Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today. I'm joined by Fritz Stegger in Germany Fritz Welcome to the show. Hey. Hi, bud. Nice Being on the show. Yeah, I should have asked where exactly are you in Germany? I'm going to the south of Germany. I'm just 10 minutes away from Switzerland and France.  Yeah Very nice.  We have a lot of nice countryside good food influenced by the French and Yeah, it's good good spot. Cool. A lot of fun. I'm really happy to have you on the show here today You were recommended by Norbert same on who's become a really good friend of the show from Meinl who is Gracious enough to send me You know tips on people who he thinks would be really good guests on the show and you were very highly recommended So I should mention to you on the drum house Freiberg Which is your shop, correct? Yeah, correct. Cool. Well, we can talk about that more later, but um, so Today's topic and we talked on the phone maybe a few weeks ago and kind of got a little bit of a game plan together But it's sort of evolved like I don't think we really had Too much of a plan. I kind of went into it thinking you're an expert on as Norbert told me like You know European drum manufacturing, which is obviously correct but you sort of Brought it to my attention that a lot of the things that as an American I think You know like we talked about like you were mentioning the drum set was invented in New Orleans in the 20s I mean Europe in general Germany you guys it's so much older. It goes back so much further So there's a lot of misconceptions about The birth of the drum set and these various little pieces of gear So today we're gonna kind of tackle some of these I Don't want to call myths, but maybe what is an American we think is true And maybe it's not true because it's it's different in Europe. So on that note. Why don't you drop some knowledge on us? Yeah, well, um, as far as I know the drum or the drums were brought in by the genocide music Military music and of the 16th century and like Turkish military and They made a contract with the Austrians and that was a time in 1699 when They had genocide music bands playing in Vienna and From that point it was adopted to European classical music Mozart and all this stuff. So it came into the classical music and all also later on to the brass bands and so They had a bass drum and they had Like what we call snare drum now, which is like they called it the tambour and Also, the Turkish obviously knew the secret how to make cymbals as we know from the silicon company Who have the great secret from 1623? I think and so they had the three parts bass drum snare drum and cymbals and You can imagine that when a marching band Played practice and maybe it was winter time and it was very difficult to get some was somewhere Maybe if somebody was ill and so they had one player and three instruments so naturally one started to play the snare drum and kicked the bass drum and Maybe hung up a cymbal somewhere on a on a stand and played it as well Just I think this happened completely normal in different areas all over Europe and the world and And so the first base bass drum pedal patent Is from 1896 I think so it's much earlier than the the drum set in New Orleans, which speaks that Before that somebody tried to play the bass drum with a foot pedal and playing the snare at the same time Yeah, it's it's really interesting because uh, there's I've talked about it before There's the famous picture of a guy sitting with a snare The double drumming kind of picture What's the guy with with the snare drum on his chair? And then he's got the bass drum and you kind of think of like It inventing there, but I always there's just like Things naturally happen like you're saying like it's Without a doubt someone would just sit there and think to themselves like oh if I do this it I can do all these things at one time so it's not like That surprising to me that someone wouldn't have thought of this before um Which is interesting. So wow, that's really neat Yeah, and and I'm gonna say I mean some Maybe in this band was a smith who just said okay I will build you a little device and this happened somewhere in italy and at the same time The same thing happened in germany. I mean this was at that time They had the instruments and they wanted to play it and I mean Yeah, they did it and um I have pictures of marching or brass bands like When I talk about marching bands, it's not only the military bands They're also also the brass bands the civil brass bands and I have pictures from like 1875 where you see a drummer playing The big bass drum and the snare drum and of course the Snare drum is flipped to the right side because when you were marching the The snare was flipping to the right side. So for that they put it on a stand and flipped it over As the same position as they used to walk Yeah Gosh, that's fascinating. I mean, there's no right or wrong to this either where like no, we were first we were first I think and there was so many um immigrants coming from Going coming and going, you know what I mean coming from america going to europe and And coming to america from europe so things obviously had to travel which is The the story of the new orleans kind of drum set is that people it would be uh people coming from africa Obviously usually against their will which is terrible, but um And then spreading the drums and then it would evolve from there and jazz was invented and then do all that so it's No matter what it's always kind of a melting pot of Cultures and it sounds like like you said in europe people are in italy they're kind of combining um uh Their backgrounds and and what they do now. I want to ask you too. So when you talked a little bit about the bass drum pedal Let's get into that a little bit because that's sort of like There is such a wide big history on bass drum pedals But I think a lot of people think that the first modern invented, you know patented bass drum pedal was 1909 with Ludwig which kind of kicked off the company right so but You're kind of saying that they were doing that earlier in europe, correct? Yeah, I mean there is an american patent from 1897 I think and I saw pictures of older pedals Basically very very very basic. I mean like made out of wood and um Some out of metal but very basic, but I don't think that we can really tie it down This was invented here and there it just happened um, and I mean Ludwig and uh fridrich gretz they were germans and they brought The ideas to america and then developed the stuff over there and I mean it's for sure that between 1910 and 1945 there was much more happening In america because we had Two world wars here over in europe and that had to do I mean Original disner drum was built out of out of brass I mean It's very interesting that in uh, germany there is no Title of a drum builder. We don't have drum builder as a profession but When you are a brass instrument builder, that's a real profession you can be trained in and you can do a master degree and like till 10 years before ago Uh, when you were a brass instrument builder, you also automatically had the degree of a drum builder This came of the time when all snare drums and drums were made out of brass But always Wars have to do that the military needs all the metal And then the people started to build things out of wood same happened in america with the rolling bombers in 1940s Built by slingerland and Ludwig where all the lugs and stands and everything was made out of wood and so They started to build drums out of wood as well In america we had the government ruling like you're saying where you can't use You know x amount of more materials at 10 per cent metal per drum So obviously what you're saying is that you have to uh, germany had that same thing, correct? So are there Is it did it go as far on german drums where like there were lugs that were wood? You know what i mean? I only really think of that with american drums, but did it get that serious over there as well? Um, I don't think that at that time Germans were able to build drums at all. I mean we we were affected by the war very heavily. I mean Look at what happened at the american drum manufacturing between 1910 and 1945 there was so much happening and big drums slingerland and grave black beauty drums and Leedy beautiful snare drums wonderful drum sets here we had 1914 the first world war and I mean nobody could build drums. Nobody could afford drums After the first world war people were very poor. So They just probably repaired what they had and then they're building up a new industry And then when the nazis came in 1933 Jazz music and all the popular music coming from america was forbidden because the nazis didn't want to have this music so again, they had all only brass bands and military bands. So they needed a snare drum at a time when um Over overseas a lot of what was going on in chicago and jazz and all these things and then all started after the second world war in germany again when american troops were here in germany playing american music and so Then that's the time when everything started with german bands playing jazz and then of course rock and roll Beat music rock and this is when we started to import Instruments from america. I mean Everyone wanted to have a Ludwig drum or a great drum here in europe and so german companies started to Copy and invent same things and this is when everything started here, but we had a Had two different difficult times where nothing happened First world war second world war Yeah, and a few thoughts on that. I mean i'm just i'm sure like um Like here it makes me think of like in america and like the time of like prohibition when people couldn't drink It didn't mean people weren't drinking it just meant they got really good at sneaking And having these like little speakeasies with clubs It makes me think that if you know if in nazi germany, they said that you can't have jazz I'm sure people still love jazz and probably hit it and uh, and we're very which would be very very risky obviously, but You know, it's like I think that that's just an interesting thought of like maybe people were sneaking and kind of practicing and like an underground kind of thing I don't know if that you know, there's any truth behind that at all I doubt that very much. I mean probably people listen to jazz music on the radio Yeah, I mean there are stories and I know that my grandfather He used to have the illegal radio using it underneath the pillow and listening to to bbc wow, but I mean there was I mean Jazz music has to do with noise and I mean there was no place you could hide And play secretly jazz because everyone every neighbor would have definitely Reported you and you would be thrown to jail. So I doubt that there was any live music or Illegal clubs were going this was much too restricted and I mean everybody could be your enemy. So everything you did illegally had to be Absolutely in secret and absolutely quiet And so it had to be so quiet that even your kids shouldn't hear when you listen to to BBC London because they could tell that in the school to Classmate and the classmate would report it to the teacher and then the Gestapo would Be in front of your door and throw you to jail because you you were not allowed to to listen to to the BBC Man, what a as I as you're saying that I'm like, man What I asked was kind of a dumb question because of course you're not going to secretly Be playing jazz. It's not worth it that but your other Point about how everyone wanted Ludwigs and Gretsch drums and and I mentioned to you before about It's it's kind of a hard topic and I've been I've been working on an episode about it, but about Not really in You know world war two, but like just in In general broader Europe Eastern Europe about the smuggling of American drums into Soviet countries, which is something I'm really interested in and is kind of there's some articles about it, which I'm I've read and they're fascinating, but About getting these drums in and or Soviet countries Making, you know copies almost like you think of like