Love, The Music Weirdos

We’ve been called out…by a fifth grader. It happened back at either Christmas or Thanksgiving before everyone was about to dig into the mountains of food that my sister-in-law prepared. Her son had something he wanted to read that he had worked very hard on the day before. I’m still not sure if it was a school assignment or if he just got a wild hair being away from school but he stood up and started reading his 2 page document. I can’t remember the point of it all or if he even had one, because I was laughing so hard, but he wrote about everyone in the family – maybe it was why he was thankful for them – I dunno, but when he got to us we were lovingly referred to as the music weirdos. The child knows us well!

What other house could he go to and find cymbals in the living room chairs, guitar cases everywhere, drum parts on the coffee table,  and boxes of records piled in the floor from the boys latest conquest? (the records are what I came home to yesterday- and they were nice enough to warn me at least! And there was actually a really cool Edison Diamond Disc record in there from the 1920’s so for now the boy can stay!)

 

If you’ve never seen one of these up close, they’re really very cool. They’re about 1/4″ thick but it’s not vinyl like we know it today. The early material inside was actually a wood “flour” core with an asphalt binder and later changed to add more china clay and less wood flour. Each side was then coated with a condensite varnish and the whole thing was laminated together. Produced from 1912 until the demise of the company in 1929, they were the third best-selling brand behind Victor and Decca but they were more expensive and only meant to be played on Edison Phonographs which used a diamond stylus that ran in the grooves and produced the sound. Any other kind of player with steel needles would damage the record and then they were only good for hot plates. Unfortunately the records were also expensive for the times and coupled with the fact that the music selection wasn’t as diverse as some of the other labels people lost interest and the technology didn’t last long. Kinda like a Beta tape versus a VHS. Please tell me you remember BETA tapes so I don’t feel so old.

Of course in order to get the really cool Edison record there were also about a hundred other records ranging from opera to Elvis to classical to the Statler Brothers and a whole pile of Sinatra 33’s. And we don’t even own a record player. So what’s a girl to do with all this vinyl?? Decorate with it? Play it? Make stuff out of it? Sell it? I’m leaning towards decorate and sell (don’t tell the menfolk!) How cool would a whole wall of records look? Kind like this but with more records….

Did I mention we already had another stack of records stashed before the current ones came in? We better do something quick before they multiply again!

P.S. In other sorta related news: When something new comes into the house, something old should go out so to try to play by those rules, there’s a new “Shop” heading up at the top of the blog for you to check out what we’re clearing out. Sometimes the need arises to sell stuff in order to acquire other cool stuff like drums….or cymbals …..or food…..! Extra parts, cool cymbals, unique drums and other gear related items some from our own personal well-loved collection.  And there may even be some records on there soon….! So click on over and check back often. You never know what us music weirdos might be looking to sell to a loving home.

Teach Your Step Mom to Play 7 Nation Army on Drums in 7 Easy Steps

1. Introduce your step-mom to the drums. Mom meet drums. Drums meet mom. Teach her how to hold the sticks and work the pedals. Teach her simple beats. Boom tap boom tap boom boom tap boom tap, etc. (there is a whole drummer language at work here trust me I just haven’t learned to speak it all yet.)

2. Next, take over the radio in the car whenever y’all are going somewhere together and play her every White Stripes song on your iPod that you like. Repeat as needed but focus on the songs you like the most ingraining them into her psyche so that random riffs play through her head while she’s sitting at her desk at work. Eventually she will become the one playing you her favorite White Stripes songs. (Remember moms and dads there is no rule that says if you like bluegrass you can’t like Jack White- in fact I think he may even like bluegrass a little too…..give your kids music a chance ’cause sometimes it’s not just noise… unless maybe it’s the Beiber then I’m so sorry, I’ll pray for you…)

3. Casually mention to your step-mom how easy the drum parts are in most of those songs – how they’re mostly quarter note beats and one day, if you’re really lucky, she will say hey if Meg can do it I bet I can too. [editor note: this happened about a week ago…. Look out world this chick has some sticks and she’s not afraid to use them!]

4. Work out your solo for 7 Nation Army on the guitar and then invite your step ma into the music room and have her play the part of the drummer. (black clothing and wristbands are optional)

5. Break down the parts of the song for her and tell her what to hit and when. Smile as she starts hammering away on the wrong drums. Gently correct her attack of the ride to sound more “tappy” and not so “crashy”. Remind her this is Meg White not Metallica.

