Hello everyone. I’ve been slow to write anything new this year and it was suggested to me that I should write a bunch of random facts to shed some light on Smoking Drum without giving too much away! This is mainly about music and film…

1. Smoking Drum is a musical reference – it describes a particular style of drum beat which is smoking or sizzling. It has nothing to do with smoking tobacco! Sorry to disappoint any readers but I have never smoked tobacco.

2. I studied Film at West Surrey College of Art & Design, worked in the film industry for three years and almost followed a career of cinematography. I had the opportunity to become a camera assistant for a documentary film maker but it would have meant traveling the world six months of the year—something I didn’t want to do as I’d just got married.

3. I learned violin and piano as a child, and later guitar. I haven’t played for a few years but I’m really hoping to do so again, very soon.

4. Music is in my blood. I don’t know why, but it is. I’ve written this before but music gets me through all times, good and bad. I must have a deep connection with it! This is why I know that one day I will play again. Maybe I’ll be 70 by then!

5. I built my first electric guitar in secondary school in Modular Technology. It was a “flying V” type guitar made from mahogany. I have no idea why I chose that style!

6. I played in various bad bands and had a horrible Marshall transistor guitar amp (eugh). One of the bands was called Pernicious Anaemia!

7. I used to work as a Telecine operator where you transfer film to video tape. I worked mainly on rushes, where the film crew would send in the raw unprocessed film, it would be developed and then I’d whack it on the Telecine machine and “grade” it on the fly onto video tape – basically colour correcting in real time. The tapes would then have sound put on them and sent back the next day to the director ready for viewing.

8. We tried to create a little film company in the early 90’s, we shot a few shorts (on 16mm) and it was immense fun. Some of the actors even went on to bigger performances in The Bill and Casualty!

9. I have met a few well known faces I suppose…my favourite was John Peel who I met a few times as he used to come into the sound studio to record voice over for programmes like “Classic Trucks”. I made him cups of coffee!

10. I haven’t been to nearly enough gigs as I’d have liked but I have been to a few memorable ones, like Motorhead in Reading in the 80’s where there was literally a riot as the gig was closed down (police and dogs running after metalheads) and the last gig of Alice Donut. Recently I’m pleased to say I’ve been able to enjoy the ATP festivals and have seen some truly excellent bands like Built to Spill, Sonic Youth, Battles.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 11:05 am and is filed under General, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.