....and now for an exclusive.

If you are reading this, it’s possible you saw an ad for me on page 77 of the November 2020 issue of Modern Drummer. I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t put that ad there.

Well then, who did?

A couple months prior, I ran into a former student while on a walk with the family. Alex who had been a student of mine through his high school years and I were discussing various issues of Modern Drummer. I was telling him how I was keeping afloat during the pandemic by selling old issues of the magazine, most notably the ones featuring Neil Peart as demand for back issues increased due to his unfortunate death.

Alex mentioned he would love to get the issues with Taylor Hawkins on the cover. Sadly, I must have sold those issues in the last six months and couldn’t give them to him. However I did have some digital archived issues and was able to forward the pdf of one of the issues featuring Hawkins on the cover.

When sent the digital file to him, he asked me if I ever considered running an ad in MD for exposure. I told him I had never given it much thought but that it was probably the closets I would ever get to being featured in the magazine.

So to my surprise, Alex calls me and tells me he wants to drop something off. I thought maybe it was a cd of songs he’s been working on or some sort of promo swag type stuff for that project. He comes up to my door(wearing a mask, of course.) and says to me: “TAYLOR HAWKINS” and hands me a Modern Drummer with a napkin in it. I truly had no idea what was going on and as I’m looking through the bookmarked page I spot this picture that I recognized from my own collection. It was a screen grab from a performance video from years ago and below it read this website. I was blown away. In fact, speechless. He took out an ad so I could so I was in Modern Drummer as a birthday present. Still in shock actually. Heck, the advertising department at Modern Drummer thought it was so cool they sent him multiple copies of the magazine.

There is something more to this story though.

I was going to quit drums.

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on my music career and ambitions. I shut everything down for fears I would get the virus right before the birth of my daughter and I wouldn't be allowed to be at my wife’s side for her delivery. All my gigs were gone. I had no plan, I wasn’t prepared and honestly was chasing my tail this whole summer. My drums have been stacked in a corner in the basement for the past two months. I miss playing them but it’s currently a little bit of a challenge to play anything other than a practice pad.

As this amazing gesture/gift started sink in I told Alex how energized I felt. Maybe because it was so unexpected or just the fact that one of my students believes in me that much that the feelings of quitting were lifted almost instantly.

To be honest, if I was ever featured in Modern Drummer now, it wouldn’t be as cool as Alex’s ad.

Thanks Alex!

They just didn't vanish

So a little over a week ago, I got a message through this website inquiring about some recordings of an old group I was in. The band was a short lived six month adventure that cumulated in 5 songs and 3 live performances. Only 4 songs were ever completely recorded and the fifth song I believe is to have been lost for good. I was really proud of those songs. Most of the guys in the band were musicians I had played with in other separate groups and to this day I feel like these recordings caught some of their finest work. Too bad no one ever got to hear the recordings. The band sputtered out and the recording was shelved with not even low quality diy CD-R’s being made. So when I received this message I decided it was time these songs get on the internet.

The irony of all of this as well, is that I can’t even send a link to the person requesting the songs because his email went missing. It’s neither in my inbox or email trash folder. Just gone, which is slightly worrisome as that is a main way for new students to get a hold of me. That said, I started a soundcloud page for my “record label” Daedel records. I have a bunch of other acts that I performed in that have recordings that have never made their way past old myspace pages or cheap cd-r’s so I hope to upload those down the road.

A record label for long lost recordings.

We're a long way from home.