6. Start to play, nod at her when to come in and listen as she gets lost halfway through the song and says, “man I need to write this stuff down so I know what to hit and when.” Cue light bulb moment when you excuse yourself from the room and return with sheet music. (Just because she only reads guitar chords doesn’t mean she can’t be taught drum score. There are a few old dogs and cats who can still learn some new tricks)

7. Watch her light bulb moment happen when she puts it all together and realizes what all the dots and x’s mean after you explain them and then executes them in a semi-pleasing way while you rock on the guitar, even if they are just all quarter notes with one eighth note thrown in for grins.

Your work here is done!

P.S. For some more odd pairings (as if a step mom playing White Stripes on the drums wasn’t odd enough!) you can catch Jack White and the picker people (as we refer to them), Frank and Mike together tonight- Monday Jan. 9th on the History Channel in a new episode of American Pickers. And yes we are big fans of this show ’cause you know how we love a good deal on cool stuff around here!

Merry Belated Christmas Y’all!

What we’ve been up to….

This….

And this…

And a lot of this…

We partied hard for Christmas with breakfast that lasted all day- the amount of food not the length of the meal…in fact we never really ate dinner that night. We got lots of cool music related gifts… the boy and I actually received a lot of the same kinds of gifts….guitar strings, guitar tuners, cds, bracelets….. hmmm…. is it weird for the kid and the parent to get the same kind of stuff? Maybe I really am a 15-year-old boy in the body of a 30-something female…

Before the holiday frenzy we played football through Turkey Day (another day when we ate way toooo much…..!) right up til December 10th! Which really means the band played stand tunes at every playoff game every Friday night forever. Well not really forever…it just felt like it would never end some weeks! Sadly our team came in 2nd in the state title- but it wasn’t due to lack of trying or support from the community and the band. And we ‘paraded’ again this year meaning the boy played tenors in the annual Christmas Parade. He can also be seen above rocking the tympani as a reindeer at the winter concert. {yep, another profile shot….my fave apparently…}

I should have remembered from last year that Fall and Winter tend to be busy for us…but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel- I can see it! Or….wait is that a train?? Back to bringing you more music mayhem in the following days!

I’m No Stranger to the Rain

Dear Keith Whitley …could you please put in a good word up there above and get the powers that be to hold off on the whole water thing this week so the kiddos can get one football game in where the marching band can actually perform by marching on the field rather than standing in front of it….it is marching band after all….ok thanks for your consideration….

Fall is here. Football is here. And the RAIN is here. It’s like living in Oregon but strangely only on the weeks when we have a home game. So far the band has only gotten to play one scheduled Friday night game but the field was still so wet from the rain all week and they couldn’t march. (Apparently marching in wet grass and mushy ground is like marching in peanut butter…there’s no rolling that heel when your foot is mired in mud and muck apparently) They were still awesome standing still but could’ve been so much more awesome doing their thing like this:

 

But we’ll take any opportunity to play – standing, marching, laying down, upside down (*cough*cough* Tommy Lee!!!) or whatever.

The next home game got called off on account of – you guessed it – rain and the band had to play from the stands on a Monday night because they didn’t have enough people to do a full marching show.

I just want my Friday night football game french fry fix and to see my kid march in uniform on a dry field for a halftime show at least once this year. And this week is their Homecoming game to add insult to injury.

So say a tiny prayer with me folks. The weatherman says it’s gonna be cloudy with a 70 % chance of rain today, heavy rain tomorrow and showers again on Thursday. Maybe, just maybe, it will be dry enough come Friday….but just in case, I think I’m gonna recommend at the next school board meeting that the field should have a dome over it….Amen

Shirt, Shoes, Problem?

Ok class lets review:

Good: Wearing the band’s t-shirt to their own concert

Bad: Wearing a Justin Bieber t-shirt to a Metallica concert

Good: Wearing any type of music equipment related clothing to a hard rock concert

Bad: Wearing pink anything to a hard rock concert

Good: Wearing comfy shoes to a concert where you’ll be standing a lot

Bad: Wearing flip-flops to any concert anywhere anytime

Now I admit I have been there and done that in almost all cases of the above rights and wrongs. See here and here if you want to see the ugly truth…

However I have not yet entered the realm of Christmas sweater vests. Hi Mom!

That’s the woman who gave me life right there with her favorite TSO band member Chris Caffery. They have lights and lasers and smoke a guys with long hair and guitars! What’s not to love? Yes my mom is a Trans Siberian Orchestra fan. And she has seen them 9 times. And she has gotten autographs from each of them 9 times. Thank goodness she didn’t wear the poinsettia sweater vest all 9 times.