the Japanese stencil drums, but they would be Kind of copies in that eastern block Now any any info on that like the kind of smuggling of drums Yeah, I mean, I know that that was smuggling of drums, but um There I mean eastern germany, for example, they had musicians who came over to to western germany I mean if they were If they were considered that they were So so socialistic Located that they go back to eastern germany, then they could go and play That was always interest in exchange from from west to east and vice versa and So they had a chance to bring instruments and maybe camouflage them make them look old, but Also, they imported drums. I know from Pistey from the symbol manufacturer who also Was this tributa for Heyman drums? He brought a lot of Heyman drums into the eastern european countries legally because the The professional bands they demanded for better instruments and basic instruments like the Eastern german made tecton and trover drums. They were very basic. They were Didn't sound very good. So the professional musicians really wanted to have good drums and so Because peiste was originally from estonia, which was then part of the Part of russia So they made a contract with thomas peiste bringing in drums to to eastern europe That's interesting. I know I've um Like way way way way way more recent. Um, the guys who did the gms drums episode Also got a distribution kind of deal through peiste and had a lot of help from them In the 80s late 80s early 90s. Um, so So it's kind of cool that peiste carried that on a little bit. Um So and I remember on the phone you mentioned something to me about some like blueprints with peiste and being stolen and stuff like that What was that story? Uh, basically when when the wall between eastern and western germany came down end of the the 80s um they try to rebuild factories and Yeah, I get everything settled over there and um They considered that the old sonor factory which was after the second world were run by the by the Eastern German state Was not worth to rebuild it because I mean it was really working on a very old machinery and so they basically sold it and um I knew a man who basically bought all machines all inventory everything and he came with a big truck And loaded drum hats and old machinery and so and there was also a big sort of cupboard metal cupboard and it was full of folders and the the The last manager of the eastern german factory. He said no no no this is belongs to the german Or the eastern german government Which didn't exist at that stage anymore and he said no no no i bought everything and so i own also the folders so he took all the folders and so These folders had sonor on them. They had lefima on another manufacturer. They had piste and um, so he was looking into these folders and they had blueprints of complete machineries one to one the hammers how um piste used to hammer the symbols they had blueprints of the lugs sonor lugs and everything and so this man tried to make some money out of these folders and Um sold them to a couple of factories. I know that piste bought the folder. I don't know for how much money And it was quite scary because uh, there was a lot of private information in this folder and so the Stasi, which was the secret service of eastern germany they really made a profile on thomas piste and Found out everything about his private life what? Kind of drinking habits with his friends and everything So that was quite scary that they just wanted to know find out all these things um, maybe to blackmail him or whatever, but I mean obviously nothing happened but um On many of these blueprints. There was always a stamp saying we can't do that because we don't have the material So they didn't have the exact access for the material like bronzer bronze eight percent for example what what I used to make the symbols of or b20s bronze like sylvan Material they couldn't couldn't get in eastern germany. So they couldn't make the symbols And uh, I know that I think so no bought a folder and maybe lefima as well but unfortunately a lot of these folders Were scrapped by the the son of the guy who made the deal and so they're gone forever Wow So interesting. I mean it's very um, it's almost like a movie You know to think of these like folders of it kind of makes the drum world seem more I mean, but it is very important stuff. Um This just information about about how you create this and you know this and that and lugs and all that so that's fascinating It's similar in america to like let's say like the fbi or like the cia one of these organizations where like you don't want them looking into your personal information Yeah, a little bit scary. Yeah, when you when you look into the drum building run drum manufacturing of eastern germany You had to always and I think this is with many things like cars or planes There was always a a phase where they copied strongly western models and then there was another area where they um made an own thing and then there was a copying phase again, so the first uh drover drum sets built after the war in the old son of hectare um were really an own Very interesting looking sort of art deco design Which was quite interesting, but probably it was not very popular and Then in the 60s they copied hundred percent the teardrop lugs of sonoa and then in the beginning of the 80s they had a new completely new own design and then they started to copy sonoa completely again And um, yeah, that's quite interesting, but the quality was always very very poor and um I don't think that they could sell Many drum sets into into western europe, but um, obviously sold a lot of drums into all eastern state and I was I was writing a book about um german drums some years ago and um I was bombing into a into a famous drummer of santana from kuba and um um He looked at my book and and then he said oh, this is a tecton drum and I said Why do you know this tecton drums from there from eastern germany? I said, oh, we had him kuba when I played as a kid and this is I mean kuba kuba was um was was a communist and that's the reason they get these eastern german drums into kuba wow That's fascinating. I gotta ask was it walfredo? Yeah, yeah, yeah He's it's funny because he um is an awesome guy. He lives A couple minutes away from me. I mean he lives here where I live He actually lives across the river in in kentucky, which is 10 minutes away, but um, we've kind of become uh, we have become friends over the uh Yeah, and I mean I couldn't believe is I bummed to him at frankfurt music fair and I showed him the book and then I've never thought that he got spot Eastern german made drum set we in I mean this was the The worst case if your parents would buy you an eastern german drum you could buy it from from like like mail order Somehow but not in the music store. Oh man, and then he said oh, I started on tecton That's so funny. I mean you Being here in america, I mean the whole and I think around the world obviously they um, I know in germany that that there was the huge fear of communism and here there was this massive fear of these communist countries and it's going to take over everything which you know right or wrong whatever but You you kind of forget about how far Communism spread and how they would like Supply these communist, you know brands or whatever in those countries two places like cuba and stuff You you you don't really think about that sometimes and how these inst it doesn't drums doesn't come to your mind first You know what I mean like of things being spread around. That's that's really cool Yeah, I even saw saw uh eastern european drums in in vietnam. I mean, yeah, exactly I mean, but we never thought about them.  Um now I gotta ask because I have worked I keep I gotta quit saying it but I've been working on an episode about this topic about tricks and drums And I have really had a hard time finding the the people who I've been suggested speak very little english And they're absolute experts on tricks and but they're the the english is not they say I can't come on your show I can't you know, I can type it but I can't speak it well enough, but Where does tricks and fit into this? You know, maybe we kind of pivot now just while we're talking about german stuff and german drums Where does tricks and fit in that because I mean these are just some Out there drums, obviously Yeah, I mean, uh, karlheinz weimar. He was from hamburg. I mean, so he's he's western german and He started basically after the war with the drum and drum manufacturing and This was quite a very very successful company. I mean Sonor drums were Existed before the first world war. They were found in 1875 so um The factory was in eastern germany. So When the second world was ended console autolink he was escaping The eastern german government and it was quite interesting story because The gestapo came to his house to arrest him And he could jump out of a window in the garden where his son Picked him up with a stolen ambulance and drove him into western germany. Oh my god. So he came into Yeah, different stations. He ended up in wittgenstein and The Wittgenstein helped him to find new factories. So sonor started in germany and I mean they had all the know-how from before the war and that was the number one in the sonor factory in eastern germany that built the trover and tecton drums and Then the second strong brand was tricks and found by karlheinz weimar in hamburg They had also other companies. There was in kassel. There was Tromsad drums and they had in bavaria Dairy or rimmel drums. These were the main manufacturers after the second world war And tricks tricks and had quite good context to jazz drummers. They had a Yeah, I mean they're pictured with him and gene krupa and Yeah, a lot of american drummers and so he had a lot of ideas and crazy ideas like doing the tail star and the speed fire drum kills and Yeah, pretty cool stuff And yeah, and so people know that i'm sure people have seen him But maybe they don't know what brand they were just if someone's listening who's kind of a newer drummer These are the drums that they You know one side is like let's say the the Side the batter side that you're kicking is an 18 inch and it goes down to like a 14 or 16 And yeah, there was the tail star like they had they had a bass drum I mean they had a normal Rack tom but I had a bass drum where the the kick side was 20 and and The bottom side was 16 and the same drum was used As a as a floor tom with a 16 batter had and a 20 resonant had I didn't know it was the same drum Yeah, and they had very weird crocodile finishes in lilac and Crazy colors pretty cool, but buddy rich played tricks and drums at that time called vox drums in america And he had an endorsement from 66 to 67 so they had a quite Famous and Rossi Yeah, in buddy rich inclined stubble field from um, and then I guess All the drummers because um, james brown had many drummers, but I think they use the vox Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is which is so neat. So this I think is not true But I think I read in an article for drum magazine or one of them where when um When carl heins weimer Died I heard he wanted to be buried with his whole inventory of drums Or he destroyed all of his drums when he died like right before he died or something like that But oh, actually someone told me that's not true. Uh, not really. I mean, I mean what happened I mean Why is tricks not around? I mean there were a big player at that time and very popular What happened is that at the end of the 60s it was very very attractive to invest in in ireland for some political tax reasons and so he made a fusion with um An irish piano factory called rippon and they made a fusion and he Brought all the production from germany into ireland and then basically rippon went bankrupt and he lost everything and so probably this Yeah killed him in the end. Yeah geez that's there's so many um I guess it's in a lot of businesses But there's so many things that you hear about with businesses that that happen time after time with drum brands Like like that where there