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The band will play on ...

My various adventures and ups and downs while trying to put together a band in Buenos Aires. Connecting with like-minded musicians, who want to play for enjoyment rather than money or ego, isn't as easy as it might seem ...

Random histories of my life with music and drums.

Teenage Kicks

My true musical awakening coincided with the dawn of New Wave, and was largely due to the influence of my cousin Ian.
 
I'd always been fascinated by music and drawn towards the weekly TV pop shows; unfortunately most of my early childhood had run in parallel with some of the most infantile music Britain has ever produced. However in 1976 things began to change; Punk arrived and really shook things up. Hardcore Punk - The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers - completely passed me by (I was only 10 in 1976). But what followed really grabbed hold of my attention.
 
One summer afternoon in, I guess, 1977 I took my bike and cycled round to my cousin's house. I remember that afternoon with total clarity; sitting on the living room floor with my cousin Ian - a couple of years older than I - saying excitedly, "You have to listen to this." During the next four and a half minutes Bob Geldof changed my life.
 
The band was The Boomtown Rats, the album, A Tonic for the Troops, and the track, "Rat Trap". The afternoon progressed like one of those shamanistic rituals that take away the boy and return with the man. A new world of music had been opened to me; music so radically different from anything I had listened to before and so exciting and visceral. I caught the crest of this New Wave and rode it into the future.
 
Punk rock fashion, with its multicoloured hair, safety pins and spitting had made quite a splash on the front pages of the tabloids, but the music itself had always been a bit too underground to make much of an impact on mainstream TV or radio. However post-Punk and New Wave were much more media friendly and considerably better dressed. For the next few months my favourite TV shows exploded with this new music. And there was such diversity.
 
Over the next couple of years so much great music came my way. I was a huge fan of bands like Blondie and The Police. Solo artists such as Kate Bush and Elvis Costello made a grand impression too. Along with a vast array of other bands who maybe only caught my attention for one or two songs. It was a glorious time for British music and for me, but all too brief.

1979 was a life changing year for everyone. Margaret Thatcher swept to power and my family moved to the countryside. Fast changing and exciting music rises and falls in and around the cities. It is, as Paul Weller so eloquently put it: "The sound of the suburbs". But more rural settings have a more conservative (with both large and small "c") attitude. This was the land of hippies and Rock, and if I was going to fit in to my new environment, I'd have to adapt and learn to like it. I tried to stay connected to the music I'd grown to love, but there was no one else around interested and as synth-pop arrived with Ultravox and Joy Division, my attention was drawn elsewhere.
 
The tiny village in which I now found myself was short on other people my age, so I couldn't be too choosy about my friends. The only available person was Andy. We didn't have much in common, but there was no one else for either of us, so we hung out together. With Andy came my next musical epiphany.
 
I remember Andy going on some kind of student exchange trip to West Germany and coming back with longer hair and a bundle of LPs under his arm. There were quite a lot by Queen, some Bob Dylan, but most significantly a couple of Led Zeppelin albums. Most of this music was a little old, and some of the musicians already dead, but it was completely new to me. And so began my long love affair with Rock.
 
Despite AC/DC's Back in Black being one of the first albums I ever owned, I should point out that Heavy Metal was never really my thing. I was more a fan of Prog Rock and all that old hippy stuff from the 60s; my rapidly expanding record collection stretched from Pink Floyd and Genesis to The Doors and Janis Joplin, with a lot of highs and lows in between. Image played an important role too; by the time I left home for university just a few years later, I had the ubiquitous long hair, torn jeans and inevitable denim jacket covered in badges.
 
 
 
At this point I feel that my sister deserves a special mention. During this period - which might suitably be titled: "My Rock Years part 1" - she too became a passionate fan of music; however that was where the similarly ended. Mainstream pop, of which I had been such an avid follower just a few short years earlier, had evolved into something brightly coloured and frivolous. New Wave had given up its political consciousness, gone to bed with Synth-pop and given birth to the New Romantics - It was like David Bowie had split in two and hundreds of tiny Ziggys had come pouring out - and my little sister just couldn't get enough.
 
At the time, from my newly constructed ivory tower of ostentatious Rock with its musical virtuosity and unfathomably profound lyrics, I rather looked down my nose at my sister's 'so-called music'. But, to be honest, what she was listening to had everything that really good pop music needs: fun, catchy tunes, readily connectable sentiments, handsome stars, and very weird hair. And behind the pin-up pop of Duran Duran and Adam Ant there was some real quality and innovation from the likes of The Human League and OMD.
 
