[drumming diary] Knowing it when you hear it

This space hasn't been that active, but there was a long, long stretch where not much was going on in my drumming life. With the Lindsie band deep into the recording of our EP, and my parts in the can, we haven't been quite so focused on rehearsing, writing, gigging, etc. That changed over the last couple of weeks, and we made our triumphant return to the stage on Wednesday night, playing to an enthusiastic, semi-star-studded, and awfully attractive audience at Schuba's.

I'm really excited about the newest song we've added, which is either called "Just Don't" or "Don't Ask." It's got a bit of that quirky, bouncy drive of "Mouse" (which looks like it's going to be called "Love Sensation" on the record) and the big huge hooks we've become so fond of lately. It's also got the stealth jazz section in the middle, not entirely unlike URT's "At Me," and once again, it wasn't my idea. Anyway, the band is pretty energized these days, and there's this sense that something is coming. We had members of Filter, Dovetail Joint and the Blank Theory in attendance, along with about half the barstaff from Coyote Ugly and some former record company folks, so I'd imagine that we can create and/or sustain some buzz from here through the release of the EP in September. We'll see what happens.

On the gear front, I finally got around to replacing my cracked 18" crash cymbal this week. The first candidate was a Zildjian A. Custom Fast Crash that I picked up on Monday, but it was a little too low in pitch, and being a "fast crash," the decay was a bit too quick for my taste. So, back to see Trent at Guitar Center on Thursday, where I swapped it for a K. Custom Dark. Wow, I like this cymbal a LOT. Exactly the right pitch, and just a little of that dark, dry clang typical of heavier cymbals. It's gotten to where I can't even just hit cymbals in a store anymore to figure out if they work, but return policies and convenient store locations have made it easy to give the new guy a workout to see if it fits. I sorta lucked out on my last 16" crash, as that was bartered from a friend in exchange for writing a bio, but that was the exception rather than the rule.