All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

[techristian]

You just bought that great set of Ludwigs or Mapex drums. Your 6 month gig is at some *DIVE. (*Really rough neigborhood bar.) You are afraid that the drums may be scratched or stolen. Do you.......?

 

1) Take them home every day?

 

2) INSURE THEM TO THE HILT ?

 

3) Bring your beaten up practice drums to the gig and keep the good drums at home for yourself?

 

Please reply and I'll tell you what I did in a few days.

 

Dan

 

http://teachmedrums.com

[Adan_V]

6 month gig?? I dont get it.

 

Do you mean that you will be playing there each night?

[dogxray]

Yeah 6 month gig. 7 days a week? I am curious about this a well. But back to the question. I would use the practise set for this one. That gives you more time to play the new kit at home.

[Old Steve]

My first thought is to take them home every night. I don't trust other people to care for my stuff when it's not in my control, and it only takes one idiot to completely wreck my gear.

 

I'd also consider leaving them at the club, but torn down and put away in cases...assuming the club had a secure, dry place to store them.

 

The owner and staff of the club would also be a factor. If they do a good job of keeping people off the stage and/or the environment is fairly controlled, I might even keep the drums set up. In doing so, however, I'd have some kind of written agreement with the owner that if a customer or employee even so much as touched my kit, he'd owe me money for it.

 

In this last case, I'd probably make it difficult for people to play my kit...cover it up, remove the cymbals, take the seat off the stand, take the beater out of the kick pedal, and not leave any sticks around. I used to do this at a place we practiced at in college...kept people from playing my kit.

[Mofishes]

Mics on the drums?

Sound guy?

Jam night?

 

Old Steve has some good advice. Talk to the club employees and manager. Will they take responsibilty if something happens? Doubt it but it is worth asking. How important is the gig to them?

 

What I would do: If it's a weekly gig; every Friday/Sat - I'd load out on Sunday or Monday and return with the drums for soundcheck on the following Friday. If it's every night/odd night I'd leave the practice drums set up full-time. Sure would save a lot of agravation and possibly a hernia.

[techristian]

OK I was talking about any gig but in my case it was a weekend gig. Some weeks just Saturday and some weeks Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and everthing in between.

 

I was playing a COUNTRY MUSIC GIG so I never needed microphones. If I had though, I would have left the MIC STANDS set up but removed the microphones themselves. It is too easy to slip microphones into a pocket.

 

I often played WITH NO WRITTEN CONTRACT and no set length of engagement. If they liked us we stayed up to 9 months. If not, we were gone the next week. Because we worked with no contract, I never even thought of making the BAR owners responsible. Anything easy to steal or break was taken home.

 

I DID leave my Zildian cymbals and Zildian Hyhats with my set. I NEVER played on cheap cymbals after hearing Zildians.

 

I had all of my equipment including practice drums, Double Ludwig set, microphones and home recording equipment insured to the hilt.

 

I remember one time when a beer bottle hit my bass drum in a brawl and the front skin was all splashed up with beer. I myself was never hit with a beer bottle nor was I the intended target at the time.

 

I usually went along with the band. If the other members left all of their stuff set up, my drums were buried in the mess and a less attractive target. If everyone else brought all of the amps and PA home, then my drums would have been the only thing on the stage. In that case I would usually take them home.

 

I played most of my BAR GIGS between 1975 and 1980, so that should give you a bit different perspective. When the DISCO THING started up in 78-79 it killed off most of the local music scene for a few years. After that, I was Born Again in 1982. The BAR SCENE wasn't much fun any more and the last GIG I played publicly was a wedding gig , in 1983 ,WHERE I DID BRING MY LUDWIGS. I have concentrated on the craft of RECORDING and PRODUCING music and writing music software for the past 20+ years.

 

I barely maintained my drum chops up until February 2002 when my interest in the WFD has had me practicing more than ever; up to 2 hours per session but only EVERY OTHER DAY.

 

To answer the final question I played most of my gigs with my first set of drums, my SEARS SILVERTONE set that I bought selling ice cream. I used my LUDWIG DRUMS for practice and RECORDING. That is why, looking back today, I see it so insane trading in those LUDWIG drums for OCTAPADS back in 87. Even though the Ludwigs were 13 years old when I sold them, they had probably only been used in gigs and transported around less than 40 times.

 

Dan

http://teachmedrums.com

[Old Steve]

You traded your Ludwigs for Octopads?!?! Man, I hope you saved the seeds from whatever you were smoking at the time!!!

 

As penance, the intergalactic drumming authority hereby sentences you to 12 hours of double paradiddles in penance for your sins against the drumming community.

 

As to the original question, however, I must say it's a thought provoker...although much of the answer depends on the specifics of the particular gig/club/people involved. In my own experience, as long as the stuff that's a target for theft (mics, small things, cymbals, etc.) are somehow locked up, the worst you have to worry about is actual physical damage to the kit as a result of:

 

A.) idiots playing with your stuff

 

B.) idiots causing damage while not playing your stuff (i.e. loading in kegs for the bar OVER the top of your kit....oops...splat)

 

In that regard, you can slow down the people from group A by cutting off the "means by which you drum"....i.e. taking away the sticks, seat, and pedals. The only risk here is that they decide to use "alternate sticks" to play your kit (...beer bottles, iron pipes, hammers, etc.) As for option "B", the easy fix here is to make sure that your tubs are out of any traffic areas, and that anyone not associated with the band wouldn't have any reason to get near your kit.

 

Anyway, enough of my yappin...you owe us some rudiments, soldier!

[techristian]

You traded your Ludwigs for Octopads?!?! Man, I hope you saved the seeds from whatever you were smoking at the time!!!

 

I bought the Octapads when the technology was BRAND NEW. They retailed for $900-$1100 Can. and I figured my used Ludwigs were worth $800 at the time. So I hate to admit it, but I even PAID the music store owner another $250 on top of trading my Ludwigs. Recently I picked up an SP-11 (like an octapad but much better) for only $50.

 

Dan

 

http://teachmedrums.com