Stupidest/Most Embarrassing thing you've ever done to your drums

After I bought my first set of non-B8/ZBT cymbals I setup the hi hats upside down. Being the expert that I am, a few weeks later when I was at the music store where I bought the cymbals I was gracious enough to help the staff by pointing out to them that the hi hats on display were upside down... ...yeah.
 
Probably the dumbest thing I ever did was what I didn't do:

When I first started playing in the mid-80s my cousin called me up. He had heard I started playing drums. He told me to go over to my aunt's house (his mom) and there was a drumset I could have.
So I go over and there is a set of vintage, 70s Ludwigs. The only problem was the had this cheesy psychedelic covering. So being 17 years old, and pretty stupid, and having no knowledge of what cool drums are, I turned them down. (Also, in the mid-80s, vintage was not cool. Shiny, new, teal and pink stuff was cool.)
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
 
Bought a high end DW 9000 series tom/snare stand that had neoprene pieces affixed to the traditional rubber ends that grabs the drum hoop. I didn't know what to make of the neoprene pieces so I trashed them, assuming they were packing material. Later, I learn that DW designed the stand with the neoprene to allow the drum to float, allegedly enhancing resonance. My dealer ended up getting replacement neoprene for me. My drums sounded great in the stand without neoprene and I can't really tell the difference, but I'm still happy to have the stand as designed.
 
I left an early/mid 60s slingerland kit in aqua satin flame sitting in a barn when I moved out on my own after high school. I was certain my exports were better. Didn't make time to grab them when the place sold years later.

Thinking about it now hurts my soul.
 
Here's one: as a 16 yr old kid in the '80's, I took black electrical tape and gave me sticks the candy cane treatment, a big black swirl over the whole length of the stick.

Bonus points: I was such a newb I didn't even realize how bad they felt
 
When I bought my first drum set, I wanted to keep the dust off it, so I covered it with a big bed sheet. I realized I liked the sound of the drums when I hit them with the bed sheet still on them.

Hey, it was the 80s.

And at least I never played a vertical ride cymbal.

Actually, I did that one time, too.

Ashamed,
8Mile
 
1. I used Remo Black dots
2. I got completely wasted & puked all over my buddy's snare

Good Times ;)
 
Sold my blue 77 vistalite 10 piece kit to pay the rent!

Put tape on the ends of my sticks to stop the chipping so they would last! Felt like clubs!
 
I tried to clean my first Zildjain crash with Tarn-X. Took the finish right off and it looked brown like an old penny. This was about 1973.

I remember buying my first ride and crash for 42 and 36 dollars respectively in 1971.
 
"When I was about 14 years old I experimented with pouring rubbing alcohol on my cymbals and lighting them on fire. It was actually kind of cool until i poured too much alcohol on them, lit it up, and then had flaming drops of alcohol falling from my cymbals onto the carpeted floor. I'm lucky I didn't burn the house down, lol" I use to work in tissue culture of mammalian cell lines and chick embryo neurons and muscle-we had to use sterile technique involving spraying your arms and hands down with 70% ethanol. No problem till you used a sterile loop and burner to flame sterilize it to dissect the chick embryos. I don't know how many times I set myself on fire when my arms would light up in a blue flame and burn all the hair off my arms. I'd be jumping up and down trying to put myself out. LOL
 
I listened to a lot of metal when I first started drumming and thought I was going to be the next Dave Lombardo or some shit, I took the wrap off both hand-me-down sketchy kits I had and "re-wrapped" the drums in camouflage duct tape!
I had 2 12" toms, 2 13" toms. 2 16" floor toms and 2 22" bass drums all covered in camo duct tape mounted on a Gibraltar rack with a collection of low end shitty sounding cymbals, all that gear and I didn't even really know how to play drums at all!

I ended up buying a brand new Pearl Export Select kit with my High School graduation money and traded the camouflage drums to a pawn shop for a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder and one shitty microphone!!
 
I had two garbage beginner sets in "roughly" the same color, candy apple red. Well I was obsessed with cannon kick drums so I married the two off brand, off color kick drums into one. Yeah. 22" around by 36" long. It didn't look right, at least not the way I'd envisioned, and it didn't sound right either. The most embarrassing thing is that I played it that way for over a year.
 
Last edited:
When I was 16 I let my friend's dad talk me into buying his concert tom 80's Big R Rogers kit for more than it was worth and sold my butcher block wrap Yamaha kit. At the time I thought all Rogers drums were supposed to be the s#!t and I didn't know any better.
 
When I lived in California in the 80's I sold my 7 piece piano black Pearl MLX kit for $800 (worth 3X that) so I would have enough gas, food and beer money to drive to the East Coast (another bad decision) with my then girlfriend (worst decision).
 
In a hasty move from Cleveland, OH to Tampa, FL I forgot to pack up my 2nd bass drum. It was a 24x14 Ludwig Thermogloss Walnut. LOL, never did see it again.
 
The essence of 80's cool....
 

Attachments

  • bruford.jpg
    bruford.jpg
    44.5 KB · Views: 190
Back
Top