John Bonham
Looking back, I have to admit that had I stayed true to New Wave and all that followed, with its roots in the do-it-yourself Punk ethos, I may well have had a chance at making music semi-professionally; at least for a while. However, without the inspiration of Rock gods like John Bonham, Keith Moon, Neil Peart and the rest of those ridiculously talented heavy rock drummers, I might never have picked up a pair of sticks in the first place.

Music was my first love

My childhood was spent in a world that just seemed to pulse to one beat or another.

The first piece of music I can remember hearing was Starman by David Bowie. That hook leading into each chorus - sounding like the introduction to a nightly news broadcast - did its job perfectly and just reeled me in. It was many years before I would fully appreciate the genius of Bowie, but that song was like the first kiss of my long love affair with music.
 
Some years ago I found a box full of old 7" singles which I had bought (or had been bought for me) in the early 1970s. I'd like to be able to say that "this marvelous and eclectic collection showed an appreciation of music well beyond the child's tender years" ... but sadly no; I appear to have been a big fan of Winnie-the-Pooh. Among various other examples of the music industry's attempts to target that ever elusive 'under 5's' demographic, there was, however, one glimmer of hope in the form of a single from 1968 (I was two): Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da covered by a group called Marmalade - real music, and apparently a number one hit.
 
There's a great deal of nostalgia for the better moments of the 1970s British music scene, but the truth is if you take a good look at what was actually being played on the radio and bought by the masses before 1976, you will see a desolate wasteland peppered with the odd shiny pebble. 
 
Top of The Pops (all too often presented by nasty kiddy-fiddler Jimmy Savile) was a Thursday evening staple for millions of young people. While there may have been appearances from T-Rex, Slade, Sweet and very occasionally Bowie, the majority of the charts were filled with imported teen-pop from the likes of The Osmonds and David Cassidy or a lot of very middle-of-the-road music from bands such as Pussycat and ... well ... Middle of the Road.
 
The power of pre-teen-pop first caught my attention in primary school. I remember all the girls wearing denim jackets and jeans fringed with tartan, waving tartan scarves and marching round the playground, arm-in-arm, singing: "Bee-aye-why, Bee-aye-why, Bee-aye-why-see-eye-tee-why, with an are-owe-double-el-ee-are-ess ... Bay CityRollers and the best!" That chant burned its way into my still growing synapses and will probably haunt me to my dying day.
 
The world was a much bigger place back in the 1970s. Without the Internet for rapid dissemination, musical styles and trends moved around more slowly. If bands wanted to sell their music, they had to go where the money was - principally the USA - and tour. This meant that countries with run-down economies, such as the UK's then was, were often passed by and had the opportunity to build their own local music and fashion scenes. Such splendid isolation spawned the magnificently camp Glam Rock and later the equally magnificent Punk movement. However, in the four or five years in between there were some very strange musical offerings which became a soundtrack to my early years. Particularly the curious flouresent-coloured Rock'n'Roll revival led by Mud, The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy; The latter more memorable for the name than their music.
 
I may have given the impression that the sum of my childhood musical experience came from contemporary TV pop shows; this was far from true.
 
Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice had recently put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat followed by Jesus Christ Superstar. Mine being a Catholic primary school, songs from both shows were often co-opted as fun alternatives to hymns. Their next musical was Evita; my mother bought the soundtrack album and I had her play it over and over.
 
School unintentionally provided some depth to my musical knowledge. I remember some kind of end of year presentation event where the kids all had to put on a show. The teachers had us all learn Rock'n'Roll dance routines to tunes from the late 50s and early 60s (presumably music from their youth). Strange and old the music seemed at the time, but it did provide a first taste of Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly.
 
When school was out, the BBC filled up the morning TV schedules with programs designed to amuse the kids (and probably to stop them going out breaking windows and vandalizing cars). Any program which might appeal to children was put on; much of it imported from the US. Along with Johnny Weissmuller and Flash Gordon, and fitted in between all the cartoons, came The Banana Splits (I always liked the orange one on drums), The Monkees, and dozens of really dreadful Elvis Presley movies.
 
