Forging Ahead

NAMM, San Fran, Gamelan...

2011-01-25T11:06:00.005Z

Warmth on the West Coast! In a welcome break from the snowy, cold, damp weather we've been having in England since November, a trip out to California brought many rewards.

Yes, NAMM show time again. Bill Detamore of Pork Pie Drums invited me once more to share his booth and show my cymbals, plus a special Pork Pirate Gong

You can see more of the show (my work and other folks') here and there's a video of my cymbals from Mikedolbear.com here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGa8VzFK5EQ

I had a great show, met lots of nice folks, made a few sales, lined up some future deals, etc. Alex Acuna, Billy Ward and Elton John's percussionist were among some of the folks to come and try stuff out

After NAMM, I'd booked a few more days on my trip and took the opportunity to drive up to San Francisco, well Oakland to be precise, to visit my pal and endorser, the mighty William Winant.

William has played with the Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Symphony, Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs Three, Sonic Youth, Danny Elfman, John Cage, the list is long and amazing... He also teaches at Mills College, which is where we met up. Beautiful leafy campus. William showed me their Gamelan collection, and also the Lou Harrison "American Gamelan" plus some other very cool Harrison instrument creations in fantastic tuning regimes.

Later on, we went out for some authentic Soul Food - mighty tasty. Then spent the evening talking about music, percussion instruments, composers and musicians. Willie's story about Frank Zappa upsetting the flautists in the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players was particularly entertaining.

In other news, if you like your updates more bite-sized, you can now also follow me on twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/mattNolanCustom

Autumn Cannibals

2010-12-01T10:50:00.003Z

Well, the Whitby Gothic Weekend was a blast. I was up there on the north-east coast providing cymbals and a gong for top L.A. drummer, Tom Coyne, and one of his bands, Autumn Cannibals - the new solo project of Jeff Diehm from The Last Dance.

They played an excellent set and it was nice to hear my cymbals in a concert setting over a huge P.A. for a change. The crowd was into it too, and was a sight to behold. Such amazing outfits! Everything from Steampunk and near-fetish wear down to "traditional" goth blackness.

I enjoyed staying with the band and a few of their friends in a huge house up on the clifftops. Slightly disappointed in the double-glazed windows though. It would have been nice to hear the waves crashing into the shore more easily while drifting off to sleep. The Cannibals had flown in just for this gig, so they arrived and departed more-or-less in synch with me - Friday night to Sunday morning.

I look forward to catching up with them again when I head out to their home ground in January for the NAMM show.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of songs from their set:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=traLzUq1mqY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv7NhpEcwo

Clinics and Festivals

2010-10-24T02:09:00.005+01:00

Last week, I had the pleasure of watching 3 great drummers at work. I went to the Benny Greb drum clinic in Manchester, UK. He was supported by Ash Soan (you may not have heard of him but I bet you've heard records he's played on) and Jake Brown. All 3 were amazing, entertaining and instructive.

Jake is 14 and has been playing drums for, I think, 4 years. Sheesh! I wish I was that good after I'd been playing for 4 years. I'm still not that good!

Jake had planned out a solo incorporating quite an array of my instruments but, as he had his set time cut short, he had to scale back, so just one gong was used. But it's a beauty. Check the video here of Jake's drum solo piece - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7PDeBoDZxk

Next weekend, there's another outing for my creations - this time with top L.A. drummer, Tom Coyne. He's playing with Autumn Cannibals at the Whitby Gothic Festival over the Halloween weekend. Tom will use a full set of my cymbals on his kit, plus a Gothic gong or two. Hopefully, I'll be able to film some of that too. I'm looking forwards to watching Tom play.

Most illuminating

2010-10-11T00:00:00.005+01:00

Each time I shoot a promo video for my work, I try to do it a litle better than last time; learning from mistakes and experience. Apart from the ones where I've had direct help from Andy Mac (which are of vastly superior quality!), hopefully you can notice a gradual improvement from video to video.