was maybe a bad investment And it just went under or they tried to partner or they tried to save money with this or they get a big Endorser for a year like buddy rich and it then they go away. But like there's a lot of Parallels with a lot of these companies. Um, both american german any any country. There's brothers splitting up that happens all the time I mean, it's it's probably Very difficult. I mean there are not so many dramas around, I mean Like even in the brass band you need like 20 or 30 saxophones or trumpets and whatever But you only have one drummer and if you're a guitar player you can have 30 guitars on your wall, but I mean I know a couple of Marriages who broke because the drummer had like five drum sets in the in the in the kitchen So, um, yeah, it's not an easy instrument to collect and and Yeah, you know what I mean. Oh, I know what you mean. And it's funny. You say that because uh um, I recently had and people listening to the show are probably thinking the same thing I'm I'm thinking where uh, Mike Corrado, who's a very, you know, yeah esteemed collector here He has 650 snare drums in his house Um all over and he's married and so I think that's everyone's thought was like, what about Mike Corrado? He's he's breaking the mold But you're right. You're right. I have a I have a Drum set in my front hall and we're moving in a couple days and my wife said, okay So now we're going to put the drum set away and no more drums in the front hall. I'm like It was great while it lasted Yeah, um, I mean difficult was definitely the The arrival of the japanese drum companies. I mean they They were really good in listening to drummers I mean, I was around at that time and I remember how Quick all that that happened. I mean The industry here in germany was Basically sonor, but I mean everybody was keen on Ludwig rogers slingerland drums because all our heroes played them and um Then all of a sudden in within five years this happened that I mean all these companies were gone and and everybody was playing pearl tama yamaha and that happened very very quick and They they listened very good to the demand what drummers really wanted. I mean tama got billy cobbum and he said, you know My problem is always when I have big drum sets that I need an extra Tom arm here and an extra mount there and then they invented this multi multi clamp system and they had invented the drum rags and and Yeah, and this happened so quick and I mean And infected affected every drum company in the world. I mean Premiere was bankrupt at that time and then sold to yamaha Ludwig was sold to con Slingerland was gone rogers was gone um sonor Yeah, they was was sold to khs eventually so Yeah, that was a big big cut end of the the 80s Yeah, and I remember talking to norbert about the minor history and he kind of I didn't realize the the connection there between Uh minor and star drums and about how they became the distributor of hoshino in germany, so it's kind of You know, I guess you can't have the the the story of um japanese drums coming into germany without Discussing, you know Minals a part of that which is which is interesting because that was a big part of their business was bringing in the japanese stuff And I know um, I've said it a bunch on this show But like about how people at slingerland were kind of showing people the japanese, you know businessman or drum builders in and showing them some of the factories for slingerland and then they went back and um Took the uh ideas and then made these drums. So I don't think a lot of people realized how uh I don't want to say devastating, but I want to say like just how massive the impact of of these drums coming into um all over the world was to the the uh The drum kind of you know Just the the way things were before it's really fascinating Yeah, I mean minor he started to talk to the japanese and um He had he had a small business in building cases for brass instruments and um There was after the war a big demand for symbols and so Like Schools ask him. Do you have symbols and then he started to make them himself? He mean he just Got some some brass and hammered them himself and then he was the first man. I think he who invented the machine to to um to press the symbols and um And then he was speaking at the frankfurt music fair to japanese producers to hoshino who had star drums and um Nobody really wanted to make business with these people at that time and he was the first one and I know from Colleagues of him who laughed about him and said what do you want to do with these Japanese drums and then He could sell them quite quickly because they were much cheaper than the german drums and At that time star was copying Two lines on the one hand they had Slingerland rogers copies and on the other hand they had also sonor lugs and sonor hoops And so in europe they had more the sonor type in america. They had more the slingerland type, but then they quite soon started to make own designs and going away from copying and um at one stage that was what has there been around 1968 or 69 minal had both drums pearl and tama drums or star drums at that time and um The the japanese didn't like that. So he had to decide whether he wanted to go for pearl or for star and he he stayed with star and then um pearl went to another distributor and then billy cobbam came along and tama got most Famous drum brand here in europe in the 70s and end of the 70s Yeah, they brought out the imperial star the superstar and got a lot of big endorses and The same time ladwig was setting free so many top endorses and pearl and tama just got them all and then Yeah The drum world changed. Yeah And um also at that time for example When you wanted to buy a drum set you had to buy i mean here in europe I don't know how it was in the states, but when i would was a kid like Had a drum kid and i had symbol stands i had everything and I want to have a new shell set but that was not possible when i wanted to buy a new ladwig drum kit I only could Purchase it with stands snare drum and everything And the japanese Understood that a lot of people just want to have shells and that they want to play around so They made it simple. They had only two colors at that time, but had Arranged from six to 18 of single drums, which every distributor stocked in a big Amount and so it was very easy to get access to these drums and build your own drum kits at that time you had double bass drum kits with a lot of toms and Yeah, that was completely different I did not know that i mean So i mean i was born in 90 so this is obviously way before you know my time but like When i came up with drumming um It was like obviously in that time i mean you know in 2000 You know when i'm getting buying drums and stuff as a young kid But like you can get sets with symbols and everything But for the most part you go and you buy drums and you get just the drums and you You know you think well crap now I need to save more money and buy more stands, but so you're saying that in that Earlier point in time you want Ludwig you get a bass drum pedal you get stands you get everything I never really knew that Yeah, you had to buy the whole set and i mean I grew up in a in a city with a population of around 200 000 people and We had three music three music stores and In one music store you had a blue pearl drum set and in the other one you had a green Ludwig and then the third you had a a gray slingland And that's it and you had to choose between the three drums and so I went for a orange Rogers headliner for I mean I rather wanted to have like four toms, but this had one rag tom, but that's That's all I could get The city so I had to learn to play with with a without the second second rag tom and What what was good for me? yeah, god you you You take so many things for granted now of like Uh, like oh well just get on um, you know just order another tom or get any color drum set Ever made that you want even now you can buy a vintage anything on reverb or whatever But um, it's just interesting to think about that like those are your three options in Yeah, and that was I mean getting getting a second tom I mean at that time it was here in in Germany quite normal that you started With a snare drum and played snare drum for a couple of years Especially when you were trained in a brass band and they gave you a snare drum and said okay learn The technique you got stick control and then So after two years the teacher would say okay get him a bass drum then you went to a shop and you could buy a single bass drum and you could afford it and then You played a bass drum and then a year later you got a hi-hat machine and At that time a lot of drum sets had only a bass drum and one rag tom no floor tom and then you see when you buy vintage drums that the floor tom is A couple of years later and has has a different design Yeah, so today you'd rather buy a complete drum set. It's much cheaper than buying it in singles. Oh sure now um Just jumping off here a little bit also I just wanted to ask is we we kind of started talking about you know, like the misconceptions of who invented what and when this happened I want to ask you What is your I know it's I feel like it can't be proven one way or the other But what is your theory on the invention of the hi-hat? Who do you think invented the hi-hat because a lot of it comes people a lot of what I've heard is it's this american guy This american guy, but you know, I'm sure again. We're talking about europe. Where do you see it? I mean I first I mean I know I have catalogs from now around 1900 Uh where you can see bass drum paddles Where they play the cymbal at the same time So they have a bass drum and then they have the cymbal sitting next to it And you could either play both bass drum and cymbal or just the bass drum Also, I know that that was the invention of the low boy Which was Probably same like the bass drum pedal. I mean, I don't think that is I mean when you when you push two symbols together with your hands Somebody might have the idea to just put it on a on a foot pedal. I mean exactly. Probably this is the same happening in different parts of the world around the same time and The easiest idea is to say, okay. Why you have this higher pedal on the floor just Make it on a on a stand and then you can play it at the same time There's I think this happened around 1920 then in real yeah People say it's papa joe jones who had a friend who's a plumber I had an episode about it with rob cook who there's another gentleman whose name is completely escaping me right now Who they think he invented it? I mean, it's just one of those topics that it's very I think that it probably Has happened in in multiple places At different times.  