Don`t touch my drums!

Pocket-full-of-gold said:
I remember playing on the floor at a gig years ago, punters were right next to us and our gear as we were playing. Some bloke was showing off to his girlfriend by choking my cymbals each time I crashed them. He did it three times without incident....on the fourth I cracked his fingers as hard as I could with a 5B stick.....he winced in pain, said something to me which I neither heard nor cared to hear and then quietly moved away with his missus.
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Nice work, PFOG. A band I was in during my teens had an Islander percussionist - good player but a bit of a wild boy. At one gig he was chemically disabled and, since he was set up next to the kit, he was doing little manoeuvres, playing choked cymbal taps - often at the same time as I was crashing.

It's a spinout to hit your crash and go CLA-A-A-NG! ... you need shock absorbers. I never thought about going for his fingers. Wish I did :)

All who are not heavy hitters, drunks, or great players who will make me look bad are welcome to play my kit ... that rules out 99% of applicants :)
 
Deathmetalconga said:
You were far nicer to this imbecile than you should have been.

Drunken morons do this same kind of thing with guitars left out. When people drink too much, some of them take leave of their senses.
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No kidding.

I think gigs would be much less stressful if we lived in a country where alcohol was illegal and weed wasn't...
 
Pocket-full-of-gold said:
Depends on who it is. If I know you can play or somebody I know and trust tells me you can play, then feel free to jump on and have some fun. I've let many guys sit in for a song or two under this premise. If you're a drunken punter at a pub who "used to play the drums"....good luck getting close. I remember playing on the floor at a gig years ago, punters were right next to us and our gear as we were playing. Some bloke was showing off to his girlfriend by choking my cymbals each time I crashed them. He did it three times without incident....on the fourth I cracked his fingers as hard as I could with a 5B stick.....he winced in pain, said something to me which I neither heard nor cared to hear and then quietly moved away with his missus. Funny, it didn't happen again.
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HAHA! Funniest thing I've heard all day!
 
Bo Eder said:
And another young drummer learns the correct way from an older master!
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Agreed, totally ! The singer in one of my two bands asked me to play my drums one time. I said : Yeah, this one time is allright... - while looking down BUT, with a smile. They all understood and never asked again. Aside from me of course, only my daughter can touch my drums.
 
Steel Crusader said:
I got to a gig once and my kit was being played by a rather "enthusiastic" friend of my band. Apparently the look in my was something to be seen to believed... My guitarist said "There was blood in my eyes and ice in my heart", which is quite a good lyric actually. RIP Stuart Cable, brother drummer and sadly missed.
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Oh my God, you killed Stuart Cable! You bastard!
 
Steel Crusader said:
I got to a gig once and my kit was being played by a rather "enthusiastic" friend of my band. Apparently the look in my was something to be seen to believed... My guitarist said "There was blood in my eyes and ice in my heart", which is quite a good lyric actually. RIP Stuart Cable, brother drummer and sadly missed.
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^^^This would be the only thing that ticks me off about drumming. I hate people touching my drums. Can't stand it. And I don't know how many people notice it but people never go and pick up the guitar (unless they are a guitarist) and say, "Hey! I'm going to jam on this guitar." Everyone thinks they can play the drums. I always pack up my kit ASAP after a gig. This is why I thank God that someone developed drum cases. <3
 
People do seem a little more at ease about jumping behind someones kit vs grabbing and picking up someones guitar, but I think there are plenty of knuckleheads that do both.

I just think the drums are waaaaay more inviting to the non musician because they look like giant shiny loud toys that you can sit in and take a ride on.
 
caddywumpus said:
I know that the O.P. hasn't been on since his one and only post, the but question that stands out to me:

You GOT TO the gig and your kit was being played? How did it get there before YOU?!?!? That was mistake number 1...
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Oh, Oh, I know!
The Steel Crusader is a time traveler. He sent his kit to the gig with his time machine.
That's why he hasn't been back here yet. He went Back To The Future.
 
If I trusted someone to set me up for a gig then he's got to watch out for the kit too. I'm not fortunate enough to have a roadie or a tech and my wife has said "no" for the last time.

I always take my cymbals off if I have to leave my kit unattended.

I had a drunk girlfriend of a band member dent my snare head once. Not a big deal but it made me nervous.
 
I set up at a small bar, which I'm only 15 so I had to wait outside until I could go in. They allowed me to set up before I got allowed inside, so my set was unattended for about 20 minutes.
I was allowed in about 15-20 minutes later and to my surprise my K Custom dry ride was cracked in 2 places, and my snare head had about 12 dents and was ripped about 3 inches.
Luckily for my I brought a spare snare drum from my small collection, and used that instead.
The fact that got me mad was that I had to pay $300+ for a new ride, and that someone was so blunt, and ignorant to jump on my kit and actually play it! Especially as hard as they did! Sometimes I just hate people. I never saw the person, and although I'm 15, they would never forget me or what I did to them.
 