The latest one was a medium scale production for me. Not too long, elaborate or fancy, but not a short, thrown together with little care piece either. Here it is on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUQOZ4_b_zQ

I wanted to get the lighting better than before. But without spending any money on fancy equipment. Before, I have used multiple small spot-lights (the ones from my exhibition booth rig), but these are actually pretty dim for photography / videography and they cast hard shadows and give you over-sparkly point reflections.

What I needed was flood-lights in "soft-boxes" - to create a larger, more diffuse light source to soften the shadows and make reflections of the lights less offensive.

I made 2 of them in very Heath-Robinson fashion. Both from cheap halogen flood lights that I already had. One with two microphone stands and a large sheet of tissue paper:

The second, I made with a cymbal boom arm stand, a microphone stand and an old coated drum head:

I had them either side of the scene so the drums were illuminated quite evenly from both sides (and also from the existing overhead lighting in the room):

Seemed to work pretty well. I had to add a "flag" to screen off the right hand soft-box later on, when I had a video camera with a wide-angle lens on it out in front of the kit. The light, even though out of shot, was still getting into the lens and creating a lens flare. So I hung a black sheet (like the ones I've used as the backdrop) from one of the microphone stands that was actually being used to hold a microphone to block the light to lens path, but not the light to drums path.

So, you don't necessarily need proper, expensive Gobos and soft-boxes to do a reasonable job...

Fair enough

2010-10-01T09:32:00.002+01:00

The UK National Drum Fair was great fun last week. It was good to see lots of great British custom drum builders and their fine work - Highwood, Guru, Liberty, etc. Nice also to have a full-booth representation from UFIP. Mighty fine piatti from Italy.

My booth remained fairly busy and business was good. Several gongs and an InfiniTri triangle sold. Many thanks to the forum members of MikeDolbear.com for keeping me entertained!

This week, I've been busy with follow-up from the show, plus designing and pricing up a new lathe. I decided to abandon earlier plans trying to combine low speed cymbal lathe and high speed tool sharpening grinder in the same motor and belt system as it was getting impractical. Separate grinder methinks, but the lathe will still have 3 speeds.

There was an article about me from the London Drum Show in the Croatian Daily Newspaper "Jutarnji List" on Saturday 18th September. I've only seen a blurry photo of it so far - but it looked good. A paper copy is due to arrive here soon. Though I think I will stil struggle to read it! There may be something else forthcoming in a Jersey / Guernsey publication too. Watch this space...

Everybody wants hi-hats

2010-09-19T12:24:00.003+01:00

An interesting week. Much of it I have spent buried in video editing and fighting with software and youtube. It is quite galling to spend hours, nay days, making something look and sound beautiful, only to have youtube mangle it. After lots of testing of different video formats and codecs, I managed to get the final uploaded result to come out of youtube almost the same as when it went in. The result is here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ-6HEqGbfk - The InifniTri...

Meanwhile, I have received requests for hi-hats from all quarters. Bronze hi-hats, Stainless Steel hi-hats, micro-hats, giant hats and some too bizarre (and too secret) to mention. So, I think the week that remains before the UK National Drum Fair, will consist of mainly making hi-hats and ride cymbals. Hammer-tastic!

New Bronze

2010-09-16T10:01:00.002+01:00

3 times my own weight in Bronze arrived the other week - quite a large order! It should keep me going for a while. Some of this is a high Tin content alloy. I have been having great fun working with it. It is quite a lot harder under the hammer but creates beautiful sounding cymbals.

The first of these will be for sale at the NDF in Birmingham the weekend after next.

Resolution

2010-09-12T14:57:00.000+01:00

Right. I'm on a mission. Let's see how long it lasts...

Smaller blog entries. Much more frequently.

Did the London Drum Show at Olympia. Good show. Check. Next up - the UK National Drum Fair in Birmingham. 2 weeks to go. After that, one of the biggies - PASIC in Indianapolis. You have to wait until November for that one.

Last night, I had great fun with Andy Mac the photo / video genius. He shot some gorgeous looking HD footage of my new Symphonic Triangles. We had fun lighting the scene with a candelabra and a propane torch! Later on, I'm going to be breaking out the ribbon mics and the fancy pre-amps to do a soundtrack. I'm looking forward to editing together the most over-the-top promotional video for a small percussion instrument ever made...

