So welcome everyone. I'm from Gotay, which is in Victoria. It's one of the largest regional tastes in Victoria, and we have about five different campuses throughout Victoria. So I'm going to be talking to you today about how we created templates. Now just get this slide happening. I'm not good without a mouse. There we go. Thank you. So we've been using templates for about 18 months, and last year I presented on using our template. And this is an extension from that. When we first started using templates, we had a structure for our teachers so that it was easy for our students to navigate through Moodle. And so when they went from one unit to another, they had that consistency happening. We've further extended that so that we can include some of the features that we have to include to make our templates ASQA compliant. ASQA is the governing body for the vet sector. How many people from the vet sector in the room? Oh, excellent. That's really good. So this might prompt you to do something similar. You might get one idea from what we're doing that may help your organisation. So this is how our current template looked. We used the one-topic format, so we had tabs across the top. We had a banner for each of the different teaching areas, and we had the name of the unit. The way we structure our Moodle is that we have, for each Moodle course, one unit of competency. So there might be, say, 26 units that make up a qualification or might be 15 units that make up a qualification. So in some cases, there will be clusters, but we recommend no more than three to four units per cluster. So in the structure, we have the unit information, the source information. You'll see we use icons, and the icons were developed, and then we use certain blocks that are in the template. So this is just the format that we use now, Theme. One of the blocks that we used was the People block. How many people use the People block? Yes? It's fantastic. If you're not using it, you should use it because it is a really, really good teaching tool because you can actually look at how many students are inactive at any particular time, and then you can actually bulk message those people or send messages individually. It's just a really good tool. So have a look at that one. We use the Network Servers block also, which is our gateway to our e-portfolio. And a lot of our courses use e-portfolios to reflect on the learning that the students are doing. We use the Progress bar. How many people in the room use Progress bar? Excellent. Oh, it's so good for your students and teachers. For your students, it's a great way to motivate them so they can see where they're at. This Progress bar, I believe, is being replaced by the Completion progress, but I believe it's still really good. And the beauty for a teacher is they can see all their students and know where they're at. So who's been doing what? Who is inactive? Who do I need to contact to get them motivated? And who do I need to reward because they're really getting into it and give them some feedback? The other ones, we use this latest news administration, which you probably all do. These are our banners. So what we did, we had a working party get together. So it's not just us forcing it down to our teachers what they have to do. We had a working party, and the working party was made up of a quality team. Because we have to comply to ASPR, I'm bringing that word again and I'll talk about that more in a moment, we have to maintain quality of our courses and what we deliver. So we have a quality team, and we also got key teachers involved in a working party to say what worked well, what didn't well, what we need to put into this template. And one of the feedback from our recent working party was that our banner's too big. It's a really valuable real estate. We need to reduce it. So we have done that. So we take on board what our teachers say. We use icons to help the students navigate. The results from a teacher say, oh, it's too big. We need to reduce it. So we've done that. So we reduce the icons. So they got the option. All these icons and banners kept in a content management system, which is available to the teachers. Go back one. Pardon? Arrow keys. Layers. So about ASQA. ASQA is the quality, Australian Skills Quality Authority, and it's the national regulator for the VET sector. Now, if you're not in the VET sector, you've probably got something similar. And ASQA regulates all the courses and the training providers to make sure that they are meeting the requirements. So we have to have documentation as part of ASQA for each unit that we deliver. We have a unit guide, a unit delivery plan, assessment tool for the learners, and one for the assessors. And we have to have a marking guide in the feedback form and an assessment mapping document. How many people in the room have something similar? Yes. So all those documents, the teacher has to provide all those documents for the course. So what we've done with this template is trying to not duplicate things. So if you are teaching fully online, that some of those things can actually be in your Moodle. But having the option that if you are still using your paper base, you can put those in your Moodle also. So we've got the two options. One of the elements that under the TAFE system is we get, or at Victoria, we get funded by HESC, which is a funding body. And the funding is reliant on when a student starts and when a student finishes and the evidence that must meet the same date. So if it doesn't meet the same date, you can lose your funding. And this happened to a lot of TAFE's, including Go TAFE, that the evidence, the date that we put into our evidence participation was different from the date the student actually did it. And if it doesn't match, you don't get funding. So it's really important now to template, incorporate that also. We have a set of guidelines for our teachers, which is in the template. And we did those paper-based so the teachers could print them off and use those guidelines. So the guidelines would be things on the naming conventions. So each organisation would have their own guidelines. So they were used there. And then we had in those guidelines, if you're going to use paper-based, this is what you would do. And if you're going to do electronic, this is what you would do. So you could swap between one or the other. So some things may be paper-based and some things may be electronic. There's a few things that no option. You must use electronic. And those would be location and contact details. This schedule could be either. There's checklists. So for each of the assessments being created, the feedback from our teachers, we need something. We need a checklist to make sure we're doing everything right. So we've got those inside the template and those teachers can print them off and have it next to them. So that's available. So this is what our new template looks like. We have the unit information assessment tab. Let's get started. Session one, two, three and four. Learning, resources, feedback and teacher resources. You'll see we use the icons. We have electronic book there for the unit guide. And if you don't want to use electronic book, you delete it and you upload a document. You'll see location and contact details and you'll see there's a schedule. And we encourage our teachers to use those. This is the electronic book. It would just have the unit information, what the unit is, what the elements are, the prerequisites, the resources required for the unit and other important information. So it's just electronic book. On the assessment tab, we have instructions to the learner and about the assessment. So how many assessments are going to be required to do? When do they need to do them by? We have an opportunity for the teachers to put in either a