Drum-drum

Chris is the best drummer we know. He plays with people like Thurston Moore, Six Organs of Admittance, and Jandek, but he also goes much deeper than that with his combos Flaherty/Corsano and Vampire Belt.

THE KIT

Total Frankenstein model. The bass drum used to be a floor tom (my brother did the conversion), I sawed the bottoms off the rack tom and floor tom [not pictured] so I could take the whole kit on an airplane. I stole the idea to use music stands for cymbal stands from a drummer who I saw play with Daniel Carter once. I don’t know the drummer’s name, so unfortunately I can’t give him his due. Anyway, music stands are super lightweight and cheap as dirt and don’t fall over nearly as much as my old cymbal stands, so go figure.

POT LID-LOOKING THING

I got this, along with its twin brother, at a Jersey garage sale this past September. They were the wax-catching plates for two mammoth-ass three-foot high, totally gaudy candleholders. I’ve blown a lot of cash on random pieces of metal at tag/garage/yard sales, Salvation Armies, Goodwills, junkshops, and flea markets. Most of the stuff sounds lame once I get it home and ends up getting tossed, but I got lucky on these. They sound sort of like the fucked-up step children of gamelan instruments. The first time I heard that Golden Rain record of Balinese gamelan music it messed my head up good. (Thank you, Bill Nace.)

RUBBER STICKS

Those are the rubber handles for a pair of wire brushes with the wires pulled out. They have a similar sound to playing with your bare hands, but you can hit as hard as you want and not worry about breaking your fingers on the metal drum rims.

BUTTER KNIVES

The rubber mallets are softer sounding than regular wooden drumsticks, and so the knives are on the harsher end. They’re also kind of a dumb-ass tribute to Sean Meehan, who for my money is one of the greatest and most inventive drummers around. He uses forks on his snare drum head to make these crazy feedback sounds that you would not fucking believe. It’s totally sick. So forks and knives. Add a spoon player and you’ve got a group that could tour with the Smothers Brothers. Are they still alive?

CAST-IRON POT LIDS

I grabbed these out of a post-tag-sale free pile and broke off the handles. I usually put them on drumheads and either hit them with rubber mallets or run a violin bow along the edge of the lid so they give a constant ringing tone.

SAX MOUTHPIECE WITH RUBBER HOSE/SCOTCH TAPE

That’s just a baritone sax mouthpiece jammed into a hose that’s for converting your tub into a shower. It makes for a rumbling/gurgling/upset-stomach noise that alternates with a kind of bleating goat/tremelo’d feedback sound, depending on how much air you push through it. Charming, indeed! I straight-up lifted the idea from Borbetomagus after seeing them live a few years ago, the difference being that they use slightly different tubing, attach the end of it back to the body of their saxes, and it sounds like God sitting in on bass with Sunn O))). My shit’s more like a wheezing farm animal with food poisoning. Scotch tape gets a similar sound (feedback and/or gurgle) if you stick the tape to the head of the floor tom, stretch it out for a few feet, and then run your fingers along the tape while holding the tape taut.

HALF SUPERBALLS ON BAMBOO SHISH-KEBAB SKEWERS

If you put a super-bouncy-ball on the end of a stick and drag it along the head of a floor tom while kinda pressing down into it, it makes a bunch of weird electronic-ish noise. Or it sounds like a new age whale-song tape. Or both. If you cut the superball in half, it works better for some reason.