For the last six years I have tried video recording every show I played. Mainly to observe how the show went musically for me and some times as a way to gauge audience response(if there was even one). During the Humador years I always thought some these videos would find their way on to some sort of DVD that we could sell at the merch table. Unfortunately the video quality was never really worth putting in the time to make available for someone to buy or even put on youtube. Most of the video ended up on a hard drive, never to be see the light of day again. After awhile the quality of the camera got better and I was able to get decent video in low light situations. I took a pair of GoPro hero 3’s with me on one the longer Humador tours we did during the bands tenure. I always had the goal of capturing all the shows and then making some sort of video collage. My computer was pretty slow at processing and editing video and so the project stalled and by the time I had a better computer a year had passed, the band had broken up and the better footage tucked away on an external hard drive.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2018, I was going through my old hard drives and came across the folder that had all of the tour videos. I contemplated deleting them, I didn’t have any use for them but something in my head said that I needed to finish what I started and see what came out of it. I sat down at my computer one bitterly cold day and within about 12 hours or so finished the video below. I chose the song “Don’t Take Me Now” for a couple of reasons. It’s about being on the road and secondly, it’s the only song I have video of from all nine shows due to complications with both cameras which is slightly evident in a couple of the shots. Yeah for movie magic!  

Here are just a few memories, I can recall from this tour.

We left Bloomington for the greater Detroit area at around 10 or 11am. Sound check was supposed to be at like 5:30, the drive was rather uneventful, which for day one of a tour is a good thing. I remember us getting to the venue before anyone else. The venue didn’t seem to have any windows, no one was at the venue yet so we went to a Wendy’s and I had the worst baked potato ever all in the name of trying to eat “healthy” on the road. The show went well, but the crowd mainly consisted of the other bands and maybe one or two friends they brought. I don’t remember where we slept that night but it was most likely a motel somewhere between Detroit and Columbus. 

We got to Columbus around mid afternoon, tossed the football around while we waited for a decent parking space in front of the venue. Then venue had a pretty nice stage and a green room. After we got set up and sound checked, I took a nap in the green room I think.  The crowd was better than the night before as far as the crowd went. We stayed at our friend Micah’s place if I remember correctly.    

The next day was a show right out side of Pittsburg. It was fun to go through the tunnel and upon exiting the tunnel you get this huge panoramic view of the Pittsburg, including PNC park. Yeah baseball! The venue was a huge barn like bar out in the countryside. I remember a guy in the audience paying me a super nice compliment after the show. Which was nice cause I had been venting to the guys in the band about my personal playing earlier that day.

New York city was the next stop. This was supposed to be the highlight of the tour. We based this tour off of this date. After getting though all the mid day traffic, we pulled up to the venue. There was already a pretty decent group of people hanging in the bar at the front of the venue. When doors opened I thought they would start flowing in. I was SO wrong. Only three people came to see us play. It was the most disheartening feeling of the tour. People/fans who asked for the group to come out didn’t show up, heck even the bands that were supposed to play after us didn’t even show up until we were all loaded out. We went out and had dinner with the three that came to the show and left the city. I don’t remember where we stayed that night, but it most have been the usual motel du jour.

Washington D.C. had an almost full house of people that sat and listened for the whole set. Something you don’t witness as much if the venue is connected to a bar. After the show we bounced to an open mic to see if we could make a little extra gas money. We played a couple songs and made a few new fans. Afterwards we headed to a gifted hotel which was nice to be able sleep on a more comfortable bed but not until we had switched rooms due to the furnace in the room being stuck on 80 degrees. 

Blacksburg VA was another gig that didn’t have an actual stage and we had to wait for some tables to be cleared so we could set up. The happy hour crowd stuck around and watched us play which was nice. Viginia Tech which was right across the street had just had graduation the week before so it was just us and the locals. We walked around and got a glimpse of the campus. 

Louisville was a pretty quiet gig with no other acts sharing the stage with us. We played to about three people plus a bartender if I remember correctly. The owner of the venue had a condo that he lets all the bands that play his bar use. It was not in the greatest of shape but it didn’t cost us anything to stay there so you go with the flow. The condo had one room with a couch and tv, the other room had three separate bunk beds stuffed in it. The shower in the bathroom barely got warm if my memory serves me but again. Free housing on the road equals you not being crabby about the situation. The next morning before we left for the next stop I went over to the Louisville Slugger factory for a tour. We never did much sight seeing while on the road because most of the day was spent driving. When we did get to any venues we never went too far for fear of being late to sound check. 