paper-based assessment tool or an electronic using the assignment and using a marking guide, the advanced marking guide. How many people use the advanced marking guide? Excellent. And if you're doing graded assessment, how many people use the rubric? Anyone using rubrics? Excellent. Okay, because they can substitute for your feedback form. They're fantastic. Really, really good. Down the bottom, we've got a final result. We've created an assessment for final result and it's not optional for your teachers to do that because we want to use that to feedback into our reporting system. So that's the way we've done it. This is the instructions to the learner and the algorithm and how many assessments. Evidence participation. This was so important and I imagine if anyone else from TAFE would understand how important this is. It's reliant when the student commences the training online must show engagement. If you're in a face-to-face class and you mark the role, that is engagement and that's accepted. If you're teaching online and your students read the content, that is not engagement, which doesn't seem fair, does it? Yeah. Well, I've got a clap here. So it must be... They must do something to engage with the learning. So whether that be they answer some questions in a quiz or a choice or whether they post into a forum or something. They have to do something. And those dates that go into the student management system must support the evidence. And long compliance means no funding. So what we've done is we've got a section called Let's Get Started. And so everything else is blocked off until they've completed Let's Get Started because this will be the date that will feed into evidence of participation. Okay? Because it's really important for us to have that correct to allow us to survive. So what we do there is put a video or something like that in a short quiz. It could be a forum. An example of that could be a video, the horizon report, and then answer some questions about that video. Or it could be introduction to eLearning forum. For instance, an example here. It asks a question. It asks them to answer some information about... There must be some learning first. It can't be just right in the forum and introduce yourself. That's not engagement. It has to be something that involves learning. The sessions in our template are those who want to deliver per session. Some teachers don't want to do that. They just want to put all their resources in the Moodle and they can in the learner resources. But if they are doing it in a session, they put information about the session and they also have a web page there to put the delivery plan in what that covers. And a delivery plan would be something like this, what elements being covered in that session. Learners' resources, as I mentioned, you can delete it if you don't want it. If you're only going to put all your resources there, you would maybe delete the sessions. And the teacher resources. So this is hidden from the students but it's for the teachers. And this is where these documents sit. And it also gives them guides on what needs to be included in here. So everyone has to put their assessment map in there. Really, really important. Everyone must do that. With the new competency base, maybe we won't need to do that. Maybe we could do it in Moodle. So that's something down the track. Delivery plan and all those other forms can be uploaded here or if you are using the electronic version you don't need to. And there is a continuous improvement forum there for teachers to say how the course went. You know, what worked, what didn't work, what do we need to improve for the next time that we deliver this unit. That's so important. And the other thing that's included is the guidelines as I said, the checklist as I said and also a checklist in Moodle to make sure they've done everything they need to do in the complete template. Once that's done and they've got 100% complete, they can then send a link to us in the administration side to check it and make it self-enrolled. We do use a Moodle shell for induction and we call it the course hub because all the units that belong to that course are sitting in the induction or course hub and students can click on the link and self-enroll. So once these courses are set up, the units are set up and they've made self-enroll, the students would be able to access once the teacher gives them the password of course. Okay, so that's how we're doing it and that's what it would look like. So that's what we're doing for the students to see. So how does it help the learner? I mean, it's going to help the goatech, it's going to help the teachers, but it also is going to help the learners and the way it helps the learners, it's easily to move from one unit of competency to another because they're used to what the format is like so they're not confused because it can be quite daunting when you change the whole look and feel of it. Teachers can spend more time facilitating and creating a better learning experience because what we're trying to do with this template, we're actually using that let get started, feeding it out through our JasperSoft reporting system and into our student management system. So we get the evidence of participation. Previously teachers have to do that, so what we're trying to do is taking some of that administration away from the teachers to give them more time to do what they do best and that's teach and to make that experience for the learner much better. The other thing is with all these templates is it allows the students at risk to be identified easily. So, yeah, that's what we're doing and hopefully you may have got one little thing out of that that will help you develop your myrtle templates and yeah, any questions? Yes? Yes. Okay. For a course, we have, say for instance, the diploma of nursing has 26 units. So in our category, we'll have the diploma of nursing and then under that category would have 26 myrtle courses for each of the different units and the reason that we chose to go that way is that it's more flexible for the learners because some learners won't need to do all the units and it also makes it easier to back up your myrtle too if you've got lots of users in your myrtle and we have, for instance, been nursing those hundreds of unit users. So by having individual units you can also use your grouping then in your units so you can maintain consistency of what the unit looks like and the assessments by using the grouping. So you have different groups coming in but just setting the group settings. Yeah, another question? Yeah, certainly. Co-assesting with other teachers? Okay. I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here but each unit, unit, so say for instance, say nursing because it just comes to my mind, has 26 units. So it'll have a code, a unit code and everything in that unit belongs to that unit code. So once they complete that unit that forms part of the course. Yes, is that what you mean? Inside that unit we could have multiple teachers teaching it to different groups. Is that what you mean? Sorry. Okay, you're talking about clusters. Yeah, we can cluster too. So holistic delivery, yes. And there is some cases where we would definitely do that. For instance, project management is a good example. In that case, we would do holistic and making sure our mapping document really covers how that's done. We do encourage only three to four units per cluster and previously it was a lot more than that but we could see a lot of flaws in that. So three or four units and this is an exception to that we would look at it. Or short courses. Short courses we've allowed to go into one course. Yeah, I understand what you mean now. Sorry. Okay, thank you. Any other questions before I leave the stage? No? Okay, thank you.


