Watch Drummers for the Police, Rush, Tool Make Jazzy Jam ‘South Park’ co-creator Matt Stone and Vertical Horizon frontman also participate By Kory Grow February 17, 2015
Former Police drummer Stewart Copeland recently gathered together some formidable talent for one of his recent Super Grove jam sessions. Among the musicians were Rush’s Neil Peart, Tool’s Danny Carey, South Park co-creator Matt Stone and Vertical Horizon frontman Matt Scannell. Copeland shared video of the summit, a four-minute clip titled “A Little More Noise,” via his YouTube channel.
As a freelance writer, and as Managing Editor of Modern Drummer magazine, every interview was an opportunity to ask a famous musician or music personality for his or her autograph.
I didn’t do that because I felt that asking for a signature was like saying goodbye: “We will never pass this way again, so how about your autograph?” I was interested in keeping relationships alive, keeping doors open. In some cases, those relationships became lifelong friendships.
Also, when meeting someone – famous musicians or otherwise – I think of it as one human being meeting another. Not music writer meeting a star. My job is to stay focused, to be the best interviewer I can be, and to then edit the whole, according to magazine’s specifications, into an accurate, readable presentation of what the interviewee said.
Caveat: I once asked Mel Lewis to autograph his, “Mel Lewis & Friends” album. I saved letters, notes, Christmas cards, audiotapes from famous musicians. I save letters, notes, Christmas cards from family members too.
Aroostook County man drawing attention with custom, hand-crafted drums
By Julia Bayly, BDN Staff
Posted April 14, 2013, at 9:06 a.m.
FRENCHVILLE, Maine — …Curtis Collin, a young craftsman from northern Maine.., has a passion for working with wood and a passion for music. Two years ago he combined the two with Collin Drums, a business making custom, handcrafted stave drums….
“In 2011 I wanted to build myself a snare drum, so I did,” Collin said from his basement drum-assembly workshop in Frenchville. “Then I decided to build the whole drum kit and you know, I thought it was pretty good.”
So Collin…began to produce stave-style drums, instruments made much like barrels, with individual wood strips forming the body of the drum.
In a stave drum…the strips are glued along the edges, allowing the sound to travel from the drum’s head…down each individual stave without encountering any sound dampening glue.
Maple, mahogany, birch and ash all produce different sounds, he said, and are the four most common woods he uses, though he can work with many others.
The complete kits run around $4,000, with his snare drums fetching up to $1,000.
For Grateful Dead’s Final Shows, Long, Strange Trip Ends in Sea of Mail
Band’s Fans Go Retro to Snag Tickets; Psychedelic Envelopes
By MIKE AYERS and JARRARD COLE
Feb. 13, 2015 7:32 p.m. ET
STINSON BEACH, Calif.—Time has always been elastic for Grateful Dead fans in thrall to tunes that last more than 45 minutes and shows that go on for hours.
So when the group announced it would mark its 50th anniversary in the summer of 2015 with three final performances, Deadheads took the old-school route, flooding the band’s ticket service here with handcrafted requests rather than clicking online.
Since the shows were announced a month ago more than 60,000 envelopes—many painstakingly adorned with the Dead’s typical psychedelic skulls and skeletons—have poured into a post office box in this picturesque Marin County spot…. Jim Harvey, Stinson Beach postmaster, said of the vivid No. 10 envelopes…. “It indicated that the Grateful Dead culture is alive and well.”
For some Deadheads, requesting tickets by mail was a trip down memory lane. For others, like Josh Brady, a 33-year old.., it was a new experience. “[I]t’s fun to do the old-school mail order.”
For Terri Lyne Carrington, drumming is a spiritual act
by Alexander Varty on February 11th, 2015 at 12:13 PM
…Terri Lyne Carrington cites Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Jack DeJohnette as her primary mentors. Like DeJohnette, she’s honed her technique on the drums to…where her playing is more about manipulating energy than keeping a beat. And…she takes an inclusive attitude toward the thorny question of just what, exactly, constitutes jazz.
…Hancock and Shorter…also seem to have passed down some spiritual wisdom.
“You have to look at why you do what you do,” she explains…. “And if you look at that honestly, in most cases somehow you work back to some kind of spiritual journey that you’re having within the art of being creative. That’s kind of how I look at it: it’s about purpose, your sense of purpose in life. And music is really healing; it affects people on levels that they don’t even realize. So it’s about healing and inspiring people, and that’s spiritual as well. It’s all connected.
“It’s also about the spiritual process of just being in the present,” she adds….
Scott K Fish 
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