We did it in 1830 we had a high hat and There's something like that now, I mean I could have go through my archives and look into Some photos, but I don't I can't remember normally they had the What what they had as a standard was that they had on the bass drum um The cymbal mounted on top of the bass drum And you could play with one hand the cymbal And with the other hand you play the snare drum This is what you see on pictures around 1850 or something Hmm Yeah, that's neat and then it just evolves from there you you kind of look at it and you go Why didn't they just do that? You know, why didn't you just end up with why didn't you think ahead? But like you can't You can't jump forward and see things Uh the way they're going to be But I feel like I mean this is pretty obvious, but I feel like the drum set We've been pretty consistent with the drum set as is for for quite a while now You know what? I mean like it really changed in those early days, but seems like we've been pretty uh Do you see any major changes happening in the next, you know, like I just I can't see any big changes happening It seems it seems pretty happy right now Yeah, I mean it depends what kind of music people want to want to make. I mean I see a big um cut I mean we had like A long period where you could see Grandparents parents and and grandchilds in a at a Bob Dylan or Rolling Stones concert and Now I can see that young people listen to completely different things and yeah, it depends what kind of Involvement of the drums they need whether they do everything electronic Or whether they use still acoustic drums, but I can't can't really tell but you're right. I mean things Where the drums had stayed For a very long period very very similar. We were talking on the phone before I mean when you look at the at the bass drum, for example um You had a size of 28 26 24 inch and 14 deep And this happened and stayed till In the middle of the 80s. I mean This is when they start extra deep drums and they started to make 22 by 16 22 by 18 and realized oh At 22 by 18 drum sounds much bigger than a 20 22 by 14 But the 14 inch had to do with the the shoulder The size of the shoulder of a marching person And this is 14 inch. This is For a normal man walking And this is why when they put the bass drum on the floor They could have used every size, but they stuck 100 years with 14 inch Till they started. Oh moment. We could make it deeper. Yeah Geez that's what you just said sums it up all so so perfectly of like 100 years or so of that of like Oh wait, we could make it smaller Make whatever okay, we'll make it smaller now. That's so neat Okay, man, this is awesome. I feel like this this episode is just full of a bunch of little tidbits of um Of I mean really for people not really only in america, but for in in all the non, you know European countries it might be obvious for people in germany and stuff But what you're saying and a lot of this isn't very obvious to us. Um and people in different, you know All around the world. So this is really fascinating. Why don't we take a little bit at the end here and talk about um Your shop and everything how long have you been an owner of a drum store? Oh My own store gets 20 um 20 years old next year, but I was working in the business for like over 30 years um I was working I started at another shop And then I was working for industry work for a couple of drum companies and did all sorts of different things working in factories and um, then like 20 years ago. I decided to start my own drum shop here and Still very happy to do that. I mean, it's Not easy in these days and a lot of things changed and um Yeah, manufacturing wise and I mean, as you say before I mean when you had drum kids Starting from the 60s on every five years They came a new model But there was a big gap when you got the new model There was so many different new things and it was a real new drum set But if a company now brings out a new drum set, it's just a different drum set It has a new name as has different finishes. But as you said before it's basically Same drum set. Yeah and I know um, I worked at guitar center Uh In the drum department here, which I don't know if they do they have guitar center in in uh, Germany no, no, we don't have guitar center But you know what it is though, obviously make a big big box store, which a lot of people they actually I think they're just filed for bankruptcy um, but um And I worked there. I was 16 or 17 and I worked there for probably six months Um, kind of a summer job that went long, but I didn't sell a single drum set Like at all. I didn't even it didn't even come up. No one came in. I wasn't working there all the time I was you know after school, but like it it's just like it was sticks and heads and stuff, but you know So it's not like you said like guitars even guitars you can buy a guitar for you know 300 bucks that's decent, but a drum set you're really dropping a lot of money So it's sort of tough in that regard too. I'm sure selling these expensive drum sets I mean you get a lot of budget drum sets and I'm probably Making most of my money selling selling Beginner instruments because people the parents want to go Into a shop and and get somebody who they trust When the kids are 16 17. I mean they go on on the internet they go into um Blocks and chat with other people and get their ideas and they say oh, it's The easiest way to get it over mail order. I'll just get it from the internet and buy this and that so I don't get these people normally because they just Order whatever and where it's cheapest and then I have a lot of customers who were with me since 30 years and who Also always buy from my shop and if they want to buy an electronic drum kit They say can you get me one and they don't ask for the price? They just know that I make the good price and Yeah, this is how I'll make the money at these days We sell obviously a lot of electronic drum kits A lot of drum teachers didn't accept them Um many years ago or some years ago. They didn't accept Electronic drum kits that but they got much better And since you have these mesh drum kits mesh hat drum kits electronic drum kits um Yeah, that I work quite fine for a lot of young kids who work Who who live in in houses where they can't use a acoustic drum kit? So This is part of the business while i'm Still very much into acoustic drums and I prefer them a lot more but My own my own i practice on the On an electronic drum kit as well.  I love it, but I'm just it's not how I was trained But like I'm doing it just to be quiet and I'm like, okay I need to get like an electric kit Put it on like the third floor of my house and just go like Play for real. I mean there's there's such a difference of like plain Real acoustic drums knowing that you're being too loud.  They're pricey. So um, I don't think that's right or wrong. I think as a guitar player you have a a classical guitar to play Beethoven and you have a A western guitar to play at the campsite fire And you have an electric guitar to play on a rock and roll stage and it's the same with the drums If you want to be a real drummer at one stage in your life, you want to you want to have a Electronic drum kit to practice and it's much easier to practice when you can Put your music on just put a stick into the drum set or even with bluetooth and you play to the music and Live I don't see the electronic drums yet. I mean I don't I will not say I never see them, but but I think it's a long way till you really have a Electronic drum kit on a stage playing jazz music or rock music. I mean Yeah, me personally when I go into a club and there's a band and the drummer is playing Rock of use music on a on an electronic drum kit I I leave because I I don't think that it works Yeah, but we see how it goes. I mean they put a lot of money and effort into Developing electronic drum kits and maybe one day we're gonna see something that is similar, but still I think acoustic drum kits. I love the smell. I love to see how the wood is is Worked on I I I just loved The feel of the drum. I loved it. Yeah everything about it I totally agree and I should say the person at home is who's sitting there listening to this who's who's playing gigs with an electric kit Do whatever works for you obviously and everyone has their own and fritz isn't right or wrong I mean you see that all the time where people use and I've worked in a lot of studio sessions Where sometimes a guy will bring an electric kit and it's like that's great There's we can just use midi and run it in and it's it makes it easy, but it has a different feel so But I think if you're playing drums, that's the key thing whatever you do And you know, we all have whatever we whatever gets you playing is important so Cool. Well fritz man. I can't tell you how awesome it has been to just hear the different stories and you know the the German and european side of these Things then we kind of branched off and and learned a lot of different things today. So Where can people find you like why don't you tell any german listeners who might be you know within driving distance Where they can find about out about drum house and all that stuff Oh, I mean i'm a i'm a local drum shop. I mean i'm not interested in doing business over Over mail order and things. I mean I really want to talk to the people but if somebody is in fryberg or the black forest area They will find me in the middle of fryberg just in the center of the town It's a small shop, but it's full of drums like the drum shops I experienced in my childhood when I went to forbs music in In london where you have a small room and you have drums everywhere till the roof and Yeah, we'd have a lot of stuff and we are located in the center of fryberg and if somebody of the listener wouldn't want to see and have a cup of coffee and A chat about drums then you're always welcome Man if someone out there is in the black forest listening to this You need to go and just tell fritz that you heard this episode Just so I can and then he'll tell me or somebody needs to tell me that That I reached one person Out there and that actually worked because that would be too cool. That's pretty specific Of a location to find someone but um, that would be awesome. So Cool. Well fritz um, thanks again for for doing this and being so flexible And uh, I don't think I mentioned it earlier. I had to postpone an hour I have a sick baby who I think is doing much better, but I was cleaning throw up off of a bunch of toys this morning from a baby So he's doing okay, but uh, yeah, thanks again for being so flexible and sharing all of your amazing knowledge with us and being on the show Yeah, thank you. It was very very pleasure for me to do that and i'm always interested to talk to drummers and um People from the industry and i'm think what you do is a great great thing and it brings Drummers from everywhere of the world together Thank you for doing something like that My pleasure and again a thank you to norbert from um, mine all who was just again become a very uh The show is just so I try to keep it very pure and educational and just like Straightforward history and I think a lot of people like norbert Um appreciate that and then suggest people like yourself. So thank you to uh to norbert and uh, and obviously thank you fritz We'll talk to you later. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Bye If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast


In 2008, my son was born and being a new parent can be stressful. There are so many decisions to make and at the end of the day, we just want to make the best decisions for our children. My entire life, I never questioned vaccinations and not vaccinating my son didn't even seem like an option. But when the time came, it was the first argument my son's mom and I really got into about parenting decisions. When my son's mom and I were together, she was teaching children with autism. Basically, the school district here in Las Vegas would pay for people like my son's mom to go and teach them independently while the children took half days from school. I met quite a few of these children on various occasions and they were all extremely sweet and kind-hearted. This was my first time ever interacting with children with autism or their parents. I saw how much their parents loved them and like me, they just wanted what was best for their child. Life threw them a curve ball that they weren't expecting.  During that time, I was often afraid that my son would develop autism and how I provide the best life possible for him if that were to happen. Being new to the realm of people with autism, I didn't know what caused it. And what we don't know can be scary. In the 21st century, we have so many scientific advances and answers to the universe, but even for experts in 2020, the causes of autism are still somewhat a mystery. But when it was about time to have my son vaccinated, my son's mom was reluctant based on some research she heard about from the parents of children with autism. Like I said, whether or not my son would be vaccinated didn't even seem like a debate.  