While I was busy absorbing my music laden environment, time, culture and music were moving on and changes were happening ... big changes.
 
I'm almost embarrassed to say that Punk pretty much passed me by; I was only 10. While The Clash cried out from the decaying inner cities, I was listening to light-hearted ditties about rural life as depicted by The Wurzels. And when the Sex Pistols aped about and swore their way to being everyone's favourite bad boys on the Bill Grundy Show, I went out and bought The Goodies recording of Funky Gibbon. (Novelty songs did very well that year). In 1977, The Pistols managed to get themselves arrested by performing God Save The Queen from a barge on the Thames; I spent that afternoon at a Silver Jubilee street party. Punk Rock had a presence, but by then the charts were full of American Disco music. 

I suppose it would be cool to say that I was plugged into some 'happening' underground scenes, but the truth is I was just a boy and I was listening to pretty much the same music as most other people I knew. The important thing to note is that I was listening; music had grabbed a hold of my heart and my soul and it would never let go. My true musical awakening was just around the corner ...
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Don't look back in anger

Some of the fun and games I had down the years, making music back in the UK.

DNS

The first bands I played in were mostly back in the 1980s, which makes this week an appropriate time to review what happened back then. Margaret Thatcher - that icon of the '80s - finally dropped dead this Monday, followed by a spontaneous out-pouring of celebration across Britain ... well, at least across the North. To go into too much detail about her and her legacy would take more time than I have this evening and anyway, it isn't really what the reader came for. I will say one thing, however: under the squeeze of Maggie's heel, there was a huge flowering of sub-cultures right across the arts which eventually became mainstream. Something to thank her for … perhaps.

As I've already written in earlier posts, I was given my first drum set and 6 months of classes for my 18th birthday. Being a drummer with a drum kit is a big advantage as a teenager - everyone plays guitar or thinks they can sing, but fully equipped drummers are hard to find. It was easy to get in a band.

Despite hard study for my A-levels, I did manage to put in some practice with this first group. I have vague memories of jamming in someone's front room and learning a couple of Stones covers - specifically Honky Tonk Woman. We did a little busking on Chester city walls and I have a feeling there was a gig at school for a handful of friends ... but it was all so long ago I can hardly remember.
 
Leaving my first group behind I went off to university with dreams of finding like-minded musicians and making the big time. University was free back then, so it seemed perfectly reasonable to use my time as an opportunity to expand my artistic horizons rather than actually study. Almost immediately I landed a gig; something interesting, unusual and unexpected. An amateur theatre group was putting on a production of The Crucible (I think). The very end of the final scene of the second act needed an off-stage drum roll to signify the principal character being executed by hanging. I was a huge hit for both of the play's two night run.
 
My studies were proving harder than expected (all those early mornings!) and there were the endless distractions of social life and girls; among all this the drums took a bit of a back seat and practice tailed off. Fortunately, my status as "drummer with a kit" saved me and I was persuaded to join a band: DNS.
 
Mark, me, John, Dom and Rob
My association with this heavy rock group continued on and off for quite a few years. There were some changes to personnel, but Mark Wooton (bass and leather trousers), John Ansari (vocals) and myself formed the backbone of the band. We played a few gigs, mostly for small crowds of friends, and weren't too bad. As the 80s rolled on, we kept up-to-date and became more and more Glam - if Def Leppard could do it, why not us? It was all great fun, but really a dead end; something to pass the time while looking for a job during the late '80s recession (Thank you again Mrs. T). Gradually, enthusiasm waned, real jobs came along, people got married and the members of DNS drifted apart.
 
It would be wrong to blame my ultimate lack of success on being trapped in a band which was never really very serious; other factors were at play, not least my poor health at the time. Trying to live the R'n'R lifestyle - without the actual musicianship - took its toll, and my twin nemeses of clubs and girls kept my attention wandering. By the early 90s, British music had taken a very different turn, and American Glam Metal was definitely out of fashion.
 
Unemployment followed by a string of dead end jobs made me think that music might be a way out and maybe I should take things more seriously. I went through the small ads and found a university band in need of a drummer for an end of year gig – paid! All 60s covers of Beatles, Stones and Kinks numbers - easy-peasy. It turned into my biggest gig: 400 students in a hall of residence dining room. All good fun, and somewhere in a box back in England is a VHS tape of the whole thing.
 