The first thing that has to be recognized is that this is an interim budget and there will be a new government and a new Lok Sabha in less than two months into the financial year to which the budget relates. And therefore, that government and that Lok Sabha will take the final call on the what is to happen for the coming year. So in that sense, an interim budget would not be a location in which you would have announcements about things which are about the future so much. So to that extent, announcements being made with regard to what will follow do not have too much of a significance really. And one would say that some of the promises being made about the future are promises that cannot really be made by this government and are being made only because perhaps the actual record of the last five years isn't that promising when people look at it. What is important to also see is that the budget that was presented today, every budget has projections about the future. It also has revised figures about what has happened in the previous year. So at the beginning of the year, there is a budget estimate which is a projection of what's going to happen in the coming year. And at the end of the year when the budget is presented for the next year, for the previous year you have a revision based on the trends observed. Now what also appears to be the case is that the government is concealing the real financial situation it is facing by actually showing revenue figures in the revised estimates which are going to turn out to be far higher than what will be the actual revenues. So if the trends available about revenues are such that they indicate that this year that is in 2018-19 which squarely falls within the term of this government, the revenues are going to be significantly below what was budgeted last year. But the extent to which therefore the revised estimate should have adjusted the revenue figures the government has not done. So particularly as far as income tax and GST revenues are concerned. So in that sense it is hiding a situation of grave crisis as from the revenue front which it is going to leave for the next government to therefore deal with or handle. Because what is going to happen as far as the revenue situation next year is concerned. So it is in some sense reflecting on what have been the measures that this government has taken in the last 5 years that all its supposed claims that these measures were going to generate more revenues for example demonetization was supposed to unearth black money more revenues. So where should you have seen that? You should have seen that in income tax but income tax revenues last year as well as this year are going to fall short of budget estimates. Same GST was supposed to be the big tax reform even today the finance minister said the biggest reform tax reform in India since independence. And what is happening as far as revenues from GST are concerned even there you see the poor. So it is concealing this true picture on the revenue front and it has so far managed to keep up its revenue situation somewhat by increasing the revenues from oil excise duties. Now that oil prices are no longer as low as they used to be it has become difficult to use that particular method and the failure on the tax revenue front on the tax front is really showing up. And as long as that condition remains and governments remain committed to maintaining a low fiscal deficit which is also claiming it is as its great success. As long as that is the case that taxes are low your shortage of revenues you want to maintain a low fiscal deficit it means you do not have the means to spend adequately on what the people need. Some part of the expenditure is basically spent on running the government itself. So what do you have left then for meeting the requirements of the economy and people. So in a sense what this budget is reflecting more than what it promises about the future is the situation that has been brought about in which the ability of the government to make a difference to the lives of the people actually itself has become circumscribed. So as far as the income tax concessions are concerned what is more important than the concessions is the absence of any significant measure to raise direct taxes. Of course income tax burden is borne by a whole large number of people who are not at the same income level. If one is interested in generating more revenues from income taxes then one has to have more measures which tax those with higher incomes more effectively and the higher rate and one has to have measures of taxing corporate profits which is the other source of direct taxes also to the extent that is required. The effective tax rates for the rich as well as for corporate taxes are very low and that is the problem that the government is simply refusing to try and address. So we need more revenues but we also need more revenues from direct taxes.  So a fair tax system should also be one heavily reliant on direct taxes. In India two thirds of the taxes come from indirect taxes. So there is no real genuine effort at increasing direct taxes so the only direct tax measure announced was a concession. So even if there are people who deserve to get some benefit in the particular income bracket there is no case for much higher income groups to get any benefit of tax concessions. So there should have been more measures of that kind taken earlier it was not taken earlier nor is there any indication that if this government is to return it will do anything like that. On the agrarian situation the fact that the government is today announcing at the end of its five years income support scheme is itself tells a story. And the amount of relief that is being offered is also telling a story. So if you are making the argument that an amount of 6000 rupees a month a year 6000 rupees a year of income support to a rural farming household which has four members as four rupees per person per day. If you think that that is a fairly significant support measure then you have to accept that their incomes are very low. Most of us would not consider four rupees a day extra as particularly significant change to our economic status. So you must accept that it is pretty low already then this is a would appear to be a significant measure. But if it is already very