The band had played at the Indianapolis venue a couple times before so we were familiar with the area and it was good to see some of the people we knew from the area. The only thing I really remember from this show was almost falling asleep while playing because I was so exhausted. You can kind of see it in the later part of the videos. I remember thinking to myself how am I going to drive the band home being this tired. After the show I went and took what had to have been a five minute nap before the guys hopped into the van and we took off for home. The thought of being home and sleeping in my own bed must have been the fuel to get me through that three hour drive.

The next day was a day off but luckily we were at home, the following day was a street fest in Lexington which is close enough to where a lot of our friends and family came out to watch making it feel much like we were playing in Bloomington. 

The tour was taxing but it sure was fun getting to play music every night!

This is not over.

I am a horrible blogger. I am also a horrible writer which prevents me from spending more time on this blog. Sometimes I wonder, does anyone really read blogs? What on earth I could actually write about that hasn’t been written about in the music or drum and percussion industry. 

I would say that not a lot has happened upon my return home but that's not really true. I have been lucky to have joined back up with Scott Marek as well as work with high school students in a different capacity away from music. I finally did get my lesson studio up and running this past summer. Though due to other commitments at the moment, I am only able to take on a small number of students. Come the beginning of March 2018 my schedule will open up a long with the new Percussion Project Studio. I have already started to implement a new approach to lessons that I am excited about and will share shortly.

I won’t make any promises you will see some sort of weekly, monthly or even yearly blog at this point but I certainly am going to try to load this webpage up with something like pictures or videos of drums. If all else fails, I turn this section into some kind of fan site for my dog, because who doesn’t love seeing pictures of dogs on the internet! 

I have my goals for 2018 and I’m pumped to dig in and see what happens. I hope anyone reading this has had a wonderful holiday and is excited for this new year!

Take Me Home

It's been a month since I got back from the tour I did with Jennifer Westwood and the Handsome Devils. The last show was conveniently an hour away from my home in Illinois and thats where I was dropped off, for good. Six months living in Nashville is not enough time to expect to 'make it' but long enough to help you realize what you really want out of life/music.  

What do I want out of my music 'career'?  I want to educate more and focus on getting as many people interested in playing the drums and percussion. I want to be in a band and no longer be a side musician. I want to be a part of the creative process again and make music from a honest place.  

The teaching will hopefully start up in the fall and I will still be performing during the summer. I have the extreme honor of getting to sub for one of my former students, how cool is that!  

I am forever thankful for the friends I made in Nashville and I hope I'll be able to visit them again soon.

It's all I have left.

I know I owe an updated on how the whole relocation process has been going but that will be for a new blog post next week(hopefully). 

Around the Summer 2002 I found myself getting interested in drum building. It first started with refurbishing an old Sixties Premier drum set. From there I built my first complete drum set followed by a batch of snare drums and started a drum company "Nivek Drum and Percussion" I lost interest in building when the market got over saturated with all the "custom" drum companies that were popping up offering the same product. Building drums taught me how to appreciate all the work that goes into the various drums I use today. I always encourage students to try building their own snare drum so they can learn about all the various parts that make a drum do what it does. 

The original wrap with included broken snare strainer. 

The Craviotto

All summer I had been looking for a fun refurbishing project but had no luck until a couple days ago when a Drum Workshop/Craviotto drum was listed on eBay for an almost too good to be true price. Fast forward to today when I received the drum. Upon inspection the drum had been poorly cared for. The snare strainer was the biggest issue being completely busted in several different spots. The snare wires were held together by shoelaces on one side. The drum wrap was bubbling almost all around the drum and even cracked in some spots. The inside of the drum has a bunch of blotchy stains on the inside of it. Not sure what caused it but so far a Mr. Clean "Magic Eraser" and light steel wool have done nothing to remove it. The chrome on all of the hardware seems to have survived with maybe the need to replace only one lug. 