A comfortable office job, a mortgage and a slower pace of life let the music become nothing more than background noise, punctuated by very occasional opportunities to play and one or two reformations of DNS.
 
Around 2000, I was encouraged to join a small blues band. It was fun to be playing again and my house proved a perfect - if a little small - practice space. We put together a 20 minute set of covers and found a gig at a summer festival in a Sheffield park; the worst gig I have ever played!
 
We were to play the supporting stage - a tiny tent in one corner of the park; mostly a space for the children's entertainers - and had to go on after a particularly terrible magician. The audience consisted of about a dozen 10-year olds and their mothers. There were no monitors and I couldn't hear anything from the other guys; I had to count my way through the tracks, bar by bar. To this day, I have no idea how bad it sounded.
 
There is a water-tight plastic box in the basement of a friend's house, back in the UK, which contains a collection of audio cassettes of practice session and gigs. If I can ever lay my hands on it, and if the tapes are still playable, I will post some songs on this page.
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Take a Number

How to keep a track of which band is which; past and present.

Today held in store two interesting events. The first, was a meeting with a woman who I saw singing jazz in a bar last week. I had high hopes for this to be the starting point of an additional project; something to run in parallel to the band. All things considered, I think not. Second was the regular band practice, to which only three of us came; perhaps not a good sign.
 
These events have made me think that I should have a way of identifying the band, or pieces of a band, as the project moves forward. Obviously there will eventually be a name for the group, but figuring that out is a long way in the future and only really becomes necessary when we have concerts to play. In the meantime, I need some sorts of 'working titles' as a guide for readers of this blog. There are various ways I could do this.
 
The most obvious way to mark out the progress of the group would be to label the different and evolving versions of the band as A, B, C, etc.; something already tried in an earlier post. The problem with this is that D, E and F are rather too similar to marks on school exam papers and don't really inspire confidence.
 
Next I could try cardinal numbers - one, two, three, etc. - but once it gets beyond six or seven, it starts to be a bit meaningless. Ordinal numbers is another option - first, second, third - but this has many of the same problems as letters.
 
Then, while updating some apps on my Smartphone, I hit on a much more useful and potentially more amusing idea: mark the bands like software upgrades.
 
So where to start? Well, I figure that any bands I was in before leaving England represent the pre-digital world and so are dealt with in another post. I think I have to consider bands in Argentina.
 
Band 1.xx
Band v1 would have to be that from a few years ago with Fernando, Lorenzo, Mario, Tomas, Jorge, etc. There were various upgrades to this band, too numerous to remember, but it can all be put together under version one.
 
Band v2 might be said to have had an unrecoverable software error. It was completely formed, but due to a bout of ill health only lasted one practice.
 
Band v3 was more promising and went through a number of upgrades. It was all about three years ago now and difficult to remember in detail, but notable individuals were Jesus (v3.0) and at the end a tiny woman with a huge bass called Eugenia.
 
Band 5.5 - El Reflejo
Band v4 was one of the most bizarre: a group of teenagers led by a saxophonist called Zaira. All felt a bit strange, but by that point I was desperate to be playing.
 
Band v5 eventually became El Reflejo (v5.5, or there abouts); something that will also be covered in a future post.
 
So this makes the current project Band v6. By my calculations, having lost one singer and replaced one keyboard player, I'm now up to Band 6.1.
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Please note: This entry was current in April 2013 and explains my system; things have moved on since then. 
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Second Hand News

A short history of the drumkits I have loved and lost.

Other musicians have it relatively easy. The practice studios are generally well equipped with amps, mikes, cables and a basic set of drums. A guitarist just needs a guitar to plug in and play, a trumpet player only his horn and as for singers ... well they waltz into the studio with little more than a couple of sheets of lyrics. If you’re really lucky the singer might bother to buy their own mike and maybe even stretch as far as a tambourine. We drummers, on the other hand, have to stagger into the practice room under the weight of cymbals and whatever else we might need.
 
The drum sets available in the studios vary in quality, but one always has to bring one's own cymbals; their fragile and expensive nature means they aren't supplied, although some really crappy ones are often available for rent. In addition, I like to use my own bass pedal, tensioned how I like it, and my own snare drum, tuned to my personal preference. Along with sticks and other bits and pieces, it makes a lot to carry. And it's expensive.
 
