Why Bother With Other Instruments?

Jack of all trades and master of none?

If skills take time and energy to develop (and they certainly do), why waste precious hours on something other than your favorite? Or at least… on things you don’t really plan on putting all that much effort into?

My drumming to do list is a staggering, sometimes daunting reality that’s never too far from my mind. I know I have an all but endless amount of things to practice and learn, that things can always be cleaner, faster, funkier… It truly never ends. I hear people who can play circles around me say the same thing, so I know it’s not just me.

The more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know.

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Last Minute Gigs (and then some)

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Sometimes booking – especially at the local level – is a little ramshackle…

Things fall through, bands cancel, shows get thrown together on a whim, and every once in a while, you’ve got to salvage what could be a frustrating scenario.

A while back, I played a show with Short Hair Domestics. We booked the show at the beginning of the week, agreeing to flesh out the lineup for a touring band whose vocalist hails from our little city of Muskegon. It was a bit of genre mashup, sure (something I’m all for, and will address in a later post), but that’s just fine. SHD has a policy of taking just about any and every gig that comes our way – we just love to play, and we aren’t too picky about where.

We showed up to the bar to unload to find out that the two other bands on the bill cancelled THAT AFTERNOON. Now, no hard feelings for these other bands or anything, but right from that moment, we knew we a long night on our hands. We collectively shrugged our shoulders and went inside. The traveling band had asked to play first so they could hit the road shortly after their set, and we’d just do our thing when the time came. No big deal.

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Intro

Oh snap! After far too much procrastination, I’ve finally decided to start a blog dedicated to this weird, obsessive, vast hobby of mine…

Of ours.

The butt of jokes and keeper of the time, way too loud with way too much gear. I’ve been doing this thing for half my life, but I’ve never spent much time writing about it.

It’s been something like 16 years since i started playing, and I’ve learned a fair amount along the way… but only in the last year and half (or so) have I really started taking this instrument – and the whole universe that surrounds it – very seriously.

Sure I practiced in high school, played in the marching  and concert bands, I was in a band through college (and truly fell in to being a kit player), and have only been making more and more music over the better part of the last decade. I have been an active drummer all along…

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