The Pits

Photo Courtesy of Tammy Strapp.

On the 29th of January, which feels like aeons ago, I performed my first live gig in over 2 years.


I'm a reasonably good drummer with attitude, not quite a Danny Carey (Tool), Joey Jordison (Slipknot) or Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) much as I wish in my wildest wet dreams I could be like those chopstick legends! But I can hold a beat and pull off a decent performance with energy and style, and have done so at hundreds of gigs spanning about fifteen years in numerous original rock bands, in Cape Town and London city.


My latest band, "The Pits", is a rockabilly influenced punk/indie outfit. That's my description, it's probably not the 'official' defined genre. When I joined Sven and Milli after we met through Gumtree.co.za they were doing rockabilly, with an electronic drum machine. My style of drumming is hard rock with lots of rolls, fills & noise, which added a completely new dimension to the music, I think for the good, judging by comments from some members of the audience who've seen Sven & Milli perform at previous shows with their little drum machine.

Sven & Milli Duncker, the original two members of the band, are a husband & wife team, they write the music. I just add the beats. The old drummer joke: "What's the last thing a drummer says in a band? - "Hey guys, why don't we try one of my songs?"" comes to mind! I'm perfectly happy with this arrangement, I don't have the talent to write music and my singing is so severely bad I've been banned from the microphones in previous bands!

Our first gig was a fun, high energy master performance of 10 songs pulled off like pro's after only 5 practices together as a full 3-piece. The venue was the Viper Lounge in Blouberg, the gig was their official 'Live' launch party to kickstart a new era of live music at the popular local biker bar. We were one of 7 top local Indie bands showing off our wares to an awesome audience of groupies, friends, locals, smelly bikers, fellow muso's and loads of hot chicks.


Despite my blisters from the night before's practice ripping open from the first song I soldiered on and actually had a blast! Personally not my tightest ever performance but certainly one of the most enjoyable, probably because my long thirst for the stage was quenched at last, but honsetly I also enjoy jamming the music the band does. From the drumming side the songs are fairly strait forward and funky which gives me more flexibility to make it interesting, compared to some of the draconianly rigid stuff I've had to play in previous bands where whacking the wrong cymbal earned looks of death from the front man.


Of course the 1 litre draughts of Castle afterwards (fitting in aptly amongst the big, hairy bikers) was the perfect coolant after half an hour of sweating like the Victoria Falls!


I set up the camcorder to record the gig, the video's are available on YouTube. My two favourite songs are the last two tracks "Johnny Spider Hands" and "Kicking Dog". Have a look & listen, it's quite cool! My cousin Tim also took a load of photo's (I'd do it myself but I was kinda pre-occupied with working the drums), they are here on Facebook.
There was also a hot little pro photographer taking pics at the gig, Ramdom Tam. She took the one above, I'm hoping more will emerge still because she got some great shots from the few I've seen so far! I had a chat to her after the show, she generally photographs concerts and shows and the like. Exactly the kind of thing I'd love to do, along with family, schools and commercial gigs. She had some stunning equipment though! I'm a long way off that kind of professional gear, and until I can sweet talk a bank or somebody nice to invest in my ideas, which I think will take some convincing still, I'll stick to drumming!


{sidetracked again...}


We haven't yet had another rehearsal since the gig, I specifically asked for time off so my blisters could heal! I know I'm a real pussy for moaning about some little blisters, but they were compounding and burned like a bitch every time I played. It's just from being out of practice for so long and not giving my girl fingers time to man-up. From now onwards it shouldn't be a problem and I'm fully itching to get my chops out and rock hard at 12pm on Saturday at our next band practice, which is usually at Kill City Blues in Cape Town.


How much fun is this, dude...