SKF NOTE: My Life Beyond the Cymbals blog is about music mostly; the parts of my life I would pass on to my children. My hope? That some of these stories will be helpful to someone. Maybe aspiring musicians, music historians, or music journalists.

Music and drumming are my first loves, starting at about age six listening to my Uncle Bob’s Verve recording of Gene Krupa playing China Boy. The first half of my life was devoted to playing, teaching, studying, and writing about music. Mostly, not always, drummers, and all kinds of music: jazz, rock, blues, country, classical, folk.

Those years prepared me first as a freelance writer for Modern Drummer and other magazines, and then as managing editor of Modern Drummer magazine (1980-1983).

I started freelance writing for MD in 1976. By the time I left MD in October 1983 I had written almost half the magazine’s feature articles.

My drummer feature interviews include Max Roach, Mel Lewis, Neil Peart, Charlie Watts, Bill Bruford, Gary Chester, Joe Morello, Freddie Gruber, Roy Haynes, Paul T. Riddle, Butch Trucks & Jaimo, Artimus Pyle, Jim Gordon, Fred Below, Ed Soph, Paul Motian, Jim Keltner, Alan Dawson, Carmine Appice, Dave Weckl, Max Weinberg, Jason Bonham, Teri Lyn Carrington, Barry Keane, Roy McCurdy, Tommy Aldridge, Paul English, Sonny Greer, Les DeMerle, M’Boom, and Ed Blackwell.

I also wrote the first published History of Rock Drumming as a five-part MD feature series.

My writings have been cited in several books including, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz; Max Weinberg’s The Big Beat, and Robin D.G. Kelley’s Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, and and Joel Selvin’s Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon.

I never lost my love of music, never stopped listening, playing, studying. I’ve been blessed to have met some incredible musicians. Some of them remain close friends.

So my blog is about passing on drumming and music stories.

During my 1983 MD interview with drummer Bill Bruford, he paused at one point and said my interview questions were not the run-of-the-mill drum interview questions about what happens when a drummer is sitting at a drumset, i.e. What kind of sticks do you use?

My questions Bruford said, were more about “life beyond the cymbals.”