Drumming At the Edge of Magic

That's not an original title, it's a book by former Dead drummer Mickey Hart that we sold at the Magickal Childe. But it's certainly an experience, if you drum long enough. Right from the beginning, drumming flipped my head over. I don't know if everybody has that experience, but I know what he meant. There's a point where you're so inside the music that drumming alters your head if you're in one pattern for a long time. It's tough to explain. I try not to go there and change out enough to avoid it.

It's looking like I'm gonna have to go to hand drumming. I just can't hold the sticks for long enough, and if I do I pay for it. Since I'm not that much of a masochist, time to change the plan. Who knows, my hands may get good some day but that's not now. So the Ludwigs stay in the Wish List and I'm scoping for a couple of djembes. There was a band rehearsing in one of the houses up behind my house yesterday, and I listened to them for hours. They were damn hot. Not a falter in rhythm, not a missed cue, not a bad note, and they did so many classics- Floyd, Zep, Skynyrd, The Who...och I was a happy mama. And the singer wailed. Sounded like Eddie Vedder. Auralize Vedder doing "Comfortably Numb" instead of Waters and Gilmour. Yeah, it was good. I've no idea who they are, how old they are or even what garage they were in. They just rocked. I hope they're there every Saturday. A free rock band in my backyard, dude. Things like that make life good. I'm sure it pissed off the Dusties around here, but tough.

And I'm watching drummers a lot.. Carl Palmer has always blown my hair back, but the guy's in his 60s and still superhuman. Bruford, too. Their multiple time changes are seamless and they're nastier now. That poncy anal-precision is deepened with age. Damn I wish Bonzo was still alive.

Anyway, this weekend has been blessedly low key and that's good because I seem to have gotten a mild case of food poisoning. Looks like the seafood was a day too old. Meh, I had seafood poisoning so often in restaurant school (we ate what the students cooked) that we called lunch Staff Infection. This too shall pass. ;)