Long time no blog...

2010-06-21T19:00:00.000+01:00

The life of an independent cymbal maker is a busy one! Sourcing and buying metals, creating instruments, trying to promote and sell them, putting them carefully into shipping boxes, handing them over to shipping agents, playing music, doing the accounts, exhibiting at shows: Winter NAMM, Frankfurt Musikmesse, The UK Custom Drum Show, Chicago Drum Show. It’s nice to have a bit of a break now over the summer. Phew.

Time to catch up on orders. Time to develop new ideas. Time to investigate new materials. Time to make plans. Ohio Drum Show? Amsterdam Drum Show? Maybe. UK National Drum Fair? PASIC? Definitely.

The music festival and fringe has been on here in Bath. The Baghdaddies and Travis / Fripp were highlights of that for me. Ooh, and how could I forget – ANTA, Squeeze Me Macaroni and Team Brick. Last year it was Joanna McGregor playing John Cage. Spellbinding. In 3 weeks, I’ll be playing my gong rig at The Croft in Bristol with the wonderful Dan Bennett on guitar and processing.

Actually, I’ve sold some pretty sweet gongs lately. I need to make some more, if only for that performance. Back to the grindstone...

The Shows Must Go On

2009-12-01T12:54:00.000Z

Well, the Hollywood Drum Show has been and gone, as has PASIC - the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, this year held in Indianapolis. I had an expo booth at both and had a great time.

The Hollywood Show was very much a drummers' event, plus a few sound-track type folks. Plenty of great artist clinics - but none that I got too see, being glued to my booth.

PASIC was fantastic. The world's largest percussion event with over 150 different performances / workshops / clinics over the 4 days and the expo running alongside for 3 days. A real wide range of folks coming to see the expo - drummers, percussionists of all sorts, young students, old masters and everything in-between. And, even the man who is in the guiness book of records for having the largest hand-shaped-things collection! A real pleasure to meet all the people who came to my booth. It was great to hang out with industry friends old and new in the evenings too. I hope I can afford to make the trip over and exhibit again next year.

While in Indianapolis, the home of the P.A.S., I visited their newly opened museum - the Rhythm Discovery Center. Some cool stuff in there - an enormous drum head from Remo, feel the low frequency vibes man! But, I must say, I was most fascinated by the Musser designed Glock and Vibraphone type instruments. Fantastic.

So, what's next? Well, I've got orders from before and after the shows to make and new things to create. That's going to keep me busy until January. And what's happening in January? NAMM of course! I'll be at NAMM, on the Pork Pie Drums Booth. Booth #3378. Their main drum kit will be furnished with my cymbals and a very special custom gong.

Hand crafted cymbals alongside hand crafted drums. Perfect!

From Hollywood to Hollywood

2009-10-05T17:19:00.000+01:00

Hollywood, Birmingham, England to Hollywood, California, USA that is...

Getting a business up and off the ground, getting the world to hear about it is not an easy or simple affair. I seem to have spent much of this year either planning for or attending trade fairs and public shows. But it seems to be working.

Last weekend, I had a wonderful time at the UK National Drum Fair held in Birmingham. There was a great response from drummers to my range of cymbals and gongs and several of them were deafened by Carl Palmer's sudden ffff attack on my 1 metre, 7kg, hand-shaped gong (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwQzEN7OM3E )

Listening to young drummer of the year winner Richard Rayner at 14 and Eric Delaney at 85 on their respective kits was fantastic. But, so was just talking to the hundreds of "ordinary" drummers and other exhibitors at this annual event.

Here are some of the cymbals I had at the show:

And here are some of the gongs:

Some were sold, others have been reserved. But many of them, plus some new ones will be going over the pond with me to the Hollywood Custom and Vintage Drum Show in just under 2 weeks' time. It's going to be a blast. I'm really looking forward to it.

http://www.ukdrumfair.com/
http://www.hollywooddrumshow.com/

Synchronicity

2009-06-27T11:21:00.001+01:00

About a month ago, I was exhibiting my Cymbals and Gongs at The Chicago Drum Show in the USA. The show is a "Vintage and Custom" event, with plenty of tasty exhibitors complemented by hordes ravenous visitors.