Obviously, with any musical instrument there's pretty much no upper limit to the price one can pay. Fender Stratocaster antique limited editions probably cost quite a lot, as, no doubt, do Steinways and Stradivarius (Stradivarii?), but most mere mortal amateurs really aren't going to gain any true value from having such instruments; beyond fulfilling some strange masturbatory fantasy (whatever turns you on, I suppose). Musicians like myself have other considerations: It's a balance between the minimum I need to spend for what I want to do with my instrument and the maximum I can afford or justify spending.
 
A brand new guitar or bass good enough to get some kid started is probably going to cost no more than a few hundred pesos - less than US$100 - but even a new beginners' drum kit will cost over 2000 pesos ... without the cymbals. Equipment that doesn't sound like empty cardboard boxes and dustbin lids starts at more than 5000 pesos - US$1000. Part of the problem here in Argentina is that all the available drum kits are imported and slapped with heavy tax. But even without that, drums are a very expensive hobby.
 
For Christmas, rich parents buy their kids shiny starter kits made by Slingerland, Ludwig or Tama - deceptively famous names, but these entry level sets all come from the same factory in China. They still aren't that cheap and taking into consideration the attention span of your average 15 year old, by March the 'Instrumentos Usados' websites are full of adverts from parents trying to recoup some of what they spent; the same adverts are still there in September. Such poor quality instruments are impossible to sell for even a quarter of what was originally paid. Far better to buy something second-hand and good, than something brand new but awful; at least it still retains some resale value. This was the view held by my always thrifty parents.
 
My first set was a used, white, Premier 4-piece. I say 'used' as 'second-hand' suggests only one previous owner but this kit was at least 20 years old and must have passed through many hands; some of the hardware (stands and supports) I've only seen in films of Gene Krupa on YouTube. However the kit sounded ok and got quite a few years of use. I eventually sold it to somebody, but kept the Rodgers snare drum; by far the best feature of the kit.
 
Next came a black Pearl Export 5-piece; this time with only one previous owner. I should explain to non-drummers that the Pearl Export series is the best selling line of drums ever made. These semi-pro kits were produced in Japan for about 20 years and sold in their hundreds of thousands; excellent quality at a very reasonable price. I would guess that 70% of practice studios I visit today have a Pearl Export. Sadly, for some unknown reason, Pearl stopped making them just a couple of years ago. My black Export was probably the best set of drums I ever owned; however, second-hand and boring black were never going to be good enough.
 
The mid 1990s saw a national economic recovery, closely followed by a personal financial up-turn. I found myself with quite a lot of disposable cash and (since I'm not a drinker) nothing much to spend it on.
 
When you're young and broke, you make do with what you can afford and dream of what you'd buy if you had the money. A friend of mine arrived at university with a motorbike; nothing fancy, but he loved it. At graduation, he treated himself to a brand new, slightly bigger Honda; but what he really wanted was a Gold Wing - that was Duncan's dream bike. Some years later, when the money was good, he bought that object of desire, but by that time he was working too hard and his passion for biking had already dimmed. For the next 10 years, the bike sat in his garage under a tarpaulin and was largely forgotten.
 
I came across a beautiful, all wood finish, 5-piece kit made by Solo Drums, an independent custom drum manufacturer; I fell instantly in love. It was a shop demonstration kit, apparently ordered for someone who changed their mind, and I picked it up for a fraction of its real value. Over the next couple of years I augmented the kit with top quality Pearl stands and lots of beautiful new Zildjian cymbals. To top it off, I bought a second-hand, but perfect condition, Yamaha Custom Snare drum. The whole kit looked amazing and sounded amazing, but like my friend's motorbike, it sat in the corner under a dust sheet and very rarely came out to play; my mind was elsewhere. This beautiful and expensive kit was used live on only one occasion.
 
When I left the UK, I sold everything. I needed the money; couldn't bring the kit with me; and really didn't think I'd be playing again ... ever. It all went for 400 pounds; the same amount I had paid for just the Yamaha Snare only a few years before. Looking back it makes me want to cry.
 
Still, the past is the past. Since I started playing again I've been buying a piece at a time: cymbals, stands, bass pedal, snare drum. However, there comes a point when a larger investment has to be made to buy the main drum set. Last year I needed a kit quickly for my band; apparently we were soon to start gigging a lot. I couldn't afford something nice, not even second-hand, and the situation seemed urgent (as it turned out, it wasn't). I went for one of those poor quality starter kits: A black pdp. It's not the worst available, but it still won't have any resale value.
 
