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January 2010
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Probably the best column in the world... Transcribed by Gary Cooper. Performing Musician: So this drummer goes to the hairdressers and sits in the chair, but he won’t take off his earphones. Pub Genius: I’m not going to laugh, you know. PM: Anyway, the hairdresser asks him again and again to take the earphones off because they’re getting in his way, but the drummer says if he takes them off he’ll die. Pub Genius: Not even a snigger. PM: In the end the hairdresser just loses it and rips the earbuds out. The drummer keels over, stone dead! Well, the hairdresser’s really freaked out by this and just has to find out what amazing music was keeping this bloke alive, so puts the earphones to his ears and listens to the track: “breath in... breath out... breath in...” Pub Genius: Oh, alright then. Ha ha! PM: I love drummer jokes! Pub Genius: Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to mock the afflicted? Anyway, why the sudden interest in drummers? PM: Oh, just that I was watching our drummer trying to fit a head last week. It was taking him ages and when I took the piss he said I should just be grateful that he wasn’t still using skins. Um... I suppose he meant animal skins, not Rizlas? Pub Genius: He did, Grasshopper! Did you realise that most drummers still used animal skins until the 1960s? PM: I can’t say I ever thought about it. Why did they stop? Pub Genius: Well, it wasn’t squeamishness — though it was a pretty gruesome business. Calf-skin heads used to swell and shrink due to changes in humidity — they’d split for no reason, and just be totally unpredictable. PM: Like bass players, you mean? Ha ha! Don’t look at me like that, it’ll make the beer go off! So, come on then, it’s Halloween. How about a gruesome story of animal skins and cracking heads? I’ll even stand you a pint of Hobgoblin! Pub Genius: And crisps? We must not forget the crisps... PM: How can I resist when a grown man looks so pitiful? Now get on with it! Pub Genius: Ever wondered why so many drum companies were based in Chicago? PM: Not until you came to mention it. Pub Genius: Well, one of the reasons was because it was the meat capital of America — the infamous stockyards, where the cattle were brought from the West to be slaughtered and processed. A good supply of skins was essential to drum makers like Ludwig, Gretsch and Slingerland. And they were very fussy about which skins they used. PM: This is going to get a bit Halloween-y, isn’t it? Pub Genius: Would you expect any less? The best skins came from a yearling animal and every day, as soon as the cattle were slaughtered, the drum makers would toddle down to the yards to poke among the piles of skins and pick the best hides. They had to be really careful with skins for snare drums, though... PM: Do I want to know this? Pub Genius: No, but you will anyway. Snare drums needed tissue-thin skins and the best ones came from unborn calves. PM: Now that is gross! Pub Genius: Ha! Your great grannie didn’t think so! Those that didn’t go to make snare drum heads went to make ladies’ gloves. PM: I did mention I was a vegetarian, didn’t I? Pub Genus: Since when? PM: Ten seconds ago. So when did all this barbarism end? Pub Genius: Around 1956. During the Second World War, the US government asked the chemical giant DuPont to invent a heat-resistant material they could use instead of celluloid for the film used in night-time reconnaissance flights. DuPont obliged with Mylar. PM: How on earth did that get to be used for drum heads? Pub Genius: Strangely enough, DuPont suggested that as one of the uses for their new material pretty soon after they invented it, but no one took them up on it at first. PM: So who eventually did? Pub Genius: According to some sources, a chap called Joe Grolimund, who was President of the giant Selmer company in the mid 1950s. He had a go, but others say the drummer Sonny Greer was already using custom-made Mylar heads in the very early ‘50s. But the main two claimants to fame are Chick Evans and a gentleman from South Bend, Indiana, called Remo Belli — and, of course, those two names are still with us today. PM: Remo Belli as in Remo heads, I suppose? Evans, ditto? Pub Genius: The very same! Belli is quite a character. He’d become a professional drummer at the age of 16 and then in 1952, while still young, he opened the biggest drum store in Los Angeles. PM: And he nevertheless found the time to pioneer modern drum heads? Pub Genius: He did have some help — a chemist called Sam Muchnick, who was an expert with adhesives and bonding. Armed with Muchnick’s science and Belli’s appreciation of what drummers liked to hit, the two came up with a winning formula. PM: I realise this must have been good news for cows, but need it interest us, as non-drummers? Pub Genius: Oh yes. In fact, certainly! No plastic heads, no rock & roll drumming, you could say. The advent of rock & roll saw the sale of drum kits explode. There was just no way enough hides could have been found to cope with demand. And no way kids playing rock & roll could have coped with handling calf-skin heads. Think of touring! The slightest change in humidity from place to place and the heads would split or go out of tune. Yes, the Mylar head was crucial. PM: So drummers switched overnight? Pub Genius: Not at all! Some were still using calf-skin heads until the 1970s, and a few still do. It’s a bit like the coated string argument with guitarists. Tone purists can be geeky and prefer the original equipment. But, in the end, Mylar more or less won the game and today the vast majority of heads from the big makers are made from it. PM: Well, I must say, I had absolutely no idea there was so much to be learned about drum heads! Pub Genius: Oh, there’s more to it than that. But sufficient unto the day. You know, I must say, making vampire fangs out of a pair of cashew nuts isn’t exactly enhancing your claim to the intellectual superiority of guitarists over drummers — even if it is Halloween. PM: I vant to go to Vitby! Listen to the children of the night! How they sing! Pub Genius: That’s Adolph and Eva, the publican’s sweet little doggies, Grasshopper. They must have just caught a Weights & Measures man sneaking round the back of the bar to check the sight glasses. Anyway, if you’ll stop off at the bar on your way and order me a pint of Hobgoblin and a packet of Stoat & Vinegar crisps. By the way, your Countship, why are most drummer jokes one-liners? PM: I do not know. I am the undead. Pub Genius: So guitarists can remember them! Now, flap off and fetch my beer! 0  Published in PM November 2009  | In this article:
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