I know it was almost Christmas but I’ll forgive her if you can. She really is cool. Don’t let the vest fool you. Back in the day she saw Elvis. And Neil Diamond (ok maybe not so cool.) And there was the trip to see Kenny Rogers downtown which involved my four-foot something aunt sitting on telephone books to see over the steering wheel of our Ford LTD because she was the only not scared of driving in the city. And mom even took me to see Garth Brooks when I was 15.

And let us not forget Alabama. From 1980 until the 90’s when they finally retired she faithfully attended their concerts every time they came to town and even finally learned to maneuver downtown so she could make the pilgrimage to the coliseum to see them when the aunt couldn’t go. Rain nor snow nor event staff confiscating her video camera tape in 1988 and letting her off easy by having her return the camcorder to the car and letting her back in couldn’t keep her from her favorite band. (hey it was her first camcorder and she didn’t know you weren’t allowed to take “moving” pictures at a show…) By the way that was my first concert and we’re lucky I continued to go after that because when security folks whisk your mother away from her seat and you’re left with your aunt and no keys to the car you could possibly be scarred for life….but she came back, all was good and we continued to return faithfully to their shows through the next 10 or so years but we left the video camera at home.

So you see I get this concert thing honest because of my mother (although I’m a little more subdued about it). She on the other hand is a die-hard fan and once she loves you and your music, that’s it. She’ll have your t-shirts, your albums, your autograph, your pictures, your fan club membership, your website message board saved on her favorites, your email and your telephone number (well not really the last 2 things although if she could find a way, she would and you’d get lovely little encouraging cards and messages…)

Concerts – it’s just what we do. And thankfully it’s what my husband and step-son do too. So you will see us all together – mom, dad, me, the husband and the boy in Section 2L seats 1-5  in November when TSO blows through town. We will not however be wearing Christmas flower vests.

{mom and TSO drummer Jeff Plate – I guess I get the drummer thing honest too!}

We’ll leave that to mom.

Consistently Inconsistent

If by technical difficulties you mean the writer of this blog can’t seem to post anything in a consistent fashion around here, then yes we are having difficulties of the technical fashion. Speaking of fashion my concert wear post seems to be the top viewed thing which is very cool by the way! Thanks to everyone who’s looked at it…or to that one person who’s looked at it 42 times! And because I care about spreading the concert fashion etiquette rules to you good people as I know them and see them, I hope to be back soon with another helping. I’ll give you a hint – it involves a knitted Christmas poinsettia sweater vest. Yeah I know, you can’t wait!

So, things I wish I could say we’ve been up to the last 3 weeks:

• rockin’ out at some cool concerts like Jack White and The Ranconteurs or ZBB {there was much begging and pleading over Mr. White’s event, but the closest they were coming was Nashville…and it was a school night…and we live 9 hours and 6 minutes from that city in Tennessee….) 
• rollin’ in the dough from selling drums parts and holding down really cool jobs
• drinkin’ margaritas by the pool

What has really transpired:

• We survived Hurriquake 2011! Hurray! And a first anniversary! Awww!
• We are doing mega amounts of homework (well the boy is, not me per say, but i do my part by asking what do you have for homework? Have you finished your homework? and When are you going to finish your homework? Ya know, helpful stuff like that}
• We (me) had our butts kicked by 20/20/20 class and the new elliptical at the gym
• We journeyed into the land of plumbing (again) with the fixing of the drippy copper pipe under the house and by fixing I mean replacing as much of it as we could with something other than copper.
• We (the husband) had a run in with a black snake. Yes Dad they do keep the mice/moles/voles/varmints away but they are still snaky and when they come up the steps to your porch WHILE you are sitting on it, they can cause slight heart attacks….{in case you couldn’t tell we are not a fan of anything that slithers by the way, but to each his own}
• We had our first home marching band gig of the season (there was a football game involved but really who goes to watch that?) Too bad the field was still too wet to march on : ( But there’s always next week!
• We woke up to fall weather! Overnight! Complete with a 20 degree temperature drop! Bring it!! I’m sooo ready!

What I would like to work on:

• Make the drumroom more presentable. Right now it looks as if an earthquake happened in there. Oh wait…no really it’s not that bad but could use some organization, actually a bigger room would probably help a lot, but the boys have not fully convinced me to turn the living room into the drum room just yet!
• Take more pictures so I have more fodder for ye ol’ blog. Picture me at the first football game last week, the one mother figure there without a camera. I know I’m failing as a parent…. but the man of the house says that we live with the boy and see him everyday so it was no big deal I forgot the camera! Grandma came to the rescue though- in her bag of tricks she had both the camera and the camcorder {I wonder sometimes am I really her offspring since I so frequently forget the camera or to even take pictures when I do remember it?}

 

{yes that is the side of his head ….I never claimed to take good pictures….and why is he holding cymbals and not a snare I don’t know…and why did I not take any pictures of the band on the field??? Failing….}

• Be more consistently consistent in the writing department. Yes I’ve been a slacker here for the past 3 weeks. The first step is admitting you have a problem right?
• Pick apples and make pies. Yep I’m that easily entertained. I also enjoy letting the boy deejay songs on the iPod whenever we’re in the car. It’s the simple things.