It was great to meet all the different people there but the stand-out by far for me was Will Calhoun; meeting him and watching him play the drums. Will is a Grammy Award winner and the drummer for, among others, Living Colour. He's also a wonderful, charming, humble and down-to-earth bloke.

I had a couple of Living Colour albums in my collection, but I must confess that I'd never really paid much attention to Will as a drummer. What I saw in Chicago, however, really knocked my socks off! The bit I managed to video doesn't do it any kind of justice.

Before Will's drum performance, mid-setting up, I was demonstrating one of my small gongs to some people at my booth. Next thing I know, Will is not on the far side of the hall setting up any more, but he's stood right in front of me. "What did you just play!?" The man has got an ear for sounds!

Fast forward a bit, to a couple of weeks ago. Back home in England, I'm going down to London for a couple of days for another music trade / public show. It just so happens that Will Calhoun is touring with his HeadFake duo with bass player Doug Wimbish and is playing in London. It was great to catch up with Will again, and to be introduced to Doug. Once again, I was wowed. Double or morefold this time. Those 2 can make one hell of a lot of noise for a duo! Very skilled use of triggered loops and live sampling, virtuoso playing and both guys singing their asses off. Some good rockstar gurning from Doug too. Awesome!

I'm looking forward to the up-coming Living Colour tour now. Something I've just got to catch...

Ich bin ein Frankfurter

2009-04-06T21:26:00.000+01:00

Well, sort of ;-)

I'm just back from spending the best part of a week in Frankfurt, exhibiting my Artisan Cymbals and Gongs at the MusikMesse trade fair - the largest music industry trade show in the world. The culmination of a few months' hard graft and preparations.

The Frankfurt Messe is vast - absolutely huge. The place is like a major international airport: 9 or more large exhibition hall buildings, some of which have multiple floors, plus a handful of stages and marquees. 80,000 people come through the doors over the 4 days of the show. Really the place to officially launch my new business!

And what a response! Thank you to everyone who came to the stand. The trade and the public seemed more than a little curious about my creations! It was great to see the variety of people who came to my booth (many of them more than once, often the 2nd and 3rd times with someone else in tow - "you have got to see this..."). I made some great contacts, new friends, met up with some old ones again and even made a few sales - La Baguetterie in France placing quite a large order, for one.

Big hits were the 1.25m Stainless Steel Bat-Wing Gong, the 60cm Nickel Silver round Gong and the 1m tall, 7kg Bronze Hand Gong. The latter has a wonderful delay in it's response to the mallet - you strike it and then the sound swells up noticably afterwards. This took a few people by surprise. They'd hit it, not get much, hit it again harder, still not much, hit it harder still and then WAAAHHHH!! Then they'd cover their ears, or run away, or both. Most amusing to observe!

Watching people play the Stainless Steel Rides was interesting too. 2 types of people. Those who "get it" and are fascinated by the new sound. And those who don't hear what they expect from a cymbal - end of story. Those people in the second camp were ushered quickly over to the Bronze Ride Cymbals - haha!

I was helped out greatly on the stand by my good friend from Dachau, RaBe. He was very enthusiastic and his German was, naturally, rather better than my half-forgotten schoolboy abilities. Another friend, Roger, from the UK helped for a few days too. Thank you both!

I think I may well have collapsed from exhaustion without the assistance. The last couple of weeks before the show were very busy - lots of late nights, microwave meals and take-away food at the workshop. The drive, from Bath to Frankfurt via the Dover-Calais ferry was quite gruelling too, given that I had very little time to take breaks. Ha! Packing the car took so long, I was 2 ferry crossings late. By the time the stand was set up on Tuesday night, I'd been awake for about 40 hours solid. I tell you, my display nearly fell down a couple of times as I tried to assemble it single-handed and half-shot!

