Zen Beatings

I have played with the same bass players for years at a time. For example, Brent and I were in the Photons for 12 years or so. We had a few side guys but we had a lot of drummers over those years.

My previous drummer, Kelly (RIP), was running Cadillac Jack’s, a.k.a. Grad House, City Limits, on the Mims/Titusville no man’s land. He had hired the Photons for a five-night stand through an agency. Our band, Martial Law, had recently imploded.

Having nothing else to do, I helped out around the bar every night. I got to know the guys pretty quick over a few smokes out back and sitting in with them, adding a few more tunes each night.

Like most good bands at the time, they kept losing guitar players to the real-job-and-responsibilities world. I ended up in the band because I was always available. I didn’t want another life-sucking day job.

The agency had circuits all over America with opportunities for bands that included rooms, one drink per set, a meal and no drug test. That appealed to the wanderlust deep in my soul.

After a few years, the drummer and the rhythm guitar player decided they liked South Dakota and stayed for the winter. The drummer had become an insufferable asshole, not just the hole, the whole ass—so his departure was welcomed.

Brent and I came back to Florida with no intention of being in a band with a drummer that antagonized the other guitar player to the point of the guitarist pulling a gun. Up north, most motel bars gave us three rooms because most bands had the required girl in the band.

We never had a female so we would take turns having private rooms. It was nice to have a little space and privacy to yourself, especially after months of playing 6 nights and driving 10-20 hours on the off day in a van loaded for bear with 3 other guys. Not a high-top conversion van—a regular-top cargo van, riding on cushions we got off of a discarded couch on the side of the road.

Still better than a day job.

After the gun episode, the bass player and I roomed together so the other two wouldn’t kill each other. We always got along. He was a Canadian, the least offensive people ever.

My buddy, RJ, hooked me up with a job doing ride and show control in Orlando and that’s where we found our new drummer, Rob G. He was a young guy with natural talent. The company gave us a rehearsal room in the shop and many good times were had while we got Rob up to speed on the (song) arrangements.

It was all fun and games until marriage and kids came along—another case of responsibilities breaking the band. Brent had been married for a few years, then I got married, but it was Rob G’s wife spitting out kids that ended that lineup.

We had a skinny Kentuckian called Hard Head who played with marching-band sticks, BMFs. He started his morning with a Bud Light, shot of Jim Beam and a cigarette. One of the drivingest, loudest drummers.

At the end of the night, he would make himself a sandwich and a bag of chips, then pass out in front of the TV. I had a blind cat that travelled with me. She loved to crawl in through the mic hole and curl up on the cushion inside the kick drum while the band played.

After Head was asleep, she would eat the sandwich from around his fingers, help herself to some chips and in the morning he would finish what was left of the sandwich before cracking that first Bud Light of the new day, none the wiser.

We got booked in a less-than-desirable room in southern Alabama, the Four Sons Lounge in Opp. “City of Opportunity,” said a sign coming into town. It’s a railroad lawyer’s last name, actually.

Our then-drummer, Stan, felt the gig was beneath him and refused to go. We called the agency and told them we had to cancel because we could not find anyone willing to do it.

“You guys just go on up there, I’ll find you a drummer.”

I figured he had to know a lot of cats that could play so the three of us made the 12-hour drive from central Florida. We arrived and set up. No drummer. It was only 5PM; we didn’t start until 8PM.

After being reassured over several phone calls, this kid in a ragged-out ‘70s Camaro stuffed full of drums showed up. We met him at the bar and commenced to getting him set up. I got out the drum mics, stands, cables…

As he banged around on the drums, I became heavy-hearted. The drums sounded like shit, they weren’t properly tuned, the cymbals were dull and cheap-sounding, like tin instead of hammered bronze.

His movements were uncoordinated and sporadic.

Zero rhythm.

I looked at the other guys and they had the same sinking feeling expression I had.

This guy can’t play.

Fucking agent bullshitted us when he said he had heard the kid play and if he had heard him and still sent him from somewhere in the Carolinas—what a whole ass!

I put the drum mics away—no need making his crappy sound and bad playing any louder than it had to be. It was the only time I didn’t mind sharing time with a DJ. We did a half hour, then the DJ did a half hour, back and forth all night until the DJ took the last hour.

We tried to find songs with a beat he could keep. "Just hit the kick and snare, boom, chick, boom, chick," we kept telling him. He couldn't even keep simple time. It was bad. We had to play as if he wasn't there; he just flailed along thinking he was doing great despite our assurances that he wasn't.

We got a proper drummer for the next gig somewhere in Mississippi. A few days later the phone rang and it was someone asking me if I would recommend the “kid,” whatever his name was.

I wasn’t quite awake but I could hear the “kid” in the background telling the guy on the phone what to say.

I said, “He’s a nice guy but he needs to spend some time in the woodshed.”

“Wh- What do you mean?” I heard the kid ask in the background.

“Shush,” the voice tells the person in the background. “What does that mean?”

  “He needs to start at the beginning and learn the rudimentary drum licks, man.”

“Rude-rud-a what?” I heard the kid ask in the background.

I answered before the voice on the phone could repeat the question.

“You know—paradiddles, flams, rolls, drags and ruffs. And he needs to use a metronome to keep time with while practicing,” I said.

I could hear him complaining over the phone, He thought he was good— bunch of know-nothing old guys, he said, using much harsher terms.

Shit, I wasn’t even 40 yet!

He was miffed that we didn’t pick him up. His friends told him he was good, his mother told him he should go on the road and play the drums in a town far, far away, well out of earshot.

It’s easy to find a person who wants the gig but few that are willing to put in the effort to learn the material. What can you expect from someone who beats on things and calls it music?

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  Setting up at the #10

At the Saloon Number 10, Deadwood, SD.