Sporting New Pots and Pans:
A Portrait of the Drummer as a Young Man
By Joel Gunz

Drums have been a part of my life for so long that if I ever lose my arms while, say, trying to defuse a time bomb, I would have to make some major adjustments. I might even have to consider taking up a new instrument.

I got my start at age six when I built a marching snare drum. It consisted of an orange shoebox with rainbow colored yarn strung through its heel- and toe-ends, which served as a harness. A pair of chopsticks that I had quietly removed from the kitchen served as drumsticks, and they were just the right size for my first-grader hands. My parents have a family photo album that contains a snapshot of me standing in front of the house sporting my new drum, my spine stiff as a pencil and my right foot raised, ready to receive marching orders. I am a parade of one.

In the second grade we moved to a larger house on North Greenwich Avenue, and my drums were likewise upgraded. The throw pillows that came with the new sofa enabled me to build an entire rhythm section. Soft, pliant and durable - made from Herculon®! - those pillows became a five-piece drum set. Soon, chopsticks in hand, I was happily enveloped in a cloud of dust motes while keeping time with The Beatles' "Rubber Soul," which poured from the teakwood stereo console.

One summer, Clarence Burnett, a friend of the family, saw me heading down the dark road of rock and roll and wanted, if possible, to snatch me out of the fire. An unapologetic classicist, he gave me violin lessons, which, I admit, I kind of enjoyed. After a few months, however, Clarence couldn't ignore the writing on the wall, and somehow managed to pick up a drum set for me at a garage sale. Finished with cardboard heads and tin cymbals, this beaut looked like the real thing - straight out of the toy section of a 1972 Sears catalog. Its bass drum was emblazoned with a groovy, purplish collage of dancing girls, tambourines in hand and hips all catawampus, as if they had been photographed doing an interpretive dance about the letter K.

Immediately after the drums' arrival, I went straight to the kitchen and fetched a new pair of chopsticks. Within hours, however, I'd turned the paper drumheads into so much confetti. I replaced them with Handi-Wrap, which improved the look of the drums immensely. The tone - reminiscent of kettledrums filled with helium - wasn't bad, either. Unfortunately, they only lasted for about eight bars.

It took the entire roll of Handi-Wrap just to get through one spin of "Meet the Beatles."

I went back upstairs, sidled up to the kitchen bar, and watched my mother as she scooped coffee out of a green MJB coffee can. And then it dawned on me. There, before my very eyes, was the perfect drum. Snatching a couple of empties from under the sink, I ran back downstairs, punched holes in the sides of the coffee cans and mounted them on my bass drum. Armed with a seemingly endless supply of heavy-duty lids and my stepbrother's Beatles albums, I was equipped for stardom. Curiously, my parents went through coffee at almost the exact rate that I wore out those heads.

Sure, I loved The Beatles. The Carpenters were also among my influences during those heady formative years. Hal Blaine's one-bar drum solo in their hit "Goodbye to Love" continues to find its way into my performances. Then there was the drum solo featured in "Free to Be, You and Me."

One drum solo that I have never listened to in its entirety, however, is that late-summer zucchini of a head-buster from Deep Purple's "En-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

My idol was Buddy Rich. I envisioned myself with a big band like his - a maniacally screeching horn section, a near-jitterbugging sax section, and, of course, drum solos galore.

In this youthful daydream I'm pleasing the throngs in my school auditorium. Alternatively, I'm at one of Rich's favorite haunts, the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. In any case, drenched in sweat, I stumble to the front of the stage, having finished a solo so intense I've nearly soiled my pants. I take a modest bow. And then I lob my chopsticks into the teeming audience.