The kit I've put together is playable, but doesn't sound all that good. Some of the cymbals are second-hand: good quality, but not really the sound I'm looking for. On the bright side, I have a kit I can use for any future concerts (it's only been played once), and from here I can replace things piece-by-piece. It's nice to have a beautiful, matching colour, complete drum set with shiny new cymbals, but at the end of the day it's about sound not looks.
 
First on the list of up-grades will be a new ride cymbal - a nice dry Zildjian K. A new one here in Argentina will cost between 4000 and 5000 pesos (almost US$1000), so it looks like I'll have to find something second-hand.
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We don't need no education

Learning a musical instrument is a never-ending process.

My first set of drums, a present from my parents, came with a strict condition attached: I had to take the instrument seriously and learn how to really play. That meant classes. This seemed like a great idea, and even better because my folks were paying. For the next six months, religiously, every Saturday morning, my mother gave me a lift to Warrington where I had private, one-to-one classes with some old Jazz guy.
 
Looking back, the classes were excellent, but I failed to take real advantage of the opportunity. I had to buy a copy of Buddy Rich's Snare Drum Rudiments and learn things called paradiddles, buzz rolls, flams, ratamacues and all kinds of other boring and (apparently) pointless stuff. The teacher started me working on "Street Life" by Randy Crawford ... what?! ... I had long curly hair, a scruffy denim jacket and a full collection of Led Zeppelin albums. I just wanted to make lots of noise and hit things! Needless to say, I only did half my homework, didn't practice any rudiments, but managed to learn my way around the kit and probably most usefully, I learned how to read drum notation.
 
The lessons only lasted for six months (and I think the teacher was happy to be rid of me), then I was off to university. I spent the next few years trying to get a decent education and hauling my drum kit around various flats and shared houses, but not really having time to practice very much.
 
Leaving university coincided with the late '80s Thatcher-inspired recession and no jobs in the frozen North of England. Life on the dole left a lot of time for practice, but no money for lessons. For a moment, music even seemed like a way out of unemployed misery. Then things picked up: I found a job, treated myself to a new drum kit and started on what would eventually be over a year of weekly drum lessons.
 
I was in a band and had high hopes for the future, but dreams of rock stardom got in the way. I had the clothes and the look, but wasn't really prepared to put in the necessary work. My vision of music was very limited - Def Leppard, Poison and Guns 'n' Roses - and I was so self absorbed with my exciting(?) social life, that what were supposed to be music classes became more like therapy sessions. Talking too much and failing to get stuff done has been a bane of my life; it continues with my current incarnation as an English teacher ... although now people pay me.
  
Eventually, the classes weren't achieving very much, my band had disintegrated and a girlfriend began to occupy most of my Saturdays. Priorities had to be decided upon, and the classes lost. Over the years the drums took more and more of a backseat in my life, and when I left the UK for good my kit was sold and I sadly put away my sticks.
 
Some years later, I was living in Ecuador and a group of friends were trying to form a band. I offered to play drums and we found a battered old kit at a local school. It was so frustrating; I was so out of practice that my brain moved much faster than my hands could possibly manage. I wanted to cry.
 
In Argentina I decided to get back into playing. I didn't have any drum equipment, so I bought a rubber practice pad and a pair of sticks. I decided to go right back to basics and learn all those rudiments which had always seemed so pointless. The internet is an amazing resource with endless free video classes available on YouTube. I think I'm probably a better player than ever before and one of the crucial factors in improving my playing has been the ability to read drum music which my first teacher taught me so long ago. “Thank you”.
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Cum on feel the noize

The difficulties involved in maintaining both a useful level of practice and a decent relationship with the neighbours.

Initially learning to play must have driven my parents crazy - if there's one thing worse than having to listen to someone practice the drums, it's listening to someone learn how to play the drums! Hitting everything too hard; playing rhythms out of time and synchronisation; stopping and starting ... over and over again.

To be fair, my folks were very good and let me get on with it ... in my bedroom ... directly above the living room ... at 5.00pm every evening, when I got home from school ... for at least an hour. Fortunately we lived in a nice detached house with double glazing, so at least I didn't alienate the neighbours. My mother was in no position to complain anyway: despite her denials, I distinctly remember that drums for my 18th birthday was her suggestion.

