Hitting things for fun and profit

Where the hell do you start with these things? Does anyone ever read them? Do they care? Probably not. But just in case you are even remotely interested…

I started hitting things with sticks for fun when I was tiny and beat the ever living snot out of my Gran’s saucepans. Apparently. I don’t remember. Maybe this was where it started. Maybe I just needed firmer limits setting. Or Ritalin. Certainly it didn’t do the saucepans any great favours.

Time went on (as it has an annoying tendency to do especially when you’re not concentrating) and at around 13 my friend Andy and I cycled out to a village hall to see his brother’s band rehearse. His brother played drums. I wanted to play drums.

He let me have a go.

I was shocking.

But in my head I was Keith Moon (my medication obviously hadn’t kicked in yet) and after that I just desperately wanted a kit. So the fact that the “study” is now filled with drums is basically all Mark Hilton’s fault.

After trying to build a “kit” out of tin cans and cling film (“tell kids today that and they won’t believe you” etc) in order to bang out Devo’s Mongoloid very badly and then badgering my parents for a kit I actually got one for my 14th birthday. It was a fifth-hand four-piece Beverley kit with two cymbals my mum bought for £100 from the legendary Bill Heggie’s Magnum Sound in Wishaw. We brought it home in her Mini with the kick drum on the front seat and me sandwiched between the snare and toms in the back. To say I was pleased would have been an understatement. Happy as a dog with two…tails is about right.

The neighbours? Not so much.

I set it up and pounded life out of it. I was then very quickly reminded that there might be a small issue with this behaviour. But to give Steve and Elaine their due they were very understanding, gave me a copy of their police diary and followed it with strict instructions that I was to stop by 4 if they were on Days, 7 if they were on Backshift and if they were on Nights I was to shut the **** up. Fair comment. They could have just come round and stuck a screwdriver through all the skins. I would have done.

There then followed several years of making almost constant noise (well, 2 weeks out of three) some of which was accompanied by the wearing of a Bowler Hat when I discovered Led Zeppelin. Not sorry. And the buying of new bits of gear every birthday and Christmas for years. I’d bought the LP “The Kids Are Alright” and the booklet inside had a photo of Keith Moon’s kit and I wanted it. Never mind that it wouldn’t have fitted in my room let alone my mum’s car.

And then Premier published a catalogue with the ET6 and I was done.

That. I want THAT!

Still do to be honest, even though I suspect that it was for illustration purposes only and no-one ever actually bought one.

Since then it’s been a few decades of acquiring gear, building increasingly silly kits and practicing in order to play like Keith Moon, John Bonham, Phil Collins and a bunch of less influential “others” whilst not being any of them.

But I had a hat once.

So there’s that…