low then that means there is severe agrarian distress and you who has a government have to be answerable after five years as to why there is such agrarian distress. So really what has happened is that instead of spending what should have been spent on various measures to support the agricultural sector to generate higher incomes from that for those engaged in farming instead of doing that what it is doing is that it is. So what it is giving in a sense is one small amount which has been in some sense been taken away a much larger amount has been taken away by another hand what this hand is giving. So that is essentially what this measure amounts to and therefore it has no promise in terms of resolving the problem of agrarian distress that we see. Substantive measures to address that distress have not been taken in the five years and there is no indication about what those measures might be in the future. As far as the job situation is concerned of course the reality is that we are being told that lots of jobs have been created but what is the basis for that claim the basis for that claim it does not exist because there is no data to substantiate that proposition and the claim is that the data that is available is not correct because it is not substantiating this claim. So if I do not have the correct employment data how do I know how do I know that jobs have been created. So if simply the data is absent you can make any claim it does not mean anything the actual data that is available all reports are are indicating that the job situation is extremely bleak from different sources you get the same kind of data. And despite that the government is basically refusing to release the data fact is speaking if you release the data let the data be looked at closely examined and based on what is there in the data if you want to make a claim that this data or this estimate has these these these are specific problems and therefore this should not be taken as the correct figure then that is a proposition that can be debated and argued about but what you do is you suppress the data itself. So just as the revenue figures are being projected to be different from what is the actual similarly you are getting the same story as far as employment is concerned and because the government has been committed to essentially keeping expenditure low and not taxing the rich and the corporate sector heavily it has done very little in terms of actually doing anything for creating jobs. Minimum wages will go up over time because of inflation and other such things so there will be always some adjustments in minimum wages there is one minimum wages in this country there are several minimum wages in this country and you still do not know I mean that is only what is the prescribed minimum wage is not necessarily the actual wage because there is a question of enforcement which there is a different story what is the average level of the wage in this country that most people get and if by the government's own admission your annual income at 8 lakhs being below 8 lakhs puts you in the category of being economically backward relative to that what is the minimum wage in this country what is the wage that most people get see the scheme itself is supposed to be demanded so the expenditure allocations are not really something for a government to choose because if people need work you are supposed to give them and it has to adjust according to that okay so the but what has been happening is that while allocations are first made they are not necessarily spent and down the line you get a situation where the flow of payments gets stuck so that people don't really necessarily get the payments when they are due in this way the scheme has been kind of in a sense been undermined continuously so therefore allocations of that kind don't really mean anything and in any case if you look at the allocations that have been made relative to the allocations when the scheme first began over the period of time the requirement should have increased if there is a gradient distress then there isn't work in the agricultural sector people have to find other means the allocation should have increased significantly greater compared to that the actual allocations are way short of the mark so if you have minimum wages being increased if you have larger number of people having to be so therefore in the normal course that allocation should have had to increase so compared to the actual requirements have increased what is the if you look at the actual increases they are far short of the requirements yeah well the budget doesn't necessarily budget is not an exercise to address everything in the economy but the budget plays a very I mean the budget is supposed to reflect governments measures to generate revenues and to spend okay and how where it is going to get its money from where it is going to allocate to what ends is the purpose so it's one it reflects the way in which the government has one way in which the government has to affect the economic conditions okay and through the effect on the general economic conditions on the macroeconomic conditions you affect several other things so if economic activity of particular kinds increases certain activities generate more returns those who are borrowed for such activities would be in a position to repay it can affect NPS in that way okay but directly of course from budgetary measures what would is it it is not not not much that would be done to address a problem of NPS but yes the only part which could in some sense be affected if you provide assistance to write off the dates of some people like farmers etc there haven't been significant measures of that kind and but the government in other ways have facilitated writing off very large loans to large corporate houses but when it comes to say assisting farmers a very different attitude about what the country can bear and the financial health of banks and all these questions come up at that time the mudra scheme is also a kind of an example of the way the government has tended to approach what the different economic problems that are there that is you don't have you the minimum the minimum the government would do to affect the general conditions of people in this country is to use the power it has to tax and the ability it