Monthly Roundup #24 - February '20

February had a few routine bits on, but the highlight was a holiday to New York where my wife and I were celebrating 10 years together! There were a few musical highlights about the trip (which I’ll get to in a bit!), but before that, here’s some of the other things I’ve been up to this month…

The first spot of playing in February was once again doing a regular Sunday morning meeting at my church… As always, it was a pleasure to play in good company!

The familiar-looking church setup!

Next up I was called in to cover a band call for a friend of mine who was playing on an upcoming school production of “Chicago”. While I had played plenty of the hits from the show over the years, it’s not one I had done in full before, so it was nice to get the chance to play thought some of the less-well-known numbers and some of the incidental bits too. It ended up being easier to use the school’s own kit for this one (plus a few bits of percussion etc) and the drums were being done remotely in the next room, so it was essentially a day sat in a room by myself! All good fun though!

“Chicago” setup - using in-house school kit

Next up was our trip to New York! It was a real treat, and there’s plenty I could talk about, but I’ll just focus on the musical side of things here… First on the agenda was a trip to Maxwell’s drum shop, which I had been familiar with for quite a while having seen some of their gear demos/sales videos online over the years. There was lots of wonderful stuff in there (as you might expect!), but a few pieces that took my eye were the round-badge Gretsch in the window, some stunning Craviotto kits, and there was a particular old COB Supraphonic which was the real deal! But I was very disciplined and just left with a pair of sticks, as I couldn’t leave empty handed… What a great shop and collection though!

We also booked a couple of shows during our time in New York. Firstly, on the Monday night we went to see “Jim Caruso’s Cast Party”, which is the resident Monday night gig at Birdland. Essentially, it’s a bit of an all-star open-mic-night, which attracts some class acts! Overall, it was a very entertaining evening, with a nice mixture of just quality music and some who were a little more humorous in their approach! Another nice touch about seeing this show was that it’s the resident gig of drumming great, Daniel Glass! We had a brief chat before and after the show and he was a true gent, who aside from the obvious drum chat, gave my wife and I some good pointers for our time in the city. A lovely chap indeed!

With the great Daniel Glass after catching him on “Jim Caruso’s Cast Party”

Less of an obviously “drummy” highlight (but featuring fantastic drumming nonetheless!), was the Tuesday night where we went to see “Wicked”. Both my wife and I had seen it on the West End before, but not for a while, so with it being a mutual favourite of ours we thought it would be nice to see it on Broadway too - and it was! Those were our only two musical outings of the trip, but we did pass the Village Vanguard and Smalls while exploring the West Village area, so next time I find myself in that area I’ll be sure to catch something at one of those clubs!

Good seats for “Wicked”!

Upon getting back from New York, it was straight into another gig with the “Rhythm Crew”, playing the usual dance-floor-fillers. The night ended with Sinatra’s “New York, New York”, which left me with some holiday blues (as you might expect!), while the rest of the band jested that I ought to play that number better than ever having spent the start of the week there! But as usual, this one was a nice gig with a nice bunch of musos!

The trusty Gretsch Brooklyn in action with the “Rhythm Crew”

As you’ll well know by now, the last thing of the month was our monthly drum hang, of course! This time around, our plan was to take the time to have a bit of a “Business Chat”, where we would each share about the business side of our drumming work, but to be honest, this time we didn’t really get that far with our planned topic as we got a bit sidetracked talking drums and all things drummy! But that’s all cool of course - if we can’t get the nerdy drummer conversations out of our systems at a drum hang, then when can we?! It was a great evening catching up with one another and chatting over a cuppa though, and the “Business Chat” can be revisited another time…

Tea, biscuits and drum discussions - bliss!!

It’s been a nice month, made even better by our holiday, of course! Thanks again for checking in, and as always I hope you’ve found it of interest if you’ve made it to the end…! Catch you next time and all the best! Ed.