Although my son's mom and I argued about this, she's an amazing mother and always has been. It was difficult arguing with her about the decision to vaccinate our son because I knew she would never try to hurt him. To this day, she's one of the best mothers I've ever met. But she was terrified that vaccination may lead to our son having autism. As someone who tries to stay open-minded, when she asked me to watch a documentary before solidifying my decision on vaccinating our son, I said yes. It was then that she introduced me to a documentary about a man by the name of Andrew Wakefield. The majority of people have heard of anti-vaxxers, but I'm typically surprised about how many people haven't heard of the fraudulent doctor who started the anti-vaxxer movement. In the 1990s, this doctor released a paper linking vaccinations to autism. And although the paper was retracted by the prestigious scientific journal The Lancent for being fraudulent, over 20 years later, there was a gigantic movement around his findings. Today, I know that Andrew Wakefield is a fraud, but when it came time to vaccinate my own son, he sold me on the idea that this could lead to my son developing autism. In recent video essays, we've discussed how to use critical thinking skills to improve our own well-being. But what about the well-being of the people we love the most? In anti-vaxx circles, Andrew Wakefield is still lauded as a hero despite being exposed as a fraud. So in this video, we're going to discuss how that happened and how our cognitive biases can lead to us making terrible decisions. When we use logical fallacies like the appeal to authority, when neglect being skeptical just because someone like Andrew Wakefield says something is true. I can't begin to imagine how many lives have been lost due to the fraudulent work of Andrew Wakefield. And I felt the need to make this video discussing critical thinking and skepticism because we still have anti-vaxxers in 2020. My goal with this video is to shed some light on how something like this could happen, how we could better filter out nonsense studies and how these skills can help us in more areas of our life. By using these tools, it can help calm our anxiety because we'll know how to separate good science from bad science and make better decisions. But before we get started, if you're new to the rewired soul, we're cautiously skeptical and use critical thinking to improve our mental and emotional well-being. If you're like the rest of us and actively trying to improve your own thinking skills and emotional intelligence, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Also, another quick side note. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and check out the new show, Love on the Spectrum over on Netflix. It's about people with autism trying to navigate the tricky world of romantic relationships. And it's the most wholesome thing I've seen in a long time. And if you wanna learn more about autism, subscribe to my buddy Dan over at the Aspie World. And I'm also trying to convince him to do some videos about Love on the Spectrum. So I'll link his channel down in the description below. As I write this script, I now realize that this is the first time I've ever shared this story publicly. And I hope that by the end of this video, you have a little more empathy for those who are anti-vaxxers so you can learn to have better conversations with them and hopefully guide them towards the truth. Back then, during those early stage pediatrician appointments, I didn't have the information that I have today. And I wonder how many people still don't have that information. After watching the documentary about Andrew Wakefield, it was time to make the decision about whether or not to vaccinate our son. And if I'm being honest, I still didn't know how it was gonna go down once we got to the pediatrician's office. We were two young parents at the time and all we wanted was what was best for our son. When the doctor came in and said it was time for the first round of vaccinations, we declined some of them. Without thinking about it, I stood by my son's mother's side and agreed with her because I thought it's what was best. Once we told our son's doctor this, he immediately had a look of disappointment. Although we didn't turn down all the vaccinations, we skipped some of the more important ones like the MMR vaccine. Even though the doctor asked us why and then tried to explain the science, we just felt like he was some auto repair mechanic trying to upsell us. He prodded us a little, asking why we made this decision. And we didn't tell him we watched the Wakefield documentary, but I'm sure he figured we heard about those bogus research as many other parents had. My son was born 10 years after Wakefield's study was published. And at that time, his work hadn't been formally retracted. You just heard my story about my one child and how we avoided vaccination based on Wakefield's research, but think about how many others were affected during that time. I can only imagine how many people didn't vaccinate their children due to the large anti-vax movement 10 years after the retraction, the numbers must be astronomical. So how did Andrew Wakefield fool the world? And more importantly, why did he fool the world? When asking these questions, we need to realize that it starts with us. Andrew Wakefield is just one person, but we are the many.  For a moment, I want you to think about something that you know extremely well. Think about something that you know more about than most people. Maybe it's an aspect of your job that you specialize in, or maybe you have some hobbies that many people don't know much about. Whoever you are, there's at least one topic that you know a lot more about than the average person.  This is something that many of us can't even conceive because there's so much out there to know. Most of us don't even know what we don't know. Our brains are like a hard drive and we can only store so much information. Even if we live a life of curiosity and are passionate about learning, none of us will even be close to having knowledge of everything by the time we die. This is one of the reasons we're able to form such cohesive societies and why we must rely on each other. There's a debate about whether or not humans are naturally selfish or altruistic. Studies show that we primarily operate through something called reciprocal altruism. Back in the day, our ancestors survived better as tribes than as individuals. Today, we do the same thing. We share our knowledge and skills with one another because none of us can know everything. For example, at a young age, I started building computers and in my 20s, I worked in the auto repair business. I know more about computers and cars than most people but I have to rely on others to fix things like the plumbing in my apartment or I have to turn to my coworkers with questions. One of the best things any of us can do is humble ourselves on a daily basis and realize how much we don't know. And this also leads us to realize why it's so important to have a strong support group. Unfortunately, people like Andrew Wakefield can take advantage of what we don't know. Despite what you don't know, I'm sure there are many things that you can look up online and learn but medical science isn't one of them. If you don't know how to cook a risotto or fix your toilet, it's just a YouTube video away. But people like Andrew Wakefield are able to take advantage of the fact that we can't do the same with medical science. Since we don't have the capacity to know everything, we rely on experts like doctors and medical researchers. And I want to make it clear that I think the majority of medical experts are trustworthy. But due to our ignorance on these subjects, it leaves us vulnerable to deception. Even worse, we're vulnerable to the halo effect. As you've learned in previous videos, the halo effect is when we take one positive attribute of a person and give it to all of their characteristics. For example, we unconsciously believe that since Andrew Wakefield is a doctor and since becoming a doctor is difficult and since being a doctor is highly regarded, he must be an ethical person. Due to the halo effect, we forget that people like Andrew Wakefield are human just like you and me. Just like the rest of us, people like Andrew Wakefield can be blinded by money or the potential fame of a breakthrough discovery as well as the ego's need for attention and recognition. Due to the fact that Andrew Wakefield is human, he's subject to the same cognitive biases that we all are. He and every other doctor, scientist, and other person you regard as smarter than you is a person who has a mind that plays the same tricks on them. These biases have led to many scientific mishaps throughout the years. And I recently finished the book, Science Fictions, How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermind the Search for Truth by Stuart Richie and it's all about this subject. I'll link the book down in the description because it's well worth a read if you wanna learn more about how to separate good and bad science. Andrew Wakefield is one of the primary reasons it's so important that scientists disclose any conflicts of interest when releasing their findings. We'll discuss Andrew Wakefield's conflict of interest in a moment, but it's important to realize that this problem happened long before his research linking vaccines and autism. Back in the 1960s, a team of Harvard researchers released studies stating that fats were more of a health risk than sugar. What these researchers didn't disclose was the fact that this research was funded by the sugar industry. Due to our confirmation bias, of course we'll believe any study out there that says sugar is actually good for us. So we'll eat all the cookies and cakes we want and we'll drink soda like it's water. Unfortunately, the research findings were bogus and due to the conflict of interest and these studies, it led to an obesity epidemic. Much like the Harvard researchers, Andrew Wakefield had conflicts of interest as well when conducting his studies linking autism to the MMR vaccine. When releasing his findings to the land set, Andrew Wakefield neglected to disclose that his research was being funded by lawyers working for parents who filed lawsuits against vaccination companies. Good science is about finding the truth and sometimes we don't like what the truth is. The average person like you and I know that science is about finding the truth. So we expect scientists to practice the highest level of ethics and seek the truth out. But when someone like Andrew Wakefield is being funded by lawyers trying to prove that vaccines cause autism, it shifted Wakefield to finding the non-existent link. Since discovering that conflict of interest, the land set formally retracted Wakefield's research and stated, quote, no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. Something new I learned from Stuart Richie's book is that Andrew Wakefield was also working on his own MMR vaccine to profit from it. Due to the financial incentives Wakefield had from both the lawyers as well as the possibility of creating his own vaccine, Wakefield created fraudulent research. It's been a decade since the retraction of his research but as you can see, the damage is done and he still has a cult following.  