I’ve sourced the root of this inspiration to 1987. It was the Christmas I received the Barbie Rockers’ “Hot Rockin’ Stage”. Not particularly hot or rockin’ it was no more than grooved cardboard fashioned into a neon, roller rink backdrop held together with plastic. It came with fake spotlights and Barbie sized key-tars. And damn if my pretend bands weren’t awesome! My three Barbie dolls (and one Ken) would hold band battles between Jem and the Holograms in epic turf wars. They performed covers, but also played my original compositions about rocking, boys and being generally outrageous. I knew from that moment on that choir just wasn’t going to cut it.
BUT let’s be clear, I was never good at any instruments. Even the recorder was too hard. The guitar too confusing. The piano too traditional. The ocarina too lame. I always yearned for a saxophone, but my parents were convinced that I wouldn’t take lessons seriously and was just really into the sax solo in James Brown’s “I Feel Good”. Years of watching others excel at their respective instruments, I longed to join.
Flash forward to age 23 me. Recent college graduate, living in Japan and soaking in all that a small, rural Japanese town has to offer……delightfully fresh fish and the elderly. Needless to say, I was always looking for new stuff to do. This is how I ended up at a Taiko class. If you don’t know, Taiko (which curiously translates to “drum”) involves beating a gigantic, red barrel drum with an object resembling a night stick. It’s an old Japanese tradition usually performed at festivals and field days. So one solemn Sunday night myself, a friend and 15 Japanese grandmothers in Hammer Pants lined up at the local community center behind huge barrel drums.
We were given printed music sheets, instructions in Japanese (of which I understood about two words of) and told to start whacking. Good thing music scores look the same in Japan as they do here. While I was beating away, I had fun…..and noticed that I was hitting the notes at (mostly) the correct times. They must have been particularly desperate for warm Taiko bodies, because after 30 minutes they asked me to be in their annual recital the following weekend. I couldn’t make it.
Months later I had moved to a large Japanese city, one with an intricate subway system and a Denny’s. While wandering around an eleven story Japanese mini-mall in the heart of Nagoya I noticed a Yamaha Music School offering trial lessons on traditional drum kits. Here was my chance! An instrument that was cool, perhaps within my capabilities and loud.
The first lesson was only about $5 U.S. and it turns out that music lessons in Japan, like everything else, are a group effort. One 15x15 foot practice room held six students (in my case three Japanese high school girls in skirts so short I think they probably ended up getting their lessons for free, one middle-aged guy who only listened to Japanese lounge music and me) rotating on three full drum kits and 3 practice pads. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard six people simultaneously practicing six completely different beats in a glorified, soundproof closet, but it’s a whole new level of ridiculous. The teacher, Shibata San, was cool, from what I could understand of him, and he always wanted to talk to me about music. Mostly about Sting. He really liked Sting. So we had a textbook and were expected to come in weekly and show what we had been practicing.
Due to a sheer lack of space you can’t really wail on a drum kit in Japan, especially in a city, especially in an apartment. What you CAN do is rent practice space, amps and a drum set included by the hour. Managing to track one down, I went one or twice a week to practice. Every time I would call to reserve time, proud that I knew the Japanese word for “reservation” and working on my pronunciation like I had no accent, they’d be all, “No problem, Kate!” I guess I didn’t blend in as well as I thought.
So I started learning how to play a drum kit…… on about eight different drums sets. I made a playlist of songs I liked (with easy drum parts) and learned how to play them, or tried to. There was nobody there to tell me to use the clutch on the snare, adjust the high hat stand or where the cymbals could go, so I had to just kind of wing it. God only knows how terrible it must have sounded.
When I returned back to the States, I was still interested in drumming; but with no drums to play, I again signed up for lessons in an effort to continue. My teacher was a totally sick drummer who liked arty films and took a lot of vitamins. I nearly pissed myself the first time we met and he asked me to play something. The next week I went to buy drumsticks the salesperson asked what kind I needed and I said I didn’t know, to which he replied, “What kind of boyfriend sends their girlfriend to buy sticks and doesn’t even tell her what kind?” I would learn to get used to dipshits like this.
After almost being conned into buying a used Pearl Export on Craigslist for $900, not including cymbals, I wised up (with the help of my instructor) and bought my own brand-new drum set and cymbals with a cymbal bag and a throne. A five-piece Tama Superstar with white satin finish, shiny stands that sparkled in the light and new drum smell. It was the sweetest feeling, aside from the reminders by the salesperson that I “really better make sure I was going to play them” and “this is not an investment to be taken lightly“ and “how long have you been playing”? Do salespeople ask the same about other big purchases involving commission like washing machines and cars? All I cared about was setting them up and watching the instructional DVD (featuring the Mr. Big drummer, Pat Torpey.)