After seeing this older thread somewhat resurrected, here's a tip you guys oughta' try next time you leave your set unattended - take the throne seat away and stash it!

You'd be surprised how well this works. People are generally pretty lazy and when they don't see anything to sit on, they just move away. They don't want to grab a chair from anywhere so they'll just leave. I've been doing this for years - just taking the whole throne away and putting it somewhere else. Works every time!
 
Bo Eder said:
After seeing this older thread somewhat resurrected, here's a tip you guys oughta' try next time you leave your set unattended - take the throne seat away and stash it!

You'd be surprised how well this works. People are generally pretty lazy and when they don't see anything to sit on, they just move away. They don't want to grab a chair from anywhere so they'll just leave. I've been doing this for years - just taking the whole throne away and putting it somewhere else. Works every time!
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Thats good advise, and taking away the sticks and beaters will add alot of insurance also.
 
Almost every time my band plays out, the guitarists invites special guest musicians from his past to play with us. Several times he has invited one of his previous drummers to play. I don't really mind the fellow drummer playing my drums, because he isn't someone who plays crazy and can damage anything. The thing I object to is that the guitarist let's the dude play a LONG time. I didn't come here to watch others play my drums - I want to play. Not to mention the guy hasn't rehearsed so he doesn't sound very good on the songs he does play.

On a few occassions my previous band has invited me to sit in on a few songs so their drummer can sing out front. The first time I did this, I went to hit the snare to start the song, and his throne was so low that I cracked the stick on the snare rim, and it went flying (almost took out the keyboardist). I spent what felt like eternity trying to get a spare stick out of the bag before I could continue with two hands!
 
Played a club gig in Bangkok (Thailand) last night.

While setting up my beloved Paiste cymbals, a guy came up and said "Hey, I'm the drummer from the band that is on after you guys. Can I use your cymbals?" My answer was short, the word only had two letters. ;-)

When his band started playing, I was almost pissing myself laughing. He wasn't just playing hard, he was trashing the club kit's cymbals. (No wonder he doesn't bring his own cymbals. He's probably trying to make them last a little longer than they normally do...)

I'm still amazed he even had the guts to ask me the question. When I next see him, I'll suggest a career change: comedian. Ha ha... ;-)

Patrice
_____________________________________________________
Banging on/with:
Paiste 2002, 2000 Color Sound, Visions, Dimensions & Twenty
Pearl MLX
Gretsch Catalina Birch
Vic Firth & Vater & Zildjian sticks
Remo Ambassador
Playing with:
Ooh & The Ballyhoo
Pussy & The Learjets
Roland Blum
Bone Clone
TP
 
I can't remember the last time this happened to me, if it ever has. One of the few benefits of playing on stages so small you yourself have to crawl between stands to get behind your kit. Even in some fairly big towns in central California, I never had to share drums with anyone, nor did I have to chase someone off of mine, even in the worst bars I played in. You're all going to make me paranoid now...!
 
Here's the sign that is placed all around my kit....


dontmesswithmydrums.jpg
 
Pocket-full-of-gold said:
I remember playing on the floor at a gig years ago, punters were right next to us and our gear as we were playing. Some bloke was showing off to his girlfriend by choking my cymbals each time I crashed them. He did it three times without incident....on the fourth I cracked his fingers as hard as I could with a 5B stick.....he winced in pain, said something to me which I neither heard nor cared to hear and then quietly moved away with his missus. Funny, it didn't happen again.
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I remember after a small festival my mate set up and my band played, we had a jam of Metallica's For Whom The Bell Tolls (a song I can still play pretty well), I was starting the intro and two people from other bands got up and were hitting the cymbals in time to the bass drums putting me off trying to get the tom fills in...

They got pissed off when I told them to piss off but at that time

* they'd been playing for a few years
* I'd been playing at least 15 (I've been playing 28 years now)
* It was my kit
* I didn't tell them they could touch my kit.
 
bobdadruma said:
I was playing a gig last year where I was to use the other drummers kit.
I arrived to find a real nice well set up maple kit with nice cymbals. Everything appeared to be almost new.
A kit that anyone would be proud to own.

I greeted and met the young owner of the kit for the first time and I asked him to remove his cymbals so that I could set mine up because we were going on first.

He said, "You don't want to use my cymbals?"
He was insulted, He thought that I was dissing his cymbals.

I had to convince him that I would gladly give him $20 if I dented a drumhead, But I don't want to have to give him $200 if I crack one of his pies.

He thought for a second and he finally looked at me and said, "You know, You're right!
I never thought of it that way. Play your own cymbals."

He was so proud of his kit that he just didn't think about all of the what-ifs!
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It's amazing when you break it down into financial terms, everybody seems to understand what your saying.
 
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