As stated previously, Andrew Wakefield is only one person. So this starts and ends with us. In the final section, we're going to discuss the psychology behind why people are anti-vaxxers and how being skeptical and developing critical thinking skills can help us avoid this from happening again. Let me just say that today my son is fully vaccinated and it's all thanks to our pediatrician helping us apply some critical thinking skills. My son missed his first round of vaccinations but on the next visit, after a great conversation with his pediatrician, we decided to vaccinate. At the time, this was an extremely difficult decision for my son's mom to make but she doesn't regret it at all. In fact, when she had her second child with her new husband, there wasn't even a debate about vaccinations. So how did my son's pediatrician convince us to vaccinate? It was actually quite simple. He just asked us some questions. He asked, if you knew for certain that your son was going to contract one of these deadly viruses in the future, would you vaccinate? And we said, of course. He then helped us realize that the problem is that we have no way of knowing if he'd get that virus. He then asked us how we would feel if our son did catch one of those viruses. It only took a moment to think about it and we immediately knew how awful it'd feel. Our doctor didn't call us terrible parents and he didn't insult our intelligence. He was kind and compassionate and he helped us realize that there's overwhelming evidence that these vaccines are safe and how many lives they've saved. Fortunately, we weren't as hard of a sell as some of the anti-vaxxers out there, but I truly believe we were so easily sold because of how he had the conversation with us. When it comes to the topic of vaccinating, the conversation can get heated, but we need to remember why it gets heated. We care about our children, but the anti-vaxxers care about their children too. Oftentimes, when we insult an anti-vaxxer, we're also calling them a bad parent or trying to degrade them. If we hope to convince people we need to have a calm, rational conversation and ask questions, but these questions can help us in all aspects of our lives. In his book, Factfulness, 10 Reasons Why We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Hans Rawlsing also discusses ways we can become better critical thinkers. Using anti-vaxxers as an example, he says to ask yourself, what would it take to make me believe vaccines are safe? If the answer is nothing could ever convince me, then you aren't critically thinking. Critical thinkers have an openness to changing their opinions when presented with new evidence. You can use this first tip of asking questions in other areas like when you're feeling depressed. Ask yourself, what would it take to disprove my thoughts that nobody loves me? When I'm personally feeling depressed, I purposely find an example of one person who loves me like my son or my girlfriend. If even one person loves me, it means my mind is lying to me when it says that quote unquote, nobody loves me. If we're anxious, we can ask ourselves, what will it take for me to believe that the worst case scenario won't kill me? Well, how about the fact that we've thought this before and we're still alive? Next, let's discuss the second reason why we fell for Andrew Wakefield's lies and more importantly, why it's so hard to change our beliefs. When you're arguing with anti-vaxxers, it's easy to just think about what you're seeing on the surface. In your mind, you believe that if they just let go of this idea that vaccines cause autism, they'd be fine, but it goes much deeper than that. Much like other conspiracy groups like QAnon or Flat Earthers, we must remember that anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists are part of a community. One of the reasons people hold on to their beliefs so tightly is due to the fact that if they let go of that belief, they also lose friends and sometimes even family members. This happens with religion all the time as well. As someone who grew up here in Las Vegas, I know a lot of Mormons. Many of my friends growing up have left the religion, but it was extremely difficult because their entire family is Mormon and so is everyone that they grew up with. If a person all of a sudden starts believing vaccines are safe, they lose part of their group as well as part of their identity, which is difficult. This also perfectly leads to reason number three, which is cognitive dissonance. Dissonance is when our brain has two conflicting beliefs so it irrationally justifies stories to be rid of the dissonance. For example, even when presented with evidence that Andrew Wakefield's studies were fraudulent, a person will make up reasons not to believe the story because then it also means that their community of friends is wrong too. We also want to believe that we're intelligent, independent people. Nobody thinks that they're falling for cognitive biases so dissonance can often push us deeper into our beliefs. Throughout the years, it's been proven time and time again that those who believe in conspiracies only believe in them more when you try to disprove them. Here's a quick example of how cognitive dissonance may work in an anti-vaxxers brain when presented with evidence that Andrew Wakefield is a fraud. And remember, this is happening on a completely unconscious level. Hmm, the scientific journal that published Andrew Wakefield's study has since retracted it.  It also mean that I'm a bad person because I've convinced others not to vaccinate. This would also mean that I'm not intelligent. Well, this can't be right because I'm not a bad person and I am intelligent. So what else could be going on? Well, Big Pharma does have a lot of power and money. So maybe they paid off the Lancet to retract Wakefield's study. And if they're trying to silence him, that means I need to work even harder to spread the word about how vaccines are dangerous. Now, do you see how easily we can go from being presented with evidence that just makes us believe the wrong thing even more? Another example is why some people don't believe their significant other is cheating when a friend gives them evidence. The person may think that their friend is just jealous and wants to sabotage the relationship because you never date someone who cheats. You're a much better judge of character than that. As for numbers four and five on our list, we're going to look at logical fallacies. Remember, logical fallacies are arguments we use to justify a premise, but they don't prove anything. The two logical fallacies often used by anti-vaxxers are the appeal to authority slash celebrity and the appeal to nature. When they say Andrew Wakefield is a doctor, therefore he must be telling the truth, that's the appeal to authority logical fallacy. There is no law of the universe that says a doctor cannot lie. And recently we discussed how Jenny McCarthy helped push the anti-vaxx narrative and this is the appeal to celebrity. In both of these cases, the primary culprit is the halo effect. We must always remember that people are people and they're just as fallible as you and I despite their status. Next is the appeal to nature. The appeal to nature logical fallacy states, it's natural, therefore it's good or it's unnatural, therefore it's bad. Many people in the anti-vaxx movement use the appeal to nature to argue that natural remedies are the answer despite there being no legitimate scientific evidence. Personally, I'm someone that loves natural medicine and I'm constantly reading the latest research on it. So I try to be mindful of myself using this logical fallacy. We must remember that just because it's natural doesn't always mean it's good. For example, natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes and tropical storms that take thousands of lives are natural but we wouldn't say that they're good for us. There are some poisonous berries out there that can make us deathly ill. So it'd be wrong to argue that because they're natural, they're good. Finally, we're going to talk about the last reason Andrew Wakefield was able to sell us on his lies and that's our need for control. Earlier, we discussed how much there is that we don't know. It's 2020 and we still don't have all the answers. We're still fighting to find a cure for cancer and just a few years ago, I lost my grandmother to Parkinson's disease. It's scary to think that we don't have ways to cure some of these illnesses, let alone prevent them. When we don't have the answers, we feel like we don't have control and that's scary. As a parent, it was terrifying to me that my son might develop autism. Not only that, but addiction runs in my family and I'm worried that my son may develop an addiction later in his life. Unfortunately, when we're afraid, the rational part of our mind shuts off and we search for ways to make sense of this crazy world. Recently, last week tonight with John Oliver, discussed this when it comes to conspiracies around COVID. When we don't have answers, we'll look for anything to give us peace of mind. But we must stay vigilant. As badly as we want ways to prevent autism, we can't fall prey to conspiracies or bad scientific studies like those of Andrew Wakefield. As terrible as the COVID pandemic is, I'm absolutely terrified thinking about how many people will refuse to get the vaccine when it comes out. Yes, we all try to do our best for our children and our families, but we must also remember that our decisions affect the people in our communities as well as around the globe. There are many people who can't be vaccinated due to various illnesses, so we have a responsibility to get the vaccine to try to keep those people safe. We need more people to understand that the anti-vax movement was built on the lies and biases of Andrew Wakefield, but we also need to remember there's a right way and a wrong way to have these conversations. So before you start screaming at an anti-vaxer on social media, ask yourself, how would I respond if someone said this to me? If you don't like having your intelligence insulted, there's a good chance that others don't like it either. Hopefully, now that you know about some of the cognitive traps that people fall into and the critical thinking skills necessary to avoid bad science, we can all start having better conversations around vaccinations. All right, everybody, thank you once again for making it all the way through another video essay. And like I've always said, there are plenty of beliefs out there where if you believe in it, do your thing as long as it's not hurting anybody. But I feel compelled to discuss critical thinking and how to be skeptical when we're discussing something like vaccinations because this can hurt other people and we're in the midst of a global pandemic and on the brink of discovering a vaccine and there are a lot of people who don't wanna get it because of some bad science. You know what I mean? So again, I think the most important takeaway from this if you're really trying to be a critical thinker is ask yourself, ask yourself, what would it take for me to know that this was false? Right? Like what evidence could I be presented with? If we're in a place where no evidence could prove otherwise, then we're not critically thinking. We've made up our mind and that's not a great way to live, just making up our mind about things and nothing can change it, right? Like think about the relationships we have with other people. Think if you did think that your significant other was cheating on you. What evidence would it take to believe that they're not? If you say nothing, then what kind of relationship is that? How much trust is actually there, right? And like I said, I get it. This world is a crazy, scary place. I'm somebody with a generalized anxiety disorder and when I don't have control, I can freak out. But practicing critical thinking and all these skills that we talked about in recent videos, it really helps to soothe and calm my anxiety now because I can think rationally about these things instead of letting my mind go all over the place, all right? And if you need additional help with your mental health, I personally use BetterHelp online therapy. There is a link always down in the description and in the pinned comment below. It's an affiliate link, so if you would like to try affordable online therapy, use my link and a little bit comes back to help out the channel, all right? But anyways, make sure that you share this video. I hope it helps some people think about, you know, vaccinations and autism and just a lot of different conversations, if you like these videos where I discuss kind of like conspiracies or different beliefs and things like that, please let me know because I can do a million of these. But just let me know if you like these, all right? Anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel on Patreon as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying the books over at therewiredsoul.com or getting merch from the merch store. You're all awesome, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.