{one more side shot for ya from our apple foray of last year….is anyone else sensing a pattern in my picture taking poses?… Maybe I’m just trying to be sneaky by taking shots when they’re not looking so they don’t realize I’m taking their picture….and by the way it’s really amazing what one year living in the country will do to a kid- ours gained about 6 inches in height and lost about 6 inches of hair…}

Happy Fall Y’all! I’m off to produce more posts, practice proper picture-taking techniques,  procure apples and prepare pies. Peace!

*** We Interrupt this Hurriquake…***

to bring you a special NEWS BULLETIN.

It’s our anniversary!

One year ago today I married my drummer husband (yes on our back porch) and inherited my drummer step-son (he took this picture from the porch swing) and filled my house what else, drums! 

We met through a mutual friend who thought we would make good friends if nothing else! This was part of my response to his first email to me when he said he heard I was a music fan:

A big yes to the music fan part– love love love music–love to play, sing and go to concerts. Mostly into everything from bluegrass and gospel to country- classic and newer stuff, to southern rock, old school G’N’R & Metallica, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and a little alternative thrown in for good measure….

I play acoustic guitar and sing around with friends and at my church and I hear you play the drums….what kind of music are you into? Do you ever play out anywhere?

Little did I know that email would be the beginning of many many nights of conversations and a first date to a concert! Which led to many more concerts and open mics and stepmom-hood and becoming a marching band parent and having a house full of guitars, drums and best of all people!

I love you and Happy 365 day Anniversary!

 

Shakin’, Rattlin’ and Rollin’ and How to be Prepared

First off let us recap this week- ’cause I’m sure y’all are dying to know all about it!

• Monday: Back to school! We are now the proud owners (!?) of a 10th grader. But I refuse to talk about driver’s ed…Sold some drum goodies on eBay – snare parts and mounts and a little DW 8″ piccolo tom – and got held up at gunpoint by Paypal. (no, not really, they just have some random new “hold your money for no reason” policy even if you are an excellent eBayer and have been for years, but I digress…)

(good-bye cute drum!)

• Tuesday: EARTHQUAKE!! We were lucky- no damages to home, persons or drums. (A co-worker’s deer head in his office didn’t fair as well….I warned you we live in the sticks..) Kids got a nice afternoon of hanging on the football field when they evacuated school. I finally stopped shaking a few hours after the ground did. (Props to you California for living with this sorta event all.the.time. Yeah, we know, we’re wusses when it comes to the whole earth-shaking thing that’s why we chose to live way over here… but we can take your jokes! Some folks did have some significant damage though and we can now say that Central VA is responsible for cracking the Washington Monument…)

(image borrowed from here)

• Wednesday: More Earthquakes, well aftershocks, followed by blizzards (the ice cream kind!)
• Thursday: MORE Earthquakes (aftershocks can end at any time now thank you!) and a helluva thunder-storm that I think may be a preview to the impending doom predicted for the east coast this weekend (aka Hurricane Irene…hopefully it won’t be this bad…)

• Friday: It’s early so I can’t say how the day will play out just yet. We should be preparing for this new disaster of biblical proportions I suppose, but we have no generator to buy gas for and the guys aren’t big on tuna or other non-cooked meals that one should have on hand to survive should the storm render us powerless. So we’ll just play drums and guitar in the dark, drink our bottled water and Coke, eat jalapeno potato chips and wait for the next big thing! Since we already had the fires last week (well just some overzealous boy scouts in the camp behind our house who weren’t familiar with operating dampers on the big cook stove they were using and in return smoked us out and made us think the woods were on fire) I figure the locusts and the plagues should be here about Thursday next week…. 