Leaving home was closely followed by better drums, but worse accommodation. The next few years were spent in a succession of bedsits and shared houses. Daily practice was necessary. If the neighbours complained - which they often did - that was their problem. That sounds like a very rock'n'roll attitude, but in reality I tried to compromise anyway I could. I would choose practice times when almost everyone was out, or find places to live where I would disturb the minimum number of people. I spent a year (including a very long winter) living in an unheated basement that opened onto a local park ... and practiced for 2 hours every day when I got home from work - there was nothing else to do anyway, because the TV was broken.

Eventually I bought my own place: a small, but carefully chosen house, with the neighbours not too close and next to a major road so nobody cared about noise. Having finally found the perfect practice space, I spent a good amount of my money on building up a beautiful drum kit. The only problem now was that the kit spent most of its time set up in the corner of the dining room under a large yellow dust sheet. Other distractions in my life had shifted my focus. Sadly, and maybe inevitably, my best opportunity to practice coincided with my lowest level of enthusiasm for my instrument.
 
Time passed and I made my decision to start a new life abroad. After many years of neglect the kit was sold, hurriedly and very cheaply, to some teenager who must have thought all his birthdays and Christmasses had come at once. I console myself with the thought that maybe my drums and (very expensive) cymbals went to a good home, and that maybe that lucky teenager is now a successful, professional musician.
 
When I decided to pick up my sticks again, I found myself in very different circumstances - I had no drums and lived in an apartment building ... where I still live today. As a real grown-up, I do care about what the neighbours think; but I still need to practice.
 
In the apartment I have a 'practice kit' - 5 rubber pads attached to a metal frame in a way which allows them to be positioned similar to the way a real set of drums would be distributed. Hardly an ideal solution, but placed on a rubber mat it makes hardly any noise and takes up very little space.
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Feels Like The First Time ... Foreigner.

A little about myself and why I'm writing this blog.

It feels like I've been here before; because I have. Three years ago I decided to put together a band - MY band. I've played drums in various bands for years; but always 'someone else's band'. This had never been a completely satisfactory experience, and after the previous project disintegrated, I decided this was the time to build my own project and to play the music that I really wanted to play.

The whole process of finding musicians, losing musicians, and meeting all kinds of crazy people in between, was a soap opera all of its own, and I really wish I'd kept a decent record of the hilarious adventures ... but sadly not.

In the end, the process of putting the band together was a lot more fun than the final result. The band fell apart in late December after only 3 concerts, and I have to say I was left with a rather nasty taste in my mouth. Not one to be knocked down easily, I immediately pulled myself together and started to advertise for new musicians to form 'My Band 2.0'. If it's anything like last time, the story should be worth reading.

As I write this the ball is already rolling, so there may be a need for a little filling in on the story so far. Also, I suppose I should give a little bit of background to the whole thing ...

I'm a 40-something Englishman living in Buenos Aires and teaching English for a living. Music has always been my first love, and I've played drums in bands since I was 17 - originally lots of heavy rock, but as I got older and my tastes widened, other styles crept in. I say that I've been playing for almost 30 years, but that isn't really true; I took a long break through my late 20s and 30s and only came back to my instrument a few years ago. I'm no Buddy Rich, but I can hold my own in an amateur group.

Living the life of an ex-pat can be difficult. One needs outlets for stress, and since I don't drink, ex-pat pubs aren't for me (probably a good thing too!!). At the suggestion of my father and my wife I decided to pick up my sticks again and find some people to play with ... as it turned out, not as easy as it sounds.

Most amateur bands consist of under 25s carrying dreams of stardom; not what I had in mind. By the age of 40, most musicians have either hung up their guitars or made a career of music. Finding people of my age who just want to play for fun is harder than I had imagined.

Then there's the problem of style of music. I want to play Funk or Jazzy-pop, but most people still strumming their instruments at 40+ are dope-filled hippys who just want to play the Blues. Fair enough for them, but bores me to death.

It took a very long time to navigate the age/style/level problems and finally put together a group of (reasonably) like minded people. What I reckoned without was someone else's 'mid-life-crisis-teenage-rockstar-fantasy', which after 2 years of hard work put a nail in the coffin of the band.

Still, as I have said, I'm ever the optimist, and with lessons learned it's time to put that experience behind me and set off on my new adventure ...

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