I was SO proud of this kit (which I managed to fit entirely into a two-seat convertible…….don’t even ask) and in turn shared the good news with everyone. ”I own drums. I can play any time I want!” to mixed reviews. My grandfather laughed when I told him. “How exactly are you going to play drums? Like with a group? At church?” Others mocked my efforts relentlessly. “What, are you going to be like some, drummer? Girl? Who what? Plays drums?“ Nobody cared this much when I took up needlepoint.
Then there was the issue of where to play the drums I now owned. So, I decided to rent a storage unit as a makeshift practice space. These rental units, more like dungeons with potential to be crime scenes, smelled like a wet stack of magazines in an unfinished basement. My assigned unit was deep inside the building and because there were no lights in the individual rooms, I had to run a 100-foot extension cord from a lamp to a socket outside when it was time for me to practice. The hall lights were on timers so when you left the room, you’d have to run through a pitch black hallway to the main door to turn it back on. As someone who is terrified of the dark, these were hard times.
There actually were full bands that practiced there. A local death metal band in particular was so loud I literally couldn’t hear myself play when they were there practicing. And playing in a room with metal walls, that’s loud. Random band members and musicians who stored equipment in the space would stop by to ask about my drums and to give me loads of unsolicited advice, most of it good, some hilarious. One guy was horrified that I didn’t know how to play that song “Crazy Bitch” on drums and promptly demonstrated.
After about eight months I decided it was time to move out when I discovered dripping water in the space one rainy day. I luckily salvaged my drums before they were ruined, yet the manager had no qualms telling me that it wasn’t a faulty roof, but in fact a bullet hole that had caused the leak………suddenly a dark hallway seemed like less of a concern.
Time passed, and I eventually moved on to a proper practice space. This in turn led to playing with other musicians AND, my goal since my salad days, being in a band!!! Nervously at first, literally almost throwing up the day of my first show, I had a lot of fun and felt happy with the performance for the most part. One show turned into many more and I started to really embrace my hobby.
Having never been in a band before I didn’t really know much to start and little about what to expect. Like when you show up to a gig with the band as a female, people rarely assume that you play an instrument.
For example:
“Hey, can you tell your drummer sound check’s in 5?” OR
“Hey, do you know where those band dudes are that you came in with earlier. Can you tell them they play first?” AND my favorite
“Yeah, sorry, drink tickets are only for people in the band."
And then, after pouring your heart and soul into a performance, the reactions immediately after a show are priceless. From the ass backwards/condescending compliment:
“Man, that was good! I saw you setting up your drums and I was thinking, ehhh this isn’t going to be worth watching. But it totally was!” OR
“I heard the drums from outside and I wanted to see who was playing and it was YOU! Hahaha.” Would “Thanks” be an appropriate response?Also, the funny:
“Man, that was, like, so on time and super loud.” Really, drums do that?
To the downright rude:
“Hey what kind of sticks do you use? Yeah, I forgot mine I’m gonna need to use those.” Oh, and you’re welcome.
Or my most favorite:
“That sucked.”
Over the years I’ve learned that even just telling people you play drums is like coming out:
“What, you play drums? That’s crazy! You’re a girl and you’re like, this big!”
“Drums? Like, with sticks?”
It’s like the first step to playing drums as a female is admitting you play drums:
Hello, my name is Kate and I’m a female drummer. I’ve been one for a few years now. I’ve spent a lot of money on drumming. I enjoy playing drums, several times a day sometimes, but I can stop any time I want.
I mean I’m not the one to make an issue out of it, but there are differences being a female drummer……and not necessarily cool ones. Few men have limitations on being able to wear heels, skirts or dresses to gigs. And then there’s the issue of being really sweaty and not being able to take off your shirt when all the guys do even at a 150-degree house show in the dead of summer because you don’t want to be in your bra around a bunch of strangers. And let me say that a bra for a female drummer is just a glorified sponge for your boob sweat, BUT you need to strap it on so your girls don’t flop around while you play.
Also, there’s the importance of the breathability of cotton panties sitting on a sweaty plastic drum stool because avoiding oncoming weirdness in your nether region is totally necessary.
And yeah, playing out of town shows? No, sorry. I’m not sleeping on a filthy scabies mattress in your barf-stained living room because I’m not a dirty boy, although I certainly appreciate the offer. You don’t have a working toilet? Shit.
But it’s cool, and it’s fun. Like a lot of things in life you just have to fake it ‘til you make it. Or embrace it ‘til you make it, knowing good and damn well it won’t always embrace you. And own your stuff.
Band b*tches, inspired by Barbie or not, I think that the more ladies in bands the better….especially the drum queens.
Our drum stools aren’t called thrones for nothing, after all.
