Drum History

This is a very fun episode where Rob Hart plays us multiple clips from a Tony Williams clinic that he tape recorded in 1982 in Boston. We break down each segment and Rob gives us his first hand experiences from being a student of Tony in the early 90's in the San Francisco Bay Area. We hear tony talk about his famous ride patterns, setting up his kit, hi-hat work, using brushes, and much more - an...

Prologix is celebrating 20 years of creating innovative and high quality practice pads that have become an industry standard. I sit down with company founder, Jason Edwards, about the origins of starting the company in his garage, then slowly growing the business, up to winning multiple "best in shows" at NAMM, to the modern days where Prologix are an international company that has some of the big...

Colin Hanton was the original drummer for the Quarrymen which featured John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison in Liverpool circa 1956. He shares the amazing story of first meeting John Lennon and then the group evolving and growing gig by gig and adding the other future Beatles as time went on. It is amazing to hear the difficulties they faced trying to scrape together money to buy instr...

A&F is celebrating their 5 year anniversary and Ramy Antoun, founder of the company, joins me to discuss the history of the company, his personal background as a successful drummer both on the road and in the studio. A&F is a one of a kind brand that has exploded in popularity in a very short time and stands out with the unique art deco designs and timeless inventions that Ramy is bringing to the...

In this special 100th episode, Bart gets interviewed by his brother, Spencer, and discusses his background in drumming, audio engineering and the podcast in general. I figure after 100 episodes I should probably let people know some more info about me and how I got to this point. Thanks so much to everyone who has enjoyed the show over the last few years, and shared it with friends, and sent me su...

Bryan is the founder of Dialtune drums and he tells us about some examples of cable tension drums that he discovered in his journey to create a modern day drum that is easily tuned with just two knobs. A cable tension drum by definition is a drum that uses a system of pulleys with cable or string/rope to make it possible to tune the drum using one point of tension, typically a knob or a key. The d...

Gil is a world renowned drummer who shares his deep passion and knowledge for Reggae drumming in this great episode. He takes us through all the sub genres such as ska, rocksteady, dub, and dancehall. Plus he teaches us about the legends in Reggae drumming such as Lloyd Knibb and Carlton Barrett and the gear that these Jamaican drummers would use when playing with icons such as Bob Marley, Peter T...

Bill takes us back over a thousand years to learn the origins of rope tension drums and how the technology evolved over the centuries. We learn about shell construction, head types, guts and snare history, and much much more. Bill is a wealth of information and is the man behind Calderwood Percussion. He is a master drum builder and an all around great musician on many instruments. Check out Calde...

Jim is an extremely respected music critic on the radio, but he is a drummer at his core. He shares his passion and knowledge of acrylic drums with us starting in 1959 with Zickos, into the 70's with Fibes, and the explosion of popularity with the Vistalites thanks to John Bonham. We discuss the evolution of acrylic shell construction, the color varieties of the extremely unique Ludwig stripe kits...

Steve takes us through all the decades of Ludwig bass drum pedals starting in 1909 with the iconic first commercially produced bass drum pedal that completely changed the world of drumming, up to the modern re-introduction of the Speed King. Steve is a passionate collector of Ludwig bass drum pedals and wrote a new book called "The Ludwig Line: Bass Drum Pedals" that is full of detailed descriptio...

John was a student of Alan Dawson for many years and shares many of his experiences with Alan and a great spotlight on the life of this truly legendary teacher. We hear what it was like to walk into the room and learn from Alan Dawson using his extremely musical and innovative techniques. Alan would squeeze the absolute most out of books such as Syncopation and Stick Control, along with countless...

Nick and I discuss 11 different popular cymbal myths in this episode, many of which were submitted by listeners of the podcast! We cover things such as "old cymbals are always better", "hand hammering is automatically good", "covering my cymbal in ketchup makes it sound better", and many more. This is a really fun episode where I learned a ton from my pal Nick Margarite aka NickyMoon. Nick is a gr...

A Military Tattoo is a ceremony that dates back to the early 17th century in the Netherlands when Drummers would notify the soldiers at the local bars at 9:30pm that it is time to return to the barracks. This was known as "Doe Den Tap Toe " or "Turn Off The Taps". This tradition continued and evolved over the centuries to be a nightly ceremony that was designed to entertain in the summer months, F...