has to spend in an effective way to expand economic opportunities for large number of people in this country whether they are farmers whether they are workers whether they are in the formal sector informal sector who desperately need desperately need livelihood in order to sustain their lives okay so that's the minimum you could do and you could in the process also effect some degree of redistribution of incomes from those who tend to appropriate a disproportionate larger to those who get relatively little this is not a matter of giving anyone a dole after all the economic activity which generates the high incomes of some is not an economic activity that is done only by in which only they participate okay there are others who participate so if a if a corporation makes large profits it has workers employees who work to make that possible if they get very little then that's not a question of that they don't deserve it or anything it's the way the economic situation works out that they get very little and some people get a lot so there is every rationale for the government using its power to tax and spend to effect some degree of redistribution the economic realities of India today are such where the poverty of large sections of the people their inability to find work to find livelihood which would generate reasonable incomes for them which would allow them to improve the standards of living are not getting created and in them not getting created their own inability to spend is becoming a factor that because there isn't enough demand in the economy you don't have the expansion of economic activities which would create the employment so if people are not being able to find the means to spend because they are not finding employment then you have to find some way of creating that employment and the way to do that is to spend okay when you spend you firstly itself creates some demand and that in turn leads to some employment creation that employment creation leads to further demand and so on and so forth so that's the process that would be necessary but if your approach is that I am not going to spend then you are not able to do these minimalist measures now the problem of the Indian economy is that governments are stuck with trying to keep the fiscal deficit low keep the taxes low rather than addressing the real economic problems of the people and therefore they are left with only this option that if you are not going to spend so much okay then you pick out something here something there to make big announcements if you are doing a lot when you add all of the all that up it doesn't amount to very much okay factor the matter is the government in India spends too little the factor the matter is the tax to GDP ratio in India is way too low tax GDP ratio has to be much higher than what it is expenditure has to be much higher than what it is neither of these is happening nor is there any movement towards higher tax GDP ratio higher expenditure all the data is there to substantiate this proposition so only claims are made that we are doing this and doing that but the reality is too little is being spent and too little is being mobilized and nothing is being done about changing that if you look at all the thing that has happened in relation to cows or you look at the demonetization exercise of the government actually in you could say that when you are not able to genuinely offer people the chances of an improvement in life improve their economic prospects give them jobs when you can't do that you try and mobilize people support through other means okay and sometimes these other means can have even more adverse effects on people's economicalize demonetization was a classic example even all this thing about cows and all is also reflecting the same thing so these are this is a politics which is directly disrupting economic activity in a situation where economic activity in any case is not of an order which would allow significant section of the Indian population to find reasonable and secure means of livelihood what one can say definitively is that any claims to have made a significant difference to the conditions of the people or to their prospects in a positive manner then such claims would have no real basis in large majority of Indians today face more uncertain prospects about their economic future than they did a few years ago and that's the unfortunately the direction in which the economic situation is heading


The standard is important because it's what everyone needs to rise up to meet. Everyone can raise their personal standards up and this has a force multiplying effect because they're going to go back to the unit. The individuals around the wing that have joined us are going to go back to their units and they're going to show everybody that everyone's standards can be raised just a little bit. It's a biannual three-day exercise event that we put on each day is there's a different objective that we have to reach. Day one was assist so what we did with that was it's a community event. We went to the community, helped out with a church in town. My favorite day so far was the first day which we went and cleaned up a church in an area of town that needed it. It felt really good to go and help out the community and impact the place that I'm living at now. Day two was protect. We went to different agencies around base and they discussed to the Airmen and everyone that's participating what we do and the the biggest question to why and why we do it. We went down next to the flight line and we had a brief on the mission that Altis prosecutes here. From there we went over to the school and we heard a short briefing from the principal about how vital it is that we're able to provide security and safety for our future. The final day is defend. It's going to be a bunch of exercises that we do. One to increase morale and then resiliency. That's the biggest thing to take away from the day. We want to push them and make sure they don't give up and once they get to the point we want them to find something within themselves to make them push through it. The biggest lesson learned that I have from this is that when you get people together and they're undergoing the same kind of stressful situation they can really come together as a team in a quick fashion and excel.


