Thoughts From The Townedger January Edition

Wouldn't you know it.  Getting ready to start a new album and get a fucking sore throat in the process.  Anyway some thoughts of the season.

As far as I know Diggy Kat is still planning to do the Songs That Made An Impact in 2014 but he's been busy with his own projects.  I did submit him the 30 album and a couple suggestions.  We also been talking about making an appearance on his Vufcup album but as of the moment nothing has come of it.

The process of songwriting comes in spurts.  Usually when I'm at work some ideas will come around and if they're worthy of doing anything I jot them down.  At this stage of the game seems like any song title I come up with is either the same of an older song or a phase of another song.  Sometimes if I am desperate I'll throw out nonsense like how come you do me like you do do do which became a song in 1996 and used on a specialty comp.  Last couple albums I just started doing cover versions of stuff.  Which became the basis of Soul Biscuits. Sometimes even though I can listen to it doesn't mean anybody else can or can't.  Which was why Soul Biscuits got put back in the vaults.  Not its time to come out.

When I first started buying cymbals for my drums, 1980 wasn't a very good year of finding the right kind. Nobody had Paiste in town and Zildjians were the way to go.  The first featured lineup was something like this.

Camber Hi Hats
A 10 inch splash cymbal of unknown maker
Two ZYN 18 inch multiple use crashes .  I think they were made out of tin or nickel but looked silver.  One had a fairly nice ride sound, the other a china trash sound.  In other words your typical standard cheap cymbal.

 Camber non label 16 inch Crash
 Camber black label 18 inch  crash

A Zildjian 20 inch ride/crash

The Camber 16 inch crash had more bite than the 18 inch which sounded like a long bong rather than crash. The Zildjian drowned the rest of them out ride or crash.  Eventually, the cambers would be replaced with each new project that I did.  I did find a Paiste 404  an entry level cymbal but the crash was a lot like the 2002s.  But West Music wasn't selling new Paistes (at that time) but they had that 404 and I used it for 1980 and 1981 before selling it off to somebody real cheap.  Everything would lead up to a all Zildjian lineup in 1981 although on The Power Of Positive Thinking album The Camber high hats and 16 inch crash was still being used.  In 1982  every recording up till 2007 was all Zildjians.

Sad to say in around 1983 I ended up getting ripped off and losing half my Z's on a bad money deal and lost a crash ride 18 inch and a crash 16 inch, plus a odd sounding 16 inch rock crash (may have been a bottom of a high hat way it sounded). 

The Big Crash lineup of 1982-1984

All Zildjians
14 inch Quick Beats
16 inch Thin Crash (beaten to hell during those years)
18 inch Medium Thin Crash
16 inch Rock Crash
21 inch Rock Ride
20 inch Pang with rivets
12 inch Original K Splash (a genuine Turkish made Zildjian from the old country)

If Dennis thought I was Big Crash back then, good thing he wasn't around for my Paiste RUDE lineup with 2002 Novo Crash, perhaps the loudest cymbal lineup ever known to man ;-)

I actually like the Impulse Cymbals a lot more although they never catch on like the RUDE's did. And still have a Impulse lineup including the clunky sounding high hats which I used once and put away.  I could probably unloaded them but probably would not recoup my losses from paying them back then.  I know that I ripped off myself trading my Rock Ride, Pang and 16 inch Crash at a Arizona drum shop to get the Impulse Ride.  To which had a nice sweet ping ride to it.  I hate to think what I actually paid for it considering how much I unloaded to get that cymbal.

Despite what Mark Concower says, he was not playing in the band when we did a live version of All Over Now at the IMU in Iowa City in 1987.  It was me, Jack Orbit and Ken Miller that nite and we did that song and one other in that variety show.  Something that Orbit improvised on the spot and we messed around before the lights went out.  The awkward applause at the end of All Over Now pretty much says it all.

Cymbal brands are a matter of choice and most of the time the cymbals used fit my personality very well. Not much difference I can tell although while some listeners thought I was using Rude cymbals on Wapsipinicon Dreaming, I was using Impulses. You can't tell the difference on the 2007 Solon LP, a couple songs were from the Highway Home album (which Zildjians were used) and the 2008 sessions (Paiste were the choice)   The classic 2002 cymbal sound is on All Along The Watchtower off 30, whereas a combination of Paiste 3000s and 2002's were put into use.  Hard to tell what I will use on the next album.

But no Sabians, don't have any.

Till then.....