So I could have sworn that I blogged about how our band (”Crash Effect“) has basically come together…but now that I look back I realize that I didn’t. Anyway…quick recap.

The other evening after a rehearsal with my friends Paul and Jamison [we're rehearsing a couple songs that we're playing at Jamison's church on an upcoming Sunday], and I happened to ask Paul if he’d be interested in starting up a band with me. He was seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea…but we had only one problem…he had no drum set. He sold his a while back.

Well, my instantaneous answer (without even thinking) was, “well, I’ll just have to pray that God provides you a drum set, then”—not really thinking that God would actually GIVE me a drum set. No way. So I got home that night, crawled into bed and began to ask God for a drum set for Paul. It was like someone knocked me up side the head with a fish and God basically said, “uh, you’ve ALREADY GOT a drum set…remember? The one sitting in your attic collecting dust?”

He was right. I’ve an old 1968 Apollo drumset—essentially a vintage Slingerland knock-off—that basically needed some serious cleaning, new heads, cymbals, kick pedal, hi-hat, stands and a little TLC. That was this evening’s project: clean up the set and put new heads on.

Though I couldn’t fulfill Paul’s entire list of heads, I ended up with the following:

• 14″ snare (top) - Remo pinstripe
• 14″ snare (bottom) - Remo Emporer transparent head
• 13″ Tom (top) - Remo pinstripe clear head
• 13″ Tom (bottom) - Evans hydraulic glass head [not real glass]
• 16″ Tom (top) - same as 13″
• 16″ Tom (bottom) - same as 13″
• 20″ kick (attack side) - Remo powerstroke III ebony head
• 20″ kick (front) - Evans EMAD resonate head

Basically now I’ve got about everything. We just need to get a few cymbals and stands, as well as an arm for the 13″ tom. The mounting bracket on top the kick is REALLY lame. It uses regular nuts for adjusting the positioning. THAT’S GOTTA GO.

I mounted and tuned the heads the way Paul likes them and the kit sounds AMAZING…especially for having been neglected for over a decade now. Check out some of the photos from this evening’s restoration of my vintage 1968 Apollo drumset.

The apollo drumset before restoration

one of the kick tension rods before polishing

one of the kick tension rods AFTER polishing…years of grime is gone

The restored vintage apollo kit. I might have been able to take a better picture had I actually had SPACE in my basement to set the kit up properly.

Wah-wah-wee-wah! That’s NIICE. I couldn’t resist putting a little message on the snare to keep Paul smilin’.

set close-up - note the pork pie throne

one of my old t-shirts…after the clean-up job

July 29, 2006, 12:14 am

Filed under: Gear, Music

1 Comment »

1. greyfence said,

   July 29, 2006 @ 10:05 am

   As Borat would say “Nice! She is a beautiful swine, My I make love on her?”

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