Death of a Snare Drum

If you've been reading our Facebook page at all, you've probably heard about Matt's snare drum's epic failure at our last show. We had completed our tribute to Alex Chilton (a last minute, learn-it-in-the-car-and-say-a-prayer rendition of Big Star's "September Gurls") without a hitch and got through most of "Signal To Noise", until right around the 3:04 mark, when a mystery projectile flies through the air...



Matt mentioned later that he thought he had simply broken a stick, which is fairly common. After a quick check, he noticed the sticks were completely intact. When he looked down, he saw this...



(I added the maroon background).

You can see us all hovering over the kit to inspect the gaping hole in his snare drum - like one of us "geetar players" is going to know what to do about it. We stood around for a bit and waited for a new snare to appear (courtesy of either The Campbell Apartment or Lieder, not sure which, but thanks!). In the interest of moving things along, we opted to do one more track with the busted snare.



It reminds me a bit of those "dead 70s" sounding snare drums, like the snare sound on Let It Be (this one, not this one). In 27 years playing drums (including time in hardcore and punk bands), Matt has never had a head split before. He's also not sure why it split when it did, as the "fatal blow" wasn't even the hardest hit.

Just for good measure, here's one more song from the Asbury Lanes show.



But really, all of this simply means I have no real news to report.

Happy Wednesday, people.

- Jerry