But, it all worked out well in the end. Lots of "big name drummers" came to visit the stand. But, to spare their blushes (and endorsement deals with other cymbal companies) I'll not out them here. My Bronze ride cymbals were a particular hit. I had great support too from fellow independent cymbalsmiths Michael Paiste and Roberto Spizzichino. It's a small and friendly world between us hammer-wielding guys. The bigger and smaller companies came to have a good look too. I half wonder if I'll see my designs reproduced from other quarters next year.

I was filmed / interviewed 4 times - I'm getting used to it now. The first one is out there already - see here on youtube. Plus, 3 or 4 major drum / music magazines should be doing articles in the next few months also. Keep an eye out!

It was nice to have a good look around at the other exhibitors in the "Beat" Hall too. Some great cymbals and drums being produced. The same as last year, I think UFIP, Dream and Istanbul Agop were my favourites. One incident that particularly made me smile as I walked round was being grabbed by a guy from the Sabian stand - "are you Matt Nolan?" Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me...

Outside of the 9am to 6pm of the show (well, more like 8:30 to 6:45!), my "crew" and I had a great time sampling the local restaurants and beers. We also took this opportunity to meet up again with some locals that we know. A great night (not without incident) on Wednesday with Michael Paiste and his friend Marcel. I'll not forget that one.

The return journey was much smoother than the outward. No swearing at the sat-nav either. I even arrived several ferry-crossings early at Calais. Typical.

Now I must tidy my flat a bit (i.e. undo the mess that accumulated during the build-up to the Messe) ready for the arrival of Steve Hubback tomorrow. Steve is going to stay for a couple of days and borrow my workshop to make some pieces for Paolo Vinaccia.

Next stop, The Rebeats Chicago Drum Show!

Classic Relief / Dame Evelyn Glennie

2009-03-10T22:57:00.000Z

Saturday 7th March, 7:30pm, Royal Festival Hall at the South Bank Centre in London. "Classic Relief" - gala concert in aid of the Comic Relief charity. WOW!

First up, what wonderful acoustics in that hall! I've played there before, but not actually been to see anything and hear it from the audience point of view. Excellent natural projection from the Orchestra and well mic'd soloists and voices. Even right up in the balcony. A pretty good view from there too.

The London Philharmonia were excellent and the various guest soloists were of equal calibre. What really made the difference though, were all the jokes - musical, surreal and slapstick that they had woven into the night. And conductor, Rainer Hirsch's patter was superb. I was amazed how well it all worked and flowed. I haven't laughed so much and so hard for so long since seeing Dave Gorman touring with his "Googlewhack Adventure".

Their rendition of The Blue Danube was both beautiful and hilarious. The Ride of the Valkyries for Marimba Duet and 10-piece Stylophone Ensemble was OUT THERE.

But, the jewel in the crown was to see and hear Dame Evelyn Glennie, the world-famous, profoundly deaf, Scottish Solo Percussionist play a piano duet. I believe it was her first public piano performance in her professional career. Totally unexpected and beautifully nuanced. Quite mesmeric and flowing arm and body movements too. Evelyn is an amazing performer.

Well worth fighting the motorway roadworks and 2 closed tube lines to get there and get back home very late.

2009-02-27T16:28:00.000Z

What an awesome evening's music at The Arnolfini!

JJ and The Birdman, Defibrillators and Mick Flower / Chris Corsano. I'm sure all the other drummers in the audience were drooling too.

Some quick reviews:

JJ and The Birdman - my good friend Tony Orrell and his mate, the keyboard player from The Scissor Sisters. They played an intriguing Kraut-Disco improvised set. Tony was using a Hubback Skull Gong, Hubback Vulture Sculpture Cymbal and a set of cowbells and woodblocks. Oh yes - and a drum-machine plus some kind of looping device. JJ was mellifluous and bubbling. Tony was energetic.

Defibrillators. Well, what can I say? 2-piece art-noise pandemonium. Their opening onslaught had everyone in the front 2 or 3 rows putting their fingers in their ears as fast as they could - and me popping in my musicians' earplugs (they were primed and ready - I've heard these guys before). It was fantastic though. Loud, dark and visceral. The opening explosion was made all the more startling by the extended pause beforehand due to sound problems - no sound at all. Seth Cooke played a vintage Premier drum kit with concert toms, a set of crotales and a mix of cymbals including one of my Stainless Steel Rides. Tony Geisha played an analogue synth, a radio-mic, a Mac and a Wii Controller - like some ironic triumphant phallus.

