(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

IT WAS DURING my freshman year of high school that my father bought me another drum set. This time it did not come in a VW. It came in a van. Nor was it a “beater” set. It was the real thing: professional quality, Roger’s wood tone, five piece with nice cymbals. My father paid $600 for the whole kit with cases.

It was serious then. That was a lot of money to put out for a fifteen-year-old kid. I know my father would not have done it if he didn’t believe in me and if he didn’t believe that I was serious about playing. He knew that I was. I knew that I was.

Hours upon hours upon hours were spent practicing. Being a bit of a perfectionist, I sometimes drove myself nuts (still do). I would play some things over and over until I either got it right or gave up exhausted and disgusted. In a past article I wrote about how I would put a stack of records on the turntable, put the headphones on and play through the whole stack. Then I would flip them over and play through the other sides. Sometimes I played so much that my hands actually bled. (However, it wasn’t until just this year that I achieved the ultimate in masochistic glory by giving myself a bloody lip while practicing. Ah! The taste of blood!) Plus, it did not take long for that five piece drum set to turn into a big nine piece set, complete with several cymbals and hand-made brass chimes (Courtesy of the extremely talented Kevin Gallagher.)

When I entered high school I participated in all the bands the school had to offer. I loved playing so much that it did not matter to me whether it was the marching band, the concert band or the jazz band. To be honest, the concert band was rather dull. Playing quarter notes on a snare drum does not really get one’s adrenaline pumping. The marching band was much better.

In the marching band we had an excellent drum instructor. He played with a drum and bugle corps and had the fastest hands I have ever seen. He could not play a drum set. He only played the snare drum. He wrote tough drum parts for our drum line. He knew how to push us to the limit and challenge us with intricate cadences and hand patterns. Once he gave me a part that was so hard that it took all of my concentration to do my part correctly. There was a period of a few weeks when I had such a mental block from nervousness over that part that I nearly froze every time I had to play it in public. Several times I skipped it and improvised. Finally, with encouragement from the rest of the drum line, I broke through that barrier during one performance and the part was a piece of cake ever after. Just like any other challenging thing in life, 99% of the battle to succeed was purely mental in nature.

The most enjoyable type of band in school was the jazz band. We had some incredible musicians at that time. In every area of the band there seemed to be at least one or two or, as in the case of our saxophone section, three outstanding musicians who were capable of performing solos. We often entered jazz competitions and performed extremely well, many of our soloists winning trophies. During my last two years of high school, it fell to me to perform the drum solo for our band. One of my best friends in school, Glenn Vasko, played bass guitar in the jazz band. Glenn and I coordinated our solos and complimented one another extremely well.

Those of us in the band had the privilege to go on many trips. The marching band played at all the football games. The jazz band often played at competitions at other high schools. Plus, each year we had a band trip for both the marching and jazz bands. One year we went to Connecticut. Two other years we went to Virginia Beach.

It was on the Connecticut trip that quite a few of us, under the influence of adolescent stupidity, managed to get ourselves into some big trouble. We were only at Mystic Seaport for a few days. However, on one of the nights there, most of the kids got a little crazy. Those were the days of John Belushi and “Animal House.” Several of us pulled the sheets off of the beds and paraded through the hotel in “togas.” We even entered a club in the hotel and disrupted people dancing there. I don’t know why he picked me, but a hotel manager was screaming in my face, inches from my nose. Then we were all scrambling to get away. I cleverly changed, jumped out of my window and entered the hotel psuedo-innocently asking, “Hey, what’s all the commotion about?” It caught up with me later though.

It seems that late that night, several kids were outside getting high in the woods. The police came and the kids scattered. Two girls came to our window (we were on the first floor) and begged us to let them in. They spent the night sleeping in our bathtub. We left them alone and didn’t think much of it. However, they were seen leaving our room the next morning.

The phone rang. I could hear the band director screaming from the other side of the room. We were summoned to his room. He was an ex-marine. We were scared. He kicked the mattress so hard that half of it flew up into the air. We were made to stay in our room until the rest of the band had eaten breakfast and were on the buses ready to go to marching band practice. When Glenn and I entered the bus, the director told us that we were suspended from the band for the rest of the year. There was a unified gasp on the bus. The backbone of the jazz band just got suspended.

Many kids were suspended from the band that day. Most of the drum line had to sit on the sideline during the marching competition. Needless to say, our band did not fare too well in that. The band also had to participate in a parade that afternoon. Those of us who were suspended were given the duty of walking along side the band to help any kids who passed out in the extreme hit that day. I didn’t mind very much. I got to walk next to the twirlers. Drummers and twirlers… kind of like thunder and lightning. (Ask me about Cindy sometime.)

This is how my high school days were spent. By my senior year, with my long hair and cocky attitude, I was well on my way to being a rock star. I knew I was good. I made sure everyone else knew I was good. By the time I graduated my whole intention in life was to play my drums, eventually recording great songs and playing in front of multitudes of people.

However, things did not go according to plans… Not my plans anyway.

TO BE CONTINUED…

(Oh yeah, by the way… about being suspended from the jazz band… The suspension decree was amended later that day. The director said he “forgot to clarify” that he didn’t mean the jazz band when he said Glenn and I were suspended. After all, you can’t suspend rockstars!)

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

ONCE UPON A TIME, in a far off and distant lifetime, there was a boy. A drummer boy. His greatest desire was to make music. Rhythm was in his bones and in his blood. It flowed from his hands naturally. It was part of who he was.

As a small boy, the drummer would set his mother’s cooking pots out on the kitchen floor. Banging and clanking, he did what came naturally, unaware and uninfluenced by fame or pride. The drumming was as sure to develop as was his ability to crawl and walk. To some it was only noise. His mother heard differently. Though she sometimes mistakenly called it “tapping” when he “played” the dashboard along with the radio in the car as his talent developed, she was always his support.

The first time he held a pair of drumsticks and played on a real drum, it was obvious to all that it was a fit. For nearly eleven years the banging, clanking and tapping was aimed at this moment. His sticks hit the mark in the center of the snare drum received from his grandparents. His rhythm and the moment were well timed.

His career began in sixth grade. He paid his beginner’s dues through elementary school renditions of “Give my Regards to Broadway” and “Hello Dolly.” His distinction emerged through his solo in “You are my Sunshine,” an eight-measure blur of smoking sixteenth notes and first performance nerves, fired by the crowd’s applause. Fame and pride were on stage. There he stood. A drummer.

His teenage years arrived along with his father in the orange VW Bug, bulging with his very first drum set. It was not the prettiest set. It was not the best sounding set. It was a starter set, a “beater” set. It took a beating well. Together the drummer and his set traversed new grounds of speed and technique. They pioneered uncharted territories of styles and rudiments. They were persistent and dauntless as a steam engine.

With the arrival of his first drum set, the drummer’s talent was confirmed and his ambition was committed. There would be no doubt that this was what he was designed to do and what he loved most to do. His quickly approaching high school days would soon prove it.

TO BE CONTINUED…