Updated site

wholly shit. Ok, so I’ve had this site for about 8 years now. I’ve rebuilt it from a self promotion device to a site where I started doing interviews with some of my favorite drummers. I started off doing video interviews and realized quickly that I had zero video editing skills and things quickly log jammed. I updated the wordpress backend and lost the whole site. rebuilt it again but got overloaded with bullshit that I didn’t know how to fix. Yesterday I started from scratch and rebuilt it again. As of this moment I am about 75% done and I am more happy and optimistic about it than I have ever been in the entire time I’ve owned it. I’m a drummer, not a web builder, but as of right now I feel pretty good about being a guy who has a cool looking blog. Once I finish fixing all the other sucky things about past posts which go over into the borders and other shit I’m going to start with a bunch of articles I’ve been meaning to write. I’ll review the Band Of Horses show I saw last weekend. The new Redd Kross record and a bunch of other stuff I think is cool. So, just mark this down as the point where this site re-started and is now pretty...

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Road Reality Check

This could be titled dreams vs reality. What is the yardstick of your life? What do you measure it by? I used to think I had a good grasp on this. The answer was basically “doing things I believe in” This meant drumming, playing in bands, helping others, making art, starting some business of my own. All things I’ve done too many times to count. Then reality hits. The phrase “You’ve got to face reality” is a common one. But what does that really mean? What IS reality? I think it depends on who you ask. Talking to a friend the other day we agreed that there is never any good news in the papers or on the news. So from this reality it would seem the world is totally in chaos and everything is falling apart and that there are these two parties who are claiming to have leaders who know what should be done to fix things. On and on it goes with this thing called reality. My current reality is composed of a hotel room, actually I’m writing this in the empty continental breakfast room in the hotel. We played a great show in New York City last night, but that reality is gone. So it seems reality has nothing really to do with the past. I guess you could say “I had a reality last night that was pretty good….” but seems to indicate that the past is a reality. But it’s gone, so that can’t really be much of a reality. I’m in this hotel, alone and my girl is mad at me because I’m away and it’s not looking like we’re going to make any real money on this tour. That is part of my current reality  because I’m connected to someone I love and my attention is on her. But I’m still in a hotel lobby getting ready to pack up and head to Boston for tonights show. I think that reality is basically the future. The future however doesn’t really exist yet. The gig tonight may be amazing and sell out and we could make more money than we thought and things will work out. But all that potential exists in the future. We are always able to change the future. We can’t really change the past although we can learn from the past. But the past happened the way it did because of decisions we made at the time about the future. We look at the present and decide into the future something we hope will be an improved state. And sometimes we mis estimate. Life seems to be a...

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Your Comfort Zone Sucks

One thing about this project that I didn’t fully anticipate was the consequences of pushing myself so far out of my comfort zone. In fact, I didn’t really consider I had a comfort zone. I tend to live by my own rules. Like, the idea of playing drums on the street as my sole source of income is something I am very passionate about. The idea of being 100% self sufficient and doing it 100% on my own terms cuts to the heart of who I am. My personal standard of my own integrity is defined in the proceeding sentence. That doesn’t mean, however that this is practical. But I hate practical. Who says it has to be practical? So, how to reconcile this idea of integrity with the “practical” requirements of being able to pay your way and survive with a roof over your head? And why should I worry about it anyways? Why don’t I just do exactly what I want? I’ll tell you why. Other People. There are other people in the world. I’m in love with another person. Maybe I could have written this blog for years concentrating on drumming and how to make a living as a street musician. Looking at the world of buskers and street performers I am continually inspired by their dedication to living outside the box. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some questions for them. Are all street musicians homeless? Do they pay taxes? Live in boxes? Can they afford to eat organic food or do they have to eat McDonalds because it’s all they can afford? And most importantly, are they in love? Do they have someone who depends on them to pull their weight? I do. And that fact requires a lot of inspection. Loving another person and being responsible for their happiness and survival do not necessarily go hand in hand. I could just “do what I want” and play drums and write my blog and probably talk forever about all the experiences I have in that arena. But in the back of your mind you’d probably be asking yourself, “I wonder if he has a girlfriend or wife?” This problem I’m outlining here seems to be the trap of many musicians. I dare say most artists and musicians are trapped by it. “I’m an artist”  seems to be used to justify an awful lot of non survival behavior. And I am as guilty of this as the next starving artist. And it’s really bullshit. There is no question that I am happy when I play drums. Theres no question that I’m great at it....

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The Make Break Point And Free Parking

The term “viable” means basically, “able to support oneself”. This applies to any activity in life. Even street drumming. I worked out that it would take $66 a day to make street drumming “viable” at 20 days a month. Pay the bills, keep the lights on. Well, A couple of things didn’t get factored into this equation, like parking. Do you know it costs $5 an hour to park in San Francisco? So if I make $20 an hour drumming on the street. I need to play for about 3 1/2 hours to make that $66, but now you add about $20 to park and I have to play for 5 hours to clear $66. Something like that. Yesterday I pulled up to the Ferry Building at about 5pm, didn’t have enough change to put an hour on the meter, so sat there and waited until 6, when parking becomes free.  Only, I had to pick my girl up from work at 7. So I had an hour. 20 min to push drums down the street, find a place to set up. Set up, play, tear down, push cart back to car. 30 min playing time, maybe. Fuck it. Went for it. Push cart, set up, start playing. Super dirty homeless guy immediately comes up beside me doing crazy man dance. Tough call on the street because you can’t really kick people out who have no other place to go. Being a street musician, you’re kind of on their turf and it comes with the territory. However, people were repelled by this dude and that meant nobody wanted to come close enough to drop a buck in the case. 10 min later, he left. So 20 min to make it worthwhile. Few people dropping a couple of bucks. This well off gentleman standing a couple hundred feet away watching the rocking. 10 min later he walks over, big smile, says “somebody’s got to make this worth your while, you’re killing it” drops a $20 in the case. I played for about 25 min and made $24. There’s a lot to be said for “Just DO IT” Don’t do dumb stuff. Don’t hurt other people. But definitely DONT sit there wondering IF, or  SHOULD I? Get out there and DO. Someone will eventually dig it. Faith in mankind...

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Outside Outside Lands

Today I set up outside Outside Lands 2012 in Golden Gate Park SF. Played for 2 hours, made 18 bucks. I think its kind of a funny thing to have TheBEstDrummerInTHeWORld on my kick drum. Honestly, for the most part, the people walking by, heading to a major rock festival ignore you. I hate to say “kids these days” because I hate to sound or BE old. But, kids today are in their own world. I’m sure I was. I know many of the bands on the Outside Lands roster, but I don’t really know who many of the drummers on the bill. I could have been any of them. I would recognize Lars from Metallica, Dave Grohl or Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters, but thats about it. Fitz and The Tantrums drummer is great, but I couldn’t pick him (or maybe its a her) out of a crowd. At a certain point, a hipster dude with shades and a captains hat asked if he could sit down and play. I let him and he could play. He quickly had about 6 people around banging on the drums with him. Maybe he was the popular guy in the neighborhood, maybe the captains hat signaled a certain level of cool that I don’t quite grasp. But he gathered a crowd with arguably less drumming skills than I. It’s just a funny part of the study to see the responses people have to ME and to “some guy playing drums in the street” They seem to be two different studies. Maybe I need to dress like a stereotypical rockstar. Leather pants street...

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