Now in the spirit of being prepared, I give you a list of things to know if you are soon to be living with, working with or dating a drummer:

• They will carry drum keys everywhere they go {it’s like an unwritten rule or something…}
• They will carry sticks most of the time too – these are used for beating on the dashboard in the car or the practice pad or whatever else they can beat on wherever they are

 (“drumchucks” image by drumlove)

• They have their own language meaning they will talk to each other in “drum” sounds -I would give you an example but I can’t speak it yet let alone type it correctly!  
• They will use funny sounding musical terms like paradiddle and triplet
• They will teach you that RLRR LRLL is not a texting abbreviation like ROTFL 
• They will introduce you to tons of new music- this past year alone I’ve been privy to a whole new world of sounds including Slipknot, Shinedown, the White Stripes and marching band music (the last two by the way are phenomenal for getting stuck in my head all.day.long. And I keep telling the boy I can play drums as good as Meg if he’ll play Jack’s part, but he just shakes his head…)
• They may not always hear you when you call to them from the other room…or sometimes in the same room…
• They will be entertaining {have you ever met a drummer who wasn’t funny?}
• They will make great husbands {hi hunny!} and step-sons {yo!}

So bring it Irene! We can take it! Batten down the hatches my friends and lock up what you still want to own and have a lovely disaster free weekend!

Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum

The season is upon us. You know that season filled with crisp clear nights, football games and drums! Well maybe I’m getting ahead of myself being as it’s still over 90 degrees here most days, but marching band practice has started and I can taste fall!

Here’s our pride and joy last year when he was paying his dues as a bass drummer.

This year since he’s no longer a lowly freshman, he finally got a shot at the second snare drummer position! Of course he rocked it. And because we are the house that all drums and drummers gravitate to, the boy brought home not one but two marching snares the other week. Why two? Because one is the practice (no padding in the harness) and one is the performance one.

By the way- you definitely want as much padding in the harness as you can get. I tried it on and felt kinda bad that we had been subjecting our boy to such torture because that marching snare is heavy and not only do you have to wear it but also march in it and crab step and do all sorts drills and stuff in the hot humid Virginia summer. But it’s strange what a kid will go through for something he loves! Now if we ask him to go out and mow the lawn, that’s a different story! Absolutely no love there.

Here’s a shot of one of the new noise makers {the drum not the boy…silly}

Fun fact alert– did you know the heads on a marching snare are made out of Kevlar– the same material used in bullet proof vests?? Is this why those little drummer boys march ahead of the army? Cool and scary all at the same time.

So now the real practice has begun. Practice pads just don’t have the same effect- the sticks just don’t react the same way. Nor are pads as loud as the real drum. And it’s important to be loud to annoy your pets and neighbors be able to be heard through the sound of a full band and lots of other drums. So we relegated him to the back porch to keep the cats (and us) from going insane. 

On the flip side cooking dinner, folding laundry and delivering punchlines are now proceeded by lots of fanfare and drumrolls – as they should be!

Drummer’s Paradise

So a few weekends ago we ventured over the river and through the woods and north on 95 and 15 to a quaint little (I use that word loosely – 2 levels encompassing 4,000 square feet maybe isn’t little, but it was a welcoming and homey place) drum shop that we had been wanting to visit. Well, my dear husband had been wanting to visit…and the boy went because we said the word drum and he knew the trip would end with a concert…and I’m the designated navigator so they needed me! haha! 

Getting there was half the battle- hello people in Northern VA and MD why must you all drive so crazy at the same time in the same place???…one more reason we will live in the sticks forever! But the afternoon we spent browsing through the shop was well worth the traffic. And even I who came along only for the scenery and promise of seeing Tommy Lee at the end of  the weekend couldn’t resist the allure of allll the shiny pretty weapons of mass percussion!

Dale’s Drum Shop has been in business for almost as long as Crüe has been a band which is almost as long as I have been alive!It was opened in 1982 by Dale and Gail Wise in Harrisburg, PA after his 7 year stint as Buddy Rich’s drum tech. And it was like walking into our home away from home as soon as we stepped in the door. Unfortunately we didn’t get to meet Dale or Gail because they were both out that day, but everyone else there was very cool, helpful and friendly.

“Come on in! If you’ve got any questions just give a shout. By all means go up stairs – there’s lots more to see. Take your time and look around. We really appreciate you coming such a long way to visit our place! Sure you can sleep here among all the DW’s.” (Well that last sentence isn’t quite true, but the boy did ask if he could stay there that night or maybe it was live there…)

There were racks and racks of cymbals…

And enough snares to beat the band….

And more DW’s than you could shake a stick at!

Now I know this wasn’t a DW kit (sorry hunny!) But it was probably one of my favorites in the whole shop!

 

We wanted t-shirts but they were all out so we settled for a drum key and wait for it…. something that makes noise! It’s called a thunder tube and it really does sound like thunder.

So until our next trip, I leave you with parting pictures of drum heaven {upstairs fittingly!} in Dale’s:

And thanks again to Dale’s for their wonderful customer service and for letting us wander around and snap pics of all their cool stuff!