Hello and welcome to the Drum History podcast. I'm your host Bart Van Der Zee and today I'm honored to be joined by Tim Northup from the Northup Drum Museum. Tim, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Bart. It's great to be here. Why don't we just hop in here and you can just so people know, describe what the Northup Drums Museum is and then we'll talk about how you kind of got into creating the museum. Sure. So the Northup Drums Museum is a actual playing museum and there are very few of those in the world. I think there's one in Germany. But you can actually come to this museum and you can sit down and play all of these drums. And if you go to Northup Drums.com on Facebook, you can look at all the stuff I have anywhere from 1900 all the way to modern day kits. But we tend to focus around these guys right here, these painted drum heads. I'm an art dealer, an antiques dealer by trade. So I fell in love with this, these painted heads. They're all factory painted. Those are the ones that are here. There are a few itinerary, but mostly factory painted heads. So I fell in love with that era, which is 1920 to 1930, late 30s, different scenes. You'll have a, this is kind of a classic lake scene with a moose. This is my favorite one from Ludwig. And then you'll have an art deco scene as you get into the 30s. So we show both of those in here. These are all set up as kits. You can sit down and play them with all the traps, sound effects, all that stuff. And it's all here. Massive collection. Yeah, it's unbelievable to see photos of it. As I'm looking at pictures, you were recently featured in modern drummer, which you know, it's like, you've made it. You're in modern drummer. That's got to feel good. So here's how, this is how I explain it to my friends being a modern drummer. Cause some people are like, yeah, that's great. What's that? Well, I, I related to a kid playing baseball in high school, right? You know, and then going on to maybe playing college, but never making the major leagues. And then 30 years later, being inducted into baseball hall of fame. So when I say it like that, then people go, they're like, oh, wow. Cause I guess modern drummers kind of our only like hall of fame type thing to get in modern drummer is a big deal. You know, it's a big, it's a lifelong dream for lots of kids. Like I, you know, I put in my Facebook post when I, when I did get in modern drummer, a picture of one of my modern drummers from 1988.    And then all of a sudden, boom, you know, and I didn't really get in as a drummer, even though I do play, but I never really played professionally. I was a union musician, played gigs, you know, and got paid and stuff like that, but never on the, on the road, you know, with any big band or anything. But then I built this collection, built this museum and wham, it gets featured modern drum. So yeah, I'm very honored and humbled by that for sure. You know? Yeah. You and I are on the same kind of path there though, where like, I didn't play in any big, I've gigged for years and years, but have not played in any massive major touring bands, just local stuff. And we've kind of found backdoor entrances to get into modern drummer, but that's not saying that it's not a ton of work and your passion, you know, isn't. It should be appreciated with the article, which it's in the August 2022. August issue, 2022. They don't print it anymore. It's digital. So I kind of printed my own copy just to have it. But you know, we're not really supposed to show it as, you know, they want to sell subscriptions that I get that.  So great visuals right off the bat, looking at it of your painted heads collection. I'll give a shout out to Jim Messina years ago. He did an episode of the podcast on I think episode 16. If I'm not mistaken, that's a total guess about painted heads.  So it's really a fascinating history. So Jim, Jim gave the basic rundown of it. But for someone who's maybe not in the know, could you give the like elevator pitch kind of speech of why are they painted heads and all that stuff? Just to kind of catch everyone up. So beginning in the mid 20s, I would say I think 1922, 25s, they started showing up in the catalogs because these heads are calf skin and calf skin changes whether we've had a really dry summer. So hasn't been too bad. But when it rains, the head will take on whatever humidity is in the air. And so they started putting heaters or lights inside bass drums to warm up that calf head. So they didn't have to tune it so tight. These are playing musicians. Then I guess somebody decided, well, I've got a lit cask and head. Let's paint a scene on it. You know, maybe paint their band lower or whatever. So then they hired Art. The actual, the fact is Leedy, Ludwig, Slingerlin. Those are the main companies that I collect and that we show in here. They started cataloging certain scenes in their catalogs from the 20s all the way till really in the mid to late 30s. They were still offering a few select ones. And for about $15, they range from $10 to $15 extra. You could have a painted head put on your drum with your set. You could order it from the company.  And he's got all these heads lined up. All those familiar scenes we know from Leedy and he's sitting there painting heads.  So the Moose was one that was offered. The spider web girl is a very classic one. It was offered by Leedy and Ludwig, you know, different versions. That's more in the Art Deco scenes. But I do focus my collection on those, like I said, because I love them and they're, they display great, but we play them.  This is the front side. You play the batter side. Obviously people get confused about that. But the other thing is that the painters had to learn how to paint. So the earlier drum heads, they just painted them, you know, oil on camp, like an oil on canvas. Well, these are oil on natural hide. Well, skin moves, you know, because it takes on humidity and moves. So if you're not, if you don't paint it right, all the paint just flakes right off. And we've had tons of these heads that the paint is all flaking off because it's not painted correctly. They had to learn how to do stipple painting, kind of like George Sera from France. He learned how to do stipple paint. So the painters had to kind of not do long brushstrokes. They had to stipple paint and that made the paint stay on the heads a lot better. And you'll get them and they'll always be a little flaking here and there. You can see some flaking here in the trees where it's a little thicker where they had to do brushstrokes with the tree. But, you know, and overall they're in good condition. It's fascinating. It really is. And that photo you mentioned in the Leedy Factory, to me, and you would probably know better, but that is probably the only photo I've ever seen of this process, which is amazing. I mean, it's that that one guy standing there. And I think I said it in Jim's episode. He's got a very unique haircut where it's like cut really high and he has like no sideburns whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That always sticks out to me. I think that was 1925. That photo was taken as I said, yeah. Okay. Okay. Fascinating. And then there's the famous, what is it?  