Mick Flower played a hypnotic Shaahi Baaja - which is like a cross between a dulcimer and an auto-harp, with electric pick-ups. Chris Corsano had everyone tranced out with his effortless, flowing, free-drumming on a little kit with old beaten-up Zyn Cymbals, plus lots of other metal oddments and a string/bridge across his snare drum that he could bow. I have no idea how long they played for. It was like time went somewhere else. They took the dynamics up and down a couple of times, reaching a natural and delicate end not long after the final climax.

I was very pleased to see a very healthy turn-out for such "way-out" music as well. I do like Bristol in this respect. Between The Cube, The Croft, The Arnolfini and The Folk House, there's quite a scene.

It was good to have a quick catch up with both Tonys and Seth after the show. And great to be introduced to Chris Corsano too. We talked about - of course - cymbals. I think Chris has unwittingly set me on a quest to find a new way of working with Stainless Steel. Well have to wait and see where that leads...

West Kennet Gong Barrow

2009-02-17T12:03:00.000Z

First, an introduction to what I do. I am England's only Artisan Gong and Cymbal Smith. One of but a handful in the whole world. I forge metals such as Bronze into musical instruments, percussion instruments. Please check out my website.

Now, the story of the Gong Barrow...

Last Friday - Friday 13th in fact - I went out from my home in Bath, England to Stonehenge (less than 30 miles away). I went with the genius photographer Andy McCreeth to attempt some publicity photos for my Cymbal and Gong business. Due to a confusion between opening times and "last entry time" we arrived too late to gain access to the Ancient Monument. First problem.

Never mind, we thought, there's always another day. But, while we're out, let's try the Avebury Standing Stone Circle instead. It's not far away. Well, we drove through some magnificent snow fields that were still hanging on - like some forgotten land without the Sun - everywhere else had cleared by now. Eventually, we got to Avebury. Too dark by now, the Sun had practically set. Second problem.

Never mind, we thought, what about the West Kennett Long Barrow? The Barrow is an awesome example of a Neolithic Burial Chamber, a cavern constructed by hand from vast stones, overgrown with earth and grass, on the top of a natural ridge. But it's a long way from the road, uphill on a muddy track, we've got lots of heavy equipment to carry and the car says it is 1 degree C outside. Third problem.

So, OK, we weren't properly prepared for this. The temperature - while not quite arctic - was pretty chilly, and only getting lower. We weren't that well equipped with suitable warm clothing. And it was only getting darker. We had 1 Maglite with batteries of unknown remaining life and 1 tiny pen-torch. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, not much really. From that point on the evening was more-or-less a triumph! The long slog up the hill pulling a trolley that wanted to be a plough and carrying shoulder-wrenching bags served to warm us up and kept us warm for a good while afterwards. Andy managed to navigate the various pitch-dark chambers of the Long Barrow to set up his flashes and camera, pen-torch in mouth. And I sat there, trying to hammer a gong. In a puddle. In the dark...

After a while, we thought we'd probably got some good shots, and our fingers were starting to become useless against the energy-sapping, joint-stiffening, cold air, So we called it a night. While packing up, we became aware of a police helicopter observing us, in infra-red, from above. Maybe we have some explaining to do? At the bottom of the hill, we were indeed greeted by a policeman and policewoman. But they weren't too interested in us or why we were dragging a large anvil on a trolley. They had a missing person, had we seen anybody? Well, I hope they found them. While it was a beautiful, clear, starry night, it wasn't a night to be abroad unprepared.

Here's the pick of the crop from our night in the Long Barrow:

This turned out to be an amazing shot. Well I think so anyway. The lighting and shadows make me think of a Rembrandt painting and the composition and textures are oddly reminiscent of Salvador Dali.

We'll try Stonehenge again some time soon, but I'm not sure we're going to eclipse this experience or the photographic result!