What up, world? Sonny bamboo. This is ATL. This is Don't Flop USF. Y'all are in the building one time. Make some noise! I got a crazy cast of co-hosts with me right now. I got my man Militant Blow, spit that heat. I got my man John John. You already know. Gaddis. Direct. Let's get it, man. This one is going to be crazy. To my right! Y'all make some noise out of DC for my man Coma. And to the left represents spit that heat. To the fullest, my man Jeff Treyas. Y'all give it up! Now just so y'all know, this one was taken on a very short notice, alright? So give it up one time for both of them. We're stepping in, and performing in real life. Only a few days, alright? We're going to have well-won on Coma whenever you're ready, bro. Let's get it. Crap show. Straight fucking. I'm about to cook ship to show him how this click-clack goat. You'll get extout when I draw and put a round in this square like tic-tac-toe.  I'm going to put your hands through the dirtest dial in Militant Blow. I've been drinking years, but don't test the ether that's still in my system.   Homie, listen. This ain't the first time I had to put down some fake-ass revolution. Every clown is just business. You can't use the illusion that you're Martin Luther if you're more of a Martin Lawrence. It's important you know the difference. So put your fists up, and tell me how I'm responsible for all your struggles.   Just know that whatever you brought today, you can wrap your trans presence, but you still gotta play the part of Marvin Gaye on Father's Day. I clawed my way through the dark and stained the car of my name into the altar where the gospel was altered so all the gods and saints could watch me lodge the blame in proper space, but you are not the same.  Don't look at them for help.  They get not to blame and they warned you. So while they pray for you, I pray on you.  You can tell the vision is to smack you until the static stops. You wanted this white noise when I got you. And I want you in your costume. You played yourself on tape, but if you were blind and stopped it was obvious that Adi Boone boxed you.  I spit crack. Jeff Tress, the president of penmanship. That wasn't a joke. There's just no punchline, tough guy.  What do you expect from him?   What do I got to put it in subtitles or something?  So you define this body for me, but the way this worked out, I got to be the person to train you with the rap so small you got to flex those arms to get you weighed up so catch the fade and get your face cut.  Keep an open mind, chef. I'll take this razor blade and push it straight through your shape up.  Tools? Man, please. I know a hungry rapper back home that asked me to make him a beat and he said you can use logic and reason, but if he cops the machine to know that you're here is the clash between the kicks while they beat you to death. The whole TNV is in this bitch, but I'll still leave if you're having it.  Yo, I said, uh, I say honestly bro, it's spit that heat in the building.    But it's crazy.  You said you ain't drunk in years. I give you a shot from the 40 to bring your past.   Now that's how you take a battle on short notice. I say, we had since Wednesday to write when Sonny Carter wasn't mad with it.  Actually I was glad with it, but on Thursday I was writing. Ain't even eat. That's bad business.    I'ma make this coma worldwide.  I got the drop on you like handgun here with a sniper when I aim you better hope you don't get too close to spot coma because if I lose sight you know it's coming next the clock long John the heat with me I blow mine I click and squirt and elliptic short it got blows mine. I say the ambulance to take forever to get you you land cold down so this click red bandwinkle because these bullets gonna be in coma long time.    Can you lift my shirt at some point I'll make you feel better.


Dear brothers, dear sisters, today's khutbah is about a surah of the Qur'an. And it's a brief introduction to this amazing surah. It's a surah that most of us are familiar with. It's a surah that we read often. And many people, many Muslims, have already memorized the surah. Even though it's more than one page. Even though it's multiple pages. This surah is surah at Yasin. It's a surah that we're all familiar with. And it's a surah that starts with an oath. It starts with an oath. Yasin. Wel Qur'anil Hakim. By the Qur'an. By the wise Qur'an. It starts with an oath. Usually when a surah starts with an oath. Or many surahs that starts with an oath. Usually the foundation of the religion is mentioned after the oath. When Allah SWT says When najmi wa ma hawwa When suratu najm Ma dalla sahibukum wa ma gawa We immediately know that this surah is about the Prophet SAW. When we hear the surah wa toor We immediately know that this surah is about revelation. This reminds us of the tour of the mountain. And the tablets where Musa A.S. received revelation. So the surah elaborates on revelation. When Allah SWT says Wa zariyyati zarwa It's a surah that starts with an oath. It follows that by talking about Inna ilaha kum lawahid. It talks about the wahdaniyah of Allah. In surah to safat When Allah SWT talks about was safati safah It began with an oath. Then after that the whole surah Talked about dispelling a miss That the ancient Arabs used to have. And it's a miss that the jinn and Allah SWT are related. That there is a relation and a nisbah between them. Not only that, that they got married. That Allah SWT got married to someone from the jinn And they began children. And those children are daughters. And those daughters are called angels. And the whole surah is about dispelling this miss. And the end of the surah is amazing. It ended with Subhan Rabbika Rabbil Izzati Amna Yusufu All this miss. Wa Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alami Many times when you come to the end of the surahs You know, you feel that the surah is ending. The way it's ending. And just before a safah We have surah at Yasin. And surah at Yasin also began with an oath. Yasin. Wa Al-Qur'anil Hakim Innaka Lamina Al-Mursali Yasin, by the wise Quran You are truly among the message bearers. You are truly one of the messengers. The surah is a surah that's familiar to all of us. And there are multiple hadiths about this surah In which the Prophet SAW Is reported to have said Iqra'u Yasin A'la Mautaikum Recite Yasin over your dead. Muslims recite the surah often. And recite the surah over the dead. i.e. those who are close to death. Those who are dying. Why do we recite the surah In the presence of those who are dying? Why this particular surah? Because of the meanings within the surah. The surah talks about Innaka Lamina Al-Mursali It talks about Isbatu Risala to the Prophet SAW But not only the Risala Is whatever is also included in the Risala It reminds those who are dying Of everything about Islam That's why in another hadith The Prophet SAW is reported to have said And it's authentic enough to be quoted That Yasin is the heart of the Quran Everything has a heart And Yasin is the heart of the Quran What does this mean? It includes everything As the heart pumps blood And life through the veins Into all the body And keeps the body alive And then everything goes back to the heart Because there is Dawgah the Mawiyah All the meanings of Islam Is included in the surah All the essential meanings Imam Ghazali mentioned that This is the heart of the Quran Because it includes all the foundations of Islam And not only the foundations It distributes this And talks about these foundations In very beautiful ways Once you read the surah You feel that you have been transformed And that you are living in a different world It takes you to the hereafter It takes you to the past It takes you to the future It talks, it tells you about those Who listen to their messengers And obey their messengers And follow the message And what happened to them? And it tells you about those Who rejected the messengers And rejected their message And what happened to them? So this surah included Talking about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And about some of the attributes of Allah Especially Al Aziz Al Rahim And these two names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala You see it in the surah Al Aziz No one can overcome Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And those who reject the messengers They will never be able to win victory At the end Their end on the day of judgement is known And Al Rahim Those who accept the message And follow the messengers The Rahmah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Will be distributed on them And they will see it in this world As well as the next So this surah As the ulamas say And the mufassirun That is tamalat a la risala Talks about messengership Talks about the message It talks about al-Hashr The gathering on the day of judgement It talks about al-Nashr And how people will be resurrected From their grave It talks about al-Baas And how it talks about resurrection It talks about zikr-us-sabiqeen It talks about the stories of people Who have come before us And how they reacted To the message and to their messengers It talks about al-Lahiqeen Those who will come after us Talks about the present The past The future It talks about the distant future Then it talks about the Quran And that's really amazing Usually What is oath? When we say I'm making an oath What am I doing? I'm stressing I want to stress a fact And to stress a fact I bring an oath Allah could have said But by saying It's stressing this fact That you are among the messengers And who denies that Prophet Muhammad is not one of the messengers It's a disbelievers Yet Allah swt did not address them Because they are not worthy of being addressed And did not even prove That he did not stress messengership No messengership is a fact He's just stressing that Prophet Muhammad is one of those messengers That have come before And he addressed it to the Prophet Because he is the one worthy of being addressed Not those disbelievers Who disbelieve in the Prophet Then it talks about the attributes of messengers And it talks about Qadar It talks about the knowledge of Allah swt The omniscience of Allah swt It talks about Shukr al-Mun'ayn And there is waz in it There is Qadar And there is warning And there is admonition And there is invitation And in Surah Tassin you have all these It's like the blood that comes from your heart And travels through your body And keeps your body alive When we are about to die It's very good to be reminded Of all those meanings Before we die And as we die we are not just dying We are not just dying We just die here Our body dies But our soul Qilad khulil jannah It will be