Yeah. The forest fire scene, which I don't know. And it actually, the lights in it, they move. Now I have a butterfly girl that you can see on my site that it flashes and it looks like her wings are fluttering. That's the Leedy Butterfly Girl. So that's a cool head. But the forest fire actually looks like the forest is burning. I've never really seen that. I think I've seen somebody has one. And I kind of did a video pan and we could see it. But Mark Cooper's always talking about the forest fire. He's like, if you find that one, that's like one of the rarest ones out there. Yeah. It's so cool because it's so like grim.  But it's really cool. There's so much stuff you have. So painted drum heads are one really amazing part of it. But I want to touch on real quick though about how you said it's a playing museum. Meaning you can walk in, you can sit down, you can play these drums. You've had some famous drummers come through. Steve Smith comes to mind right off the bat. You guys seem to have had a good bond and become friends over this whole thing. Yeah, we have. So that's wild. I mean, you can just, you're pretty trusting to let, not Steve Smith, but to let anyone who comes in sit down and play. You can trust Steve, I'm sure. But yeah. Well, I kind of give people a little preface when they come in, you know, I said, you know, because I have, you know, young guys, who are like heavy metal rockers, but they're interested in this stuff. So that's great.  You're not going to hurt them. But the Chinese toms, you got to go a little easy on those in the calf heads because you can break them. But I've never had anybody come in and just like pound away on it. Drums are meant to be played though. You're not really going to hurt most of them. You know, you're not going to hurt the rim. So the heads, hey, if you break a head, but nobody's going to really play stuff that, that hard in here. So I don't, I give them like a little tutorial before when they come in at, because I have a whole tour that I do through here. It takes about half hour to an hour depending on how interested you are and how deep in the woods you want to get. Yeah. But, you know, yeah, they, they really can't hurt it. You know, so I let them play, you know, that's what the symbols and everything. You know, just got to take it easy. And it's actually amazing. Like Mark wrote in the article, Mark Griffith wrote the article and he said, it's amazing that you barely touch these drums and they just sing. You know, they just, they just really sound so good.  You know, as long as the weather is correct in here, I try to have humidifiers going and, you know, air conditioning and all that to keep it at a certain level, but it's tough. Why would that be? Do you think that these, these old drums, I mean, the wood has aged and had time to, you know, mature. I mean, what do you think?  Nothing, nothing, you know?  The modern ones don't sound like that. And that's a brass shell, you know? But they don't, the new ones don't sound anything like you. So, you know, I guess it's time, the age of time makes them sound like that. Yeah, which you can't buy, you can't buy aging. So you have a lot of tons of stuff. I think it's said in the article here that you had like, you have like 30 kits or so in there. One thing that really popped out to me and I think it's just neat because you have such a broad knowledge that we can just kind of jump around and talk about different things. Yeah, absolutely. Is about how kind of looking through it, it talked about how, you know, there was the era of the trap sets and the little tables and everything, which, you know, we look through old articles and things like that and we see everything was trap. Everything was, you know, all that stuff. But there's a mention in this article that talks about, let me read it here real quick. It says, however, as soon as Gene Krupa came along, he stripped away all of those gadgets from the drum sets and he started using his monogram shield on his front base drum head. So that speaks to why taking away all these, the, you know, trap stuff and the switch from painted drum heads. So it kind of sums up a really huge switch in the world of drum sets in about one sentence. You know, it's pretty fascinating. It does and Gene was really responsible for a lot of innovations that this would, and he was a sling on endorser. So Slingerland was really a newer company because Ludwig had been in business, oh, 20 years before Slingerland entered the drum game. No, they didn't really enter until 1928. And so Gene, you know, came on later than that. But he was, yeah, basically he wanted a monogram, a real clean look to his set. You know, the toms were getting bigger. They had the tack toms. You know, even his first Tom was a tack Tom. But then he, he had him do, you know, tunable tops and then they had tack bonds. Well, then he was the one that said, hey, I want both sides tunable. So, you know, you can go, you can read about his history, but he was very innovative with the Slingerland company at making what we are, we now know as the modern toms on the drum. Bass drums really haven't changed that much. They went from single tension to double tension. But, you know, that's not that big a deal. But really the Tom toms and all the effects on that, that's what he really had a big influence in changing over to modern drums, you know, and the cymbals got bigger.  I had this great discussion with Steve Smith one of the times he was here because, you know, he was saying, you know, well, the 20s drums, you don't ride on a cymbal. That came much later, you know, and the beats all changed and everything. You know, these, they were all effects. All the cymbals were like these big China cymbals. They were effects and little splash cymbals.  