Playing drums

I don't consider myself a drummer yet and actually feel a bit of embarrassment when someone introduces me as one. I'm not sure how long it will take for this feeling to go away, but I'll keep practicing until it happens...and then I'll practice some more. Just over a year ago, a couple of friends who played in a band called The Unlevels, lost their drummer. I half jokingly said, " Give me a couple of weeks and I'll drum for you." Now I don't actually think that they realized that I had never played drums before. I was working the desk at a rehearsal studio where the band rehearsed and I said that if the night wasn't busy I could sit in a bit and see how things went. I didn't even get through one tune completely. That wasn't a surprise since I had only sat down at the drums for the first time earlier earlier that afternoon. The next day I received a very polite email from Kristina, one of the band members, that thanked me for the practice and suggested that we have 2 full rehearsals and after that decide how to proceed. In the next paragraph she asked if I knew any other drummers who may be interested. She worded it so carefully, obviously worried that I might be offended by the question. How could I be? I wasn't a drummer....I could barely keep any kind of beat! I didn't give up though (nor did I look for other drummers) and took a couple of lessons with Paul Mason of Tempus Drums. We had another rehearsal and at the end of it, Brian, the other band member, said," Well I guess we found our drummer." Two months later I played my first terrifying gig with The Unlevels. I got a fair amount of good feedback, but it was certainly of the ..." Wow you've only been playing for two months?" kind of compliment. I was hooked on this drumming thing and decided that I needed to start assembling my an instrument. I ordered a Tempus snare from Paul. It's a fiberglass 7x14 in Green Sparkle with black chrome hardware. It sounds awesome. I then started to keep my eyes open for the rest of the kit. It came in the form of a vintage '78 Milestone kit complete with some vintage Zildjian cymbals. Milestone is the company that Paul Mason bought back in 1986 and changed the name to Tempus. Last month we recorded 6 tunes at Vancouver's Vogville Studios to be released shortly and I play my 15th gig with The Unlevels. (I have also played a country gig as a drummer with Paul Masse an up and coming country singer....fooled them into thinking I was a drummer, I think.) I am still so far away from thinking that I'm a drummer, but I seem to be doing a lot of things that drummers do, so maybe sometime soon, I'll introduce myself as a drummer in musical company. Took me about two years before I started introducing myself as a bass player....that's the next story.

In keeping with my trend for inconsistent posting.....

I've done a lot since my last post and to be quite honest, I'm not even sure what I was doing when I posted last! But here begins a bit of catch up; please excuse me if I overlap, contradict, or repeat myself. I'm sitting at our dining room table in what I interpret to be a sparse environment. We're selling our condo, you see, and we need to make the place look like fake people live here. We aren't tidy folk....not dirty...but not tidy....and while I like things organized, I like stuff around that indicates that life is happening. Random piles of paper, magazines, and mail. CDs, personal pictures, and the odd knick nack, that has some significance. That has all been removed and packed into a 10x10 storage locker. Our place isn't huge (755 sq ft), but it's amazing how much stuff was packed in here. My musical instruments are at my workshop, (more on that later), and there is only one stereo system...ONLY ONE! I do have to say that with so much stuff in the place it was always on the verge of getting out of control, but never quite went over the edge. We aren't hoarders by any means, but we aren't minimalists either and if you have 5 bikes, a stage piano, 6 guitars, you don't have room for a drum kit. I think that one definition of hoarding is that you keep stuff that you think might have a purpose for sometime in the future and you don't want to take the chance that the future may be tomorrow. I can honestly say that the stuff we had that wasn't used on a regular basis would fit in your average closet. We haven't found a new place yet, though we have some potential places. We are staying in our wonderful North Vancouver neighbourhood. In the real estate listings there is a thing called a Walk Score. It's the walkability rating of a neighbourhood - the ability to walk to everything that you may need (grocery store, bank, restaurants). Our current place has a Walk Score of 97 (out of 100). It is a great place to live. We could honestly function without a car (despite having 2). I'll miss this place, but as I said, we're not going far.