Removed drum wrap exposing the bare shell. 

First step was to remove the hardware. After that I went over and borrowed my fathers heat gun and proceeded to take of the wrap. 

Now that the wrap is completely removed, it's now time to remove the left over glue. DW doesn't mess around when it comes to their finish ply wraps, so this drum has quite the build up of left over glue. I'm sure there is a good chemical that I can use to remove glue but I decided to go ahead use a sander with a medium grit sandpaper to remove the glue. 

Stay tuned for more updates!

Sometimes you have to roll the hard six.

After almost 10 years I have decided to step away from private drum instruction. This was probably the hardest decision I have had to make, heck picking a college to attend was easier then this! The decision has been about four months in the making(though it started in October). While in central Illinois I enjoyed the rare privilege of being able to call myself a working musician. It certainly had it's up's and down's be it playing music to thousands in Davenport, Iowa at music festival or performing for a cook and his manager in Las Vegas, Nevada.  More importantly the 100's of students I taught my favorite instrument to. Whether teaching 50+ students a week in a cramped closet in the local music store or to a more spacious and proper learning environment(next to a sweet burrito joint!), I never forgot how lucky I was to have a job I loved even on the rough days. 

What is next? 

The plan is to relocate to Nashville, TN. Currently battling a little chicken or the egg situation with my living/working situation down there, but I know once I get settled it won't be too long before I'm drumming again. 

As far as teaching goes, that will be on hold indefinitely till I can establish myself in the music community down south. I hope to at least create some online lesson content in the near future so my (now former) students can still learn from me if they want without having to drive to Nashville. 

Again to my students and their parents, thank you so much for trusting me with your drumming and percussion education. Please keep in touch!

-Kevin

"Your New Drummer is Great!"

I have been the only drummer that has played with Dan Hubbard and the Humadors for the past six years. Yet, the title of this post is a compliment someone gave Dan after a recent show. The fact that people are noticing my playing now as opposed to past years is no fluke and I have recent Percussion Project Studio clinician Rich Redmond to thank..

My playing style since college has gone from technical rock drummers like Chris Pennie and Thomas Lang to more singer songwriter type drummers like Jason McGerr and Aaron Sterling. I did it to fit the gig. When I started performing with Dan Hubbard our gigs were not always in a big venue that would allow me to play the drums at my normal volume(read: LOUD). I watched and copied drummers like McGerr, Sterling and J.J. Johnson and just kept the energy in my parts but not visible through my motions. 

Looking back at videos I looked pretty bored playing but I wasn't, I was just concentrating on performing the parts correctly and cleanly. 

Rich Redmond's clinic this past February made me rethink my approach. If you were at the clinic or have seen Rich perform you probably know how much passion and energy he puts behind his playing. When you see him play, you can't help but know instinctively that he is having fun. It reminded me of when I was in high school and I would rock out to all of my Live(the band) albums and pretend I was Chad Gracey.

As drummers we are at disadvantage on stage. We can not just jump around on stage like our bandmates can, we have to show it in our arms and face. It's our job not only to keep time and serve the song, but also give the audience a performance. Another positive of it all is that your bandmates will feed off your energy, it's contagious. I have seen it happen enough times to know that it's true. 

After February 22, I made a conscience decision that I would visually bring the energy every night I perform on stage, even when there is only 3 people in the audience or I'm not feeling good or after a long weekend of back to back shows and long drives between them. I'm bringing the energy just like Rich. I'm okay with people thinking I'm the "new" guy. 

New section

I originally intended for my news section to double as both a blog and place to post all the upcoming events for the Percussion Project Studio. After a while though I realized I didn't want my blog articles to bury the important news postings. Thus I added another page to the website. I will mostly talk about drums and percussion but don't be surprised if you see a music business or a baseball post on here from time to time. I hope whoever reads this will 'subscribe' and check out some of my future postings!