said to the soul Qilad khulil jannah And this surah also It talks about sacrifice A person who sacrificed everything for the truth To the point that he ended up losing his life And what happened to him Qilad khulil jannah It was said to him Enter paradise So this surah is recited usually For those who are close to death For those who have just died For those who recited at the graves of loved ones And we also recited for those who are sick This is the time when we need to remember All these meanings And this surah includes everything As Imam Ghazali said The usul of everything Especially belief in Allah SWT And belief in the prophethood And the prophecy And belief in the day of judgment And this surah has a way of reminding us of those things And throughout the surah we see discussion We see arguments Arguments for the omnipotence of Allah SWT That Allah's power Like why don't you believe in the day of judgment Because Allah doesn't have power Why he has power And those who believe Allah SWT has power Why don't you believe that Allah SWT Will not resurrect the bodies The disbelievers They came to the prophet Muhammad And they crushed the bones They said Are you saying that after these bones are crushed And become dust That we're going to be resurrected again He says Qul yuhiyyahal lazi ansha'aha awwala marra What's the problem Are you starting the power of Allah SWT Yes You will be resurrected Like you were created the first time What's the difference For the sake of time This surah is a very important surah That we Muslims memorize We recite We contemplate upon And perhaps after this brief introduction Insha'Allah let's read this surah again Many times and reflect upon its meaning And see, appreciate why this surah is called The heart of the Quran And why this surah is a surah that we should recite In almost any situation Especially in situation where we face calamities Or we are sick Or in front of those who are dying To remind them just before they leave this world Of all these meanings So when they leave this world They leave this world in full face Praise be to Allah A lot of things are like water And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah There is no partner for Him And I bear witness that our master and prophet His servant and messenger May Allah's blessings be upon him And on his family and companions All that was done by Allah And I am glad to have been told By the servants of Allah That he was turned into water And you turned from him into a tree And they left the world out of your hearts فإنه إذا استول أسر وعلموا أن الله عز وجل أمركم بأمر عميم بدأ فيه بنفسه وسن بملائكة قدوسه فقال عز من قائل عليما إن الله وملائكته يصلون على النبي يا أيها الذين آمنوا صلوا عليه وسلموا تسليما اللهم فصل وسلم وبارك على سيدنا محمد وعلى آل سيدنا محمد صلاة وسلاما دائمين متلازمين إلى يوم الدين ورضي الله عن الخلفاء الراشدين أبي بكر وعمر وعسمان وعلي وعن سائر الصحابة والقرابة والتابعين ومن تبيعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين اللهم أنصر الإسلام والمسلمين وأعل يا مولان كلمة الإيمان والحق والدين اللهم من أراد بالإسلام والمسلمين خيرا فوفقوا لكل خير ومن أراد بالإسلام والمسلمين غير ذلك فخزوا أخذ عز زيز مقتدر تولى المسلمين في هذه البلدة وسائر بلاد الإسلام بعين عنايتك وبأتمير عايتك وأبد العسرا يا مولان يسرا عاجلا غير آجلا يا رب العالمين وفرج القرب عن المكربين ونفس الهم عن المهمومين وردنا إلى دينك ردا جميلا كريما يا أكرم الأكرمين اغفر للمسلمين والمسلمات والمؤمنين والمؤمنات الأحياء منهم والأموات إن كايا مولانا سميع قريب مجيب الدعوات عباد الله إن الله يأمر بالعدل والإحسان وإيتائز الكربة وينهى عن الفحشاه والمكر والبغي يعيز قم لعل


Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece, well except for today, because this channel has just hit an incredible 40,000 of your amazing subscribers and so we simply must celebrate by showcasing some more of your best channel comments. Enjoy! And to commence this round of utter madness, we have the wonderful Joy Rodriguez. Tag, you're it, dashes away. And damn, now I'm it. This isn't good news at all, so I'm just going to have to go ahead and tag the very next featured commenter, who in this case is Eno at max, who happens to have a complaint regarding the live action one piece video I made. Namis, Bikini is too big. In the manga and anime, it doesn't cover the whole mass. There should be both under and side boob visible. And you know, I guess Eno isn't wrong, generally quite a bit of, I'll show you, but this surface area is on display with a 2D Nami. However, I do find it quite interesting that that is the problem rather than say, I don't know, chopper. Ah well, you'll have priorities, I guess. Like Stefan Burgung whose priority seems to be to complain about my definition of weight and mass for the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia video on the Kilo Kilo Numi. First you say it can just weight, not mass. And then you name applicationes, which require a cage of mass. And in my defense, I never said anything canches anything. But to be fair, I did name quite a few applicationes. So you know what, I'll give Stefan that. But now we move to Blackout Daimo, who appears to have made quite a series of mistakes in life. So I stumbled upon your page about two years ago looking for something else. That had to be my most favourite mistake next to my firstborn. Keep up the good work, my friend. And first of all, what shocks Blackout Daimo, but my favourite part of that is that you stumbling upon to the Grand Line review page is equal to that of your firstborn. So either I should be exceptionally honoured or your firstborn is a bit of a disappointment. For the sake of optimism, I'm going to go with the former. But speaking of disappointment, that doesn't even begin to sum up my feelings in regards to Rolida Coward's use of the English language after they appear to have gotten a tiny bit upset watching my top five best devil fruit video. Oi idiot! You forgot Pika Pika no me. Don't be so sure what you're talking about. And really, this entire statement just makes me wonder if Rolida was taking their own advice there at the end. Because when one uses a quotation mark instead of an apostrophe, I'm fairly certain they don't be so sure what they're talking about. And now more criticism, yeah, from Maria Smith, who rather unfortunately has completely dashed all of my hopes and dreams for the future, with her reaction to my top five best Jolly Rogers video.  Not to mention that WB doesn't have a moustache.  And well, yeah, look, I've made the mistake of pissing off Maria Smith who was like the biggest name in the entire JR appraisal industry. So I guess I'll just have to try and make this YouTube business work then.  I really wanted to be a JR appraiser. But to take my mind off that, here we have K4S51, open bracket Dan, closed bracket, a name that was never made to be said by human tongue, with an opinion regarding punk hazard. I know many people hate punk hazard, but, and that's a very big but, I personally enjoy it. And I think I know exactly which but you enjoy, Dan. So as a special treat to you, here he is, in all his glory. Moving on, I recently did a video on one of my favorite comedic characters in the series, Gadatsu. And she, Shane, quite rightfully reminded me that Gadatsu doesn't quite stand out as clearly in everyone's mind as he does in mine. I thought that guy's name was Swamp Monk. LaMau. Ah yes, good old Swamp Monk.  But now we have General Yusuf who has a comment regarding some of the well, comments on this channel. This man, Zorro Fandom, is worse than his sense of direction, to which Adolf Hitler responded, not worse than your English. And uh, wow. You know, it's a pretty bad day when you're being smacked down by Hitler. But let's put that aside for now because it's time for the Sharpey of the week, featuring special guest Elvoss Prisley. And this week we have a mighty three, Count them three Sharpey puppies to feature by the names of Matthew Craig and Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All. But Elvoss Prisley, what do you think of these delightful puppies? Looks like your mom, Balsack. And, oh wow, Stormageddon is not going to like that. May the Sharpey gods have mercy on your doomed soul. But now it's time to get down to business. Last time you all posed a very important inquiry from Annie Hotch South.  And Annie, we appear to have our answers. First up, we have a rather logical take from Fabio Riale. I would assume Crocodile's mouth would be wet with spit. Therefore, no sand, only sad. Ah, poor Crocodile. I mean, no sand, only sad is a great name for his autobiography, though.  From Crocodile's fight with Luffy, we can clearly see that he doesn't need to be at a dinner table in order to bite the dust. And, oh well, damn, snap. I'm starting to feel pretty bad for the guy, actually. But we're going to delve deeper. And for that, I now present the ramblings of Kuma-sama.  But there are harder questions regarding Crocodile. One such question is, would you want to go to the beach with Crocodile? The answer to that is no, because it contains a secret that only Ivankov knows.   Imagine it with a hook coming out at you. A lot of people think the secret Ivankov knows about Crocodile is that he used to be a woman, but what is actually true is that Crocodile used to be a pervert, and a suave guy like Crocodile can't have people knowing of his pervy past. And, well, look, the whole world knows about your pervy past now, Crocodile, haha. But you can exact your revenge upon Kuma-sama rather than me, ideally. And finally, we have a very simple answer from the very simple Android 16. He only eats sand witches. I see what you did there, droid. But with that, we are going to call this question answered, maybe, I guess, and move on to our next curious inquiry, which this time comes from Mad Master 001. Best Channel Comments Question Number 21. If you could invite one of the straw hats for dinner, who would you pick? The surprisingly wholesome question there for this series, and I look forward to seeing your answers. But that pretty much does it for this edition of the Best Channel Comments. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general, then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review Patreon because the support of all of you amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. Also, do check out my Teespring store if you're interested in shirts, hoodies, and other miscellaneous items, but the proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. And if you'd like to join the fun at any time, then please do head over to my Discord server, where a wide array of shenanigans retakes place on a daily basis. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.