This is the full history of Bosphorus Cymbals - A traditional handmade Turkish cymbal brand that has been around since 1996, but has what seems like centuries of knowledge and expertise. The tale of Bosphorus is tied into the other major company that originated in Turkey that we all know about, but once they left the country many cymbal makers were left with a mastery of the art and that knowledge...

Nicholas and I dissect 9 amazing audio examples of 1920's drummers including Zutty Singleton, Baby Dodds, Gene Krupa and many other greats in this episode. We also talk about that bizarre restrictions that were placed on drummers in the 20's in recording studios which is a fascinating and not largely known topic. We talk gear, playing styles, and the great musicians of the day and lots of other gr...

This is an in-depth look at Electronic Drums dating back to the 1960's with Justin Greenawalt of 65 Drums on YouTube. Justin has an incredible passion and knowledge for e-drums and he has done tons of research to understand the full history of the instrument and shares it with us to cover each decade of the history and we end with discussing what we can look forward to in the future of electronic...

Tony Williams began playing professionally at the young age of 13, but he gained international attention when he joined the Miles Davis Quintet at age 17. My guest, Dave Goodman, wrote his 100,000 word doctoral thesis on Tony and we have condensed all that great information into an hour long episode that covers Tony's early life, lessons with Alan Dawson, rise to fame, evolution of his equipment,...

Tama's parent company, Hoshino Gakki, dates back 113 years to 1908 in Japan where it started a book and sheet music seller. Hoshino then entered the world of distribution and later instrument production with the Spanish guitar brand - Ibanez. Hoshino didn't enter the drum world until the early 60's as Star Drums, and the world was never the same. Star was a leader in the "Made in Japan" revolution...

Freddie Gruber is known as the teacher of iconic drummers such as Neil Peart, Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Smith, Dave Weckl, and my guest Bruce Becker. Freddie has somewhat of a mysterious background that wasn't well documented, but Bruce fills us in on what is known about his life and career, plus many great stories of what it what it was like to be on the inner circle of his friends. Freddie was a re...

Mike takes us back to the advent of the drum set and how people would learn to play in the early 1900's and how things have and haven't changed over the years. We go through each advancement in education including face to face lessons, lessons on records (LP's), drum books with CD's, drum tapes and DVD's, online lessons, and what the future holds for the world of drum lessons. Mike Johnston is a l...

Brooks has recently released his long awaited book -"The Tools That Built The Gene Krupa Legend". After a decade of work, this is the be-all and end-all source for everything you would ever want to know about the most minute details of Genes life and equipment through his entire career. Brooks gives us a quick refresher biography of Gene and then he jumps into the details of how he put such a grea...

This is a a unique episode that takes a deep dive into the history of acoustics as we know it today dating back to 6000 b.c. Thomas is a French drum builder who makes extremely scientifically progressive and modern drums, but he is also a noise vibration and harshness engineering expert in the automotive industry. All of that combines together for a passion for how acoustics have changed over thou...

The iconic 5000 pedal dates back to the early 1940's where it was created by the Martin Fleetfoot company, and it has been a staple of the drum world ever since. The 80 year history has many twists and turns until it reaches the modern DW 5000 pedal that we all know and love. Vincent tells us all about each and every era of the pedal including Gretsch, George Way, Camco, Rogers, John Gray, Tama, a...

Pete Magadini is a modern legend as a teacher and clinician who has taught drummers such as Michael Shrieve, Chad Wackerman, Mike Johnston and many more. He is also a very established performer who has worked with artists such as Diana Ross, George Duke, Al Jarreau, and many more. He shares his approachable theory on Polyrhythms and many other great lessons on life and drumming and the story of hi...

Cocktail drum kits date back to post World War 2 in an orchestra pit in England where space is at a premium and the drums needed to grow taller, as opposed to wider. the "stand up drum set" evolved from there and became a staple of jazz lounges, street performers, comedy acts and many great drummers who wanted a unique look and feel to the drums they play. John Mettam is the founder of cocktaildru...