[drumming diary] Dead Heads and Bumpy Rides

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and after Tony's amp flaked out on him last time, I should have figured it was my turn.

Two or three songs into the first set of Friday night's Diver gig, I noticed something. My snare drum wasn't quite right -- kinda hollow, and took a lot to get sound out of it. In fact, it sounded not unlike the bottom head had broken. So I flip it over between songs, and behold and lo, the bottom head was completely shredded.

Seriously, I don't know how that could have happened. I dont' remember impaling on anything, but sometimes unbalanced tension can do something like this, I guess. So I continued to have to whack the shit out of it in order to sound remotely snare drum-like, and even then, it was probably more timbale like. Or kinda like Will Calhoun's snare drum sound on Time's Up from Living Colour. Between sets, I tried salvaging it as well I could with duct tape, but that was a losing effort. A losing effort that looked something like this:

Of course, it's never just one thing that goes wrong, is it? I also noticed a weird little rattle coming from my ride cymbal. My four-month old ride cymbal. Sounded not unlike there was a crack in it, and upon further investigation, again, behold and lo, a crack along the groove about two inches in. When I got home, the first thing I did was check Zildjian's website to make sure that they guarantee these damn things. Which they do, and I can't imagine they would argue that I "misplayed" the cymbal. The one that got stolen, which was the exact same model, had no such problems in five or six years.

So Saturday was spent righting these wrongs before the Other World gig. Because I'll be getting a replacement for the K. Custom Medium, I figured I should buy a ride that sounded fundamentally different. It was between a 21" A. Zildjian Sweet Ride and this behemoth of a 22" Paiste Prototype ride, which came with the added bonus of another cymbal -- in this case a pair of Alpha hi-hats -- free. I couldn't really pass that up, but after Saturday's gig, I'm wondering if the cymbal runs anathema to my compact setup. So it might go back on Saturday, we'll see.

The question now becomes, what happens to Avi's rig at our next Cullen's show? Tony and I have both had our gear issues already, so he's up in the order, so to speak.