Patreon Letter: 7th October 2018

Hey friends, Jackson here with a patreon letter! Em was up this week but my weeks are about to get even busier next week with all we have on our plate so I offered to take it this time and they’ll be back next time with a letter about Devilman, probably. I’m just guessing, tho. As I am wont to do.

Which means I need to think of something to write about, and if you’ve been talking to me this week you’d know there’s only really been one thing on my mind and that is: i am getting a new drum kit tomorrow. And I cannot wait. It’s been over six years since I’ve had regular access to a drum kit and i miss it so much. This is going to improve my life tremendously. So I thought I would talk about some of my drum feelings. Not going to be very deep or well constructed, just getting this out of my system. Apologies to everyone who comes here for talk about video games and sometimes a movie or two because I am going to revert to my teenage music self for a bit.

I got into drums when I was about two years old and I discovered how extremely fun it was to take a tin of celebrations, turn it upside down, and smack it with a spoon. I finally got my first real kit in 2004, I know it was 2004 because American Idiot had just came out and I thought it was the best shit that had ever happened to music. I was 10 years old. I was probably listening to a mixture of Busted and Will Smith at this point in my life so please be nice. Anyway, I got the drum kit and played it pretty consistently all the way through high school, doing the whole band thing for a good while which was great fun. Though I ended up switching from drums to playing guitar and singing, despite not being able to play guitar or sing. It was a punk band.

Anyway I ended up switching my degree from Music to Creative Writing, and what with moving around to University and also being way too poor to either get a new drum kit or repair the remnants of my old one, I basically haven’t played regularly since 2012. So. I’ve missed it a lot and when it shows up I’m hopefully going to get a lot of use out of it, I already packed my iTunes library with rips of Rock Band songs played without drum tracks. 

If you want to know how bad I have caught the bug, this is the current damage: it is three in the morning and I should have both finished this letter and gone to sleep hours ago. Instead I am watching a ten minute youtube video about the differences in weight and feel between varying brands of 5A sticks. Now, 5A sticks are essentially the default sticks that every drummer uses starting out, but back when I was drumming I always bought 7A sticks because they were much lighter. They snapped like twigs! But I figured the drums were loud enough, I didn’t need extra power, I’d take the faster and lighter feel every time. That’s just a short bit of behind the scenes as to why I like 7A sticks. This is an entire side of my person that’s been locked behind a large wall that is about to come furiously spilling out.

Okay here's a song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3LRf96EabY 

I think I played this song on drums about fifty times. I was never very good at it on account of it being really hard but I hung out with the metal kids in high school and if you couldn't at least play the intro to Beast and the Harlot then you were a shit drummer. I am somewhat resentful towards the double bass pedal because being the blink-182 liker hanging around with the Cannibal Corpse likers meant I was often mocked for liking the baby genre for babies and for not caring about technical musicianship. I know this makes it sound like I went to a cartoon high school but no, this was just my life at 15 years old.

Anyway, I did not order a double bass pedal with this, partially because the kit was already more money that I've ever had in my bank account and partially because I am still ideologically opposed to it due entirely to petty teenage resentment. That said I have been listening to Beast and the Harlot a lot more and I hate that I'm probably going to end up getting one eventually and trying to play it again. Jack and Lachlan I hope you this is your fault. The verse groove is fucking incredible tho.

Okay. I could go on about drum stuff for ages, and I might in a future letter, doing a more structured look into bands I like for drumming/what I find fun/making fun of Dream Theater fans/etc etc etc. But they're going to show up in a few hours and I should probably get some sleep. Fuck to video games, here's to hitting wooden boxes with sticks.

-Jackson