe Levon Helm Snare Drum
So the drum was given to Levon by Ringo, clearly played and signed by Levon to the son of another tremendously influential drummer, Richie Hayward. Four degrees of separation, perhaps? I was happy to win the auction, securing both drum for its history and the ability to help Seve in my own small way.
Read moreMike Clark: Words of Wisdom, Part 3
"OK… So the snares broke on ‘God Make Me Funky’ and I continued to play it on Tom. The engineer Fred Catero takes a brass wastebasket, puts a mike in it and puts the now fixed snare on top of the basket. He then plays the track to the snare which makes a sound at each backbeat, but leaving out all the ghost notes. I hated that sound, and without the ghost notes the beat sounded pedestrian to my ears…Like anyone could have played it. Now it’s one of the most sampled drum loops ever. They dug it, and some drummers say Hey, Man - I worked hard to get my snare to sound like yours!"
Read moreNashville Drum Show Hits the Road
The Nashville Drum Show is hitting the road on Saturday and Sunday, August 16-17th and making stops in Knoxville, TN and Atlanta, GA. Titled "Drummer's Showcase and Swap Meet," these mini-shows are free to the public - not only to attend, but to buy and sell as well.
"Bring your used and vintage gear to sell and trade - bring your new or old drums to show off and play... or just show up and join the drum hang!" - Nashville Drum Show
Here's some photos NSMD readers have submitted of items that will be up for sale over the weekend:
Are you planning on coming and want to show off what you're bringing - either for show or for sale? Let us know!
The event on Saturday will take place at The Whammy Bar, 8426 Kingston Pike in Knoxville, and on Sunday at ATL Drum Collective, 503 Amsterdam Ave NE. Hours are 12-6 PM on both days. There are no rules, and it is a bring-your-own everything atmosphere and open to anyone and everyone - including vendors, collectors and manufacturers. Participants can also purchase Nashville Drum Show tickets on location, $75 for a VIP pass and $15 for a regular day admission. Tickets purchased at the showcase events will be entered into a raffle for a custom built drum set, custom snare drums, and many other prizes. You do not need to be present at the show to win.
In addition to the advanced ticket raffle, ATL Drum Collective is offering 10% off all purchases over $25, and will have select overstock marked down for the event. Joe Ciucci will be showing his 1940 Radio King's at the Atlanta event, beautifully restored by ATL Drum Collective.
For more information, visit www.nashvilledrumshow.com.
1929-32 Leedy Broadway Dual (1st Gen)
Here’s a snare drum that I purchased at the 2014 Chicago Show from Brian Drugan of Drugan’s Drums. First generation Leedy Duals are fairly scarce, nothing earth shattering here but this drum did have something cool that I’ve never seen or heard of before.
Read moreFather to Son: T.S. Monk ‘Keeps it in the Family’
T.S. Monk, son of virtuoso jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, has carved out his own niche as a respectable and identifiable voice in bop drumming circles. But, he never forgot where he came from.
T.S. had the good fortune of soaking in all the musical vibes surrounding him at home. From receiving his first drumset from Max Roach to listening to his father, Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Art Blakey upstairs in his living room, there was no escaping it – he was presented with the ‘gift’ at an early age.
Read moreA Good Rattling Instrument
Maker: Abner D. StevensCirca: Late 1790’s-Early 1800’s Dimensions: 14.5”(h) x 16.5”(dia.)
As hostilities with England became a not too distant memory, the inhabitants of the new American Nation now had the task of rebuilding not only the physical damage caused by no less than seven years of a very personal war, but had an entire economy to repair as well. Born in a small New England town in 1770, a young and industrious Abner D. Stevens started making drums at his shop in Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1794 as his principle means of income.
Read more1950s Leedy & Ludwig Broadway Set
I went in to the lovely home of the owner of this set. He is in his 80s, and after a few minutes of greeting I was taken to the set. It wasn't set up, but I was encouraged to set them up and play on them or whatever I wanted to do. I just enjoyed looking at everything. There was also a wonderful cymbal set included, some of them were "K" Zildjians. There were stands, other hardware, and a box full of great old percussion "stuff." After I had looked it all over, I sat down with the man and enjoyed a long talk with him. He has a life filled with great experiences and I'm glad I got to hear some of them. If I had left without the drums and only got to talk to this guy, I would still be richer from the experience.
Read more1939-41 Leedy Broadway Standard "T-Bird" Engraved Snare
This was an easy one but I do have a restoration tip to pass along. This is purely personal but maybe a few restorers out there will find this useful. If you notice on all of my restorations you will see “aged” snare cord. I think that it looks out of place to have brand new white snare cord on an 85 year old drum; functionally it’s no problem, visually it drives me nuts. Here are two tips for you... 1. I use Yamaha snare cord model SNC-10 but before installing the snares I run the cords through a used (blackened) piece of Cape Cod Polishing Cloth, this darkens (antiques) the white cord and in my opinion makes it more realistic looking... 2. I just discovered Puresound makes model MS4 (dark brown brained line). This is what I used on the drum in this article.
Read moreVirgil Donati's "In This Life" US Tour
Over a year in the making, the much anticipated solo record by Virgil Donati arrived and has been creating buzz around musicians' circles since it's arrival. The album was produced, written and arranged by Donati, and mixed by Alex Argento, a close collaborator. Virgil’s drumming has arguably been at the leading edge for at least a decade, and as this record displays, his compositional and orchestration skills are also coming to the fore. Says Donati: “After all these years of playing, I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface!”
Read moreJuly 2014 - Red Headed Step Children
But what about all the vintage and rare drums that have been modified with extra holes, unoriginal parts etc.? What about those red headed bastard stepchildren?
It is my theory that they will become more and more desirable as the herd is thinned over the coming decades. What made me realize this was one particular seller at the Chicago Drum Show who asked me if there were going to be a lot of “hipsters” at my Nashville Drum Show. He said that in Austin, where there are hundreds and hundreds of working drummers in that busy music scene, they are buying “player" vintage kits and snares, not the collector level drums. They are buying them for the sound, not the collectability. It made me realize just how much the vintage drum world has grown and how the less than perfect old drums need to be preserved too.
Read more