Monday, January 28, 2008

Wheels


Initially, I bought this crazy kit on the whim of having a piece of Hollywood lore, yet at the same time we were always on the search of the funky. The story goes that it was bought new by Soupy Sales for his son Hunt's birthday then much later was pawned by the son during times of need.

Italian made by Meazzi and marketed as 'Hollywood' they had that early Vaudeville concept of being all racked together on wheels. This was done for easy access of 'striking' instruments with speed for the next act. In doing this the bass drum was
elevated off the floor and had no contact except for the rubber wheels. The drum was only 18" but being suspended and free to ring it sounded huge with a long tone like
a mounted tom.(a nightmare for live sound engineers always in a rush but with proper tuning and some time it was beautiful and uniQue.

I ended up using it for the 1st Vapor LP in studio but muted the kick.(for rock's sake) Also took it on tour for it's mini size and our lack of space.
This kit is amazing and I've never seen anything like it yet there must be others.
I think they were one of the first kits ever to use electronics. (It had pickups installed in the shells that went to a special Hollywood Amp.)Not mine though.

Note; I've seen some of Hollywood's short lived endorsement advertisements in dusty
bins at old school music shoppes featuring Max Roach, Billy Cobham and briefly Buddy Rich(who rumor has it hated the kit so much he kicked it off stage during a show) and others I can't remember.

Edit; I just found some great stuff here.

2 comments:

Aaron C. Mason said...

Mounted symbol stands. rad.
Unless your a lefty who bunches all his symbols up on the left side. Why?
I don't know.

manmachine said...

hey u are one of the best drummers i've ever seen! saw you in chicago opening for Verve. I'd never seen anybody play so sslloowwllyy. it was magical.