SKF NOTE: A once popular, now out-of-business, CREEM magazine hired me to produce American’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine‘s 1985 Drum Supplement. It was a lot of work. From acoustic and electronic drumsets (high-end and budget), to cymbals, to hardware, to accessories, I had to decide what drum products to include.

I had to contact all the drum industry manufacturers and tell them what I was doing. If they would like to be included, would they please snail mail me catalogs, brochures, info sheets, and photos suitable for publishing in a magazine.

The 1985 Drum Supplement was summation of each included product, my choice of photos, and my photo captions. After all that, soon after CREEM‘s October 1985 issue came out, the magazine went out of business and I was never paid for producing that Supplement.

I do still have a manila file folder of drum industry photos and catalogs from that project. (That’s where I had stored the cymbal ash tray photo.) And I learned the valuable lesson every freelance writer — and probably ever musician — learns about doing good work and not getting paid.

This morning, from St. Petersurg, FL, I read again what I wrote as the intro to CREEM‘s 1985 Drum Supplement — and I stand by every word. My thoughts on creativity’s relationship to musicial equipment are the same as they were when I wrote them 32 years ago.