Yeah.  And I mean, so much innovation came so fast. Really, with him, yeah.  You know, in his music, but it faded away pretty quick. Yeah. And Gene has been mentioned a lot on the show, which I think is rightfully, you know, he deserves it, but I think it's all, it's important to remind sometimes that like, yes, he's an incredible performer, soloist, you know, as a drummer in general, but it's, it's also the, the way the drum set changed is what makes him so important. Not just, oh, he battled with Buddy Rich and he did all this and he was famous in a movie star. It's really the innovations and all that stuff that makes it super important. So you have some really, really amazing symbols as well, which I think is pretty cool, which symbols go back thousands of years. I don't know how far yours go back because that's, that's kind of gets into a different world from like drum set symbols to like things like from ancient China and all that stuff. What's some of the older symbols that you have in your collection? Well, I would say some of the older ones would be the bigger early China ones that came over from China, but you know, and some Ziljin K's from the 20s, but not big ones.  Oh, he's got a big 24 inch Ziljin K's from the 20s now. I'm not a big K fan. Most of the drummers that I follow, like, like Gene and Buddy and all those guys, they just use Ziljin H, you know, Avidus Ziljin. So that's what you're going to find on most of the kits in here. I have some smaller old K's. And what I'm really into is the symbols that were used as hand symbols, foot symbols. I'm just going to grab somewhere. I'll just do a little, little something like this guy right here. Yep. So to describe it for people listening, yes, the Charleston where it's basically just two clamps. It's early, early. This is your first hi-hat. So this is put out by Ludwig. Ludwig basically made this and it's wood. And you're like, that's the craziest looking thing, right? But this was the Charleston pedal. The dance, the Charleston came out. So this was an after beat. So a lot of the stuff is an off beat. So you had your boom, your bass drum would be one. This would be two boom, chick, boom, chick, you know, so you'd have that, that type of thing. But it was wood and they sold these. And these are in the 1920s catalogs. I think it was early as 22 or something and then with 24. And then they went away quickly because then they made one that would fold up. And this is the one you see a lot. This is, this is a low boy. So, and this went off. This, Wahlberg and Ajay made this and Ledy and Ludwig and Slinger and everybody sold them, but they fold up. So it was a little bit easier to, to take with you to all these gigs. So, but that's for the, and then I like a box at a box, you know, and all those kinds of symbols, the hand symbols. You can hear them in a lot of recordings, but that's the, those are more rare than a lot of the other kinds of symbols you could find.  You can see it in here from the first one to the last. Another fun topic, I think, which I have done a few episodes on, but it's been a while. So I think it's good to talk about is your collection of, you know, trap sound effects, whistles, ratchets, temple blocks, wood blocks, cowbells, I'm reading through them. I didn't just rattle that off without off the top of my head. I'm reading this article, but you, you have a really cool collection here. What's some of your favorites and how do you go about acquiring old silent movie, you know, contraptions? Yep. So that's where the word traps came from as contraptions. Okay. And basically as a vaudeville drummer or as a silent film drummer, because for silent films, when they came out and, you know, everybody wanted to go to the film to watch these, this new film innovation thing, there were, there were no sound. You couldn't, they didn't have any sound with it. So drummers were hired to actually make all the sounds that you saw in a silent film or background sounds like, okay, the perfect example is a train coming down the track, right? We have a train sound effect made by Ludwig.  So train, that's one of my favorites. That's a good one. I got to say that, that Ludwig train is very realistic.  And it's like a screen door kind of spring is what it's been described as to me. We're going junk, junk, junk on the inside.  You have to practice it just like you practice doing five stroke rolls. You have to start out slow and a real motion. Then you have to get really fast as the trains barreling down the track and then go back down to slow.  It's kind of like that, you know, in a different way. So that's a great one. That's one of my favorites. This, one of my other favorites is a bear growl or a lion bore. So it's a box with a hide on the back and a string and a, and, and put rosin on it like violin rosin and you pull the string and it makes a roar sounds like a blind roaring. Cool. That's an awesome one. Yeah. There's dog barks and there's, there's just one I got that I haven't even ever shown anyone as I have, you know, they had a lot of cowboy movies back today, right? So there was always a gunfight and Bill Ludwig jr. He did a piece on Kelly Ray Tubbs back in time. He did a piece with he's got one of these and it's a surefire machine and it's a basically I should have had us right there, but you hit it with a hammer and you put blank real bullets in it. It has real bullets, not bullets, but real blank cartridges in it. Yeah. Black powder and you can't do it inside a building because you'll set up the smoke alarms. He found that out, but it has 16 shots and you put them in and then as the, as the guys are shooting the guns, you hit them with a hammer and they fire just like a gunfire. Yeah. Unbelievable. And Ludwig made that crazy thing. I mean, there's all kinds of crazy sound effects, you know? Yeah. And you mentioned Kelly Ray Tubbs and then also Nicholas White in Chicago. Both my buddy. Yeah. Both great ambassadors. Someone, someone has to do it. You know what I mean?  Why don't you now kind of, as you walk in the door, describe a couple little bit of the scenes that we'll see jumping from drum kit to drum kit. You know, you can go into as much detail as you want, but obviously for the sake of time, there's a lot of drum sets. So like, what's the first one you see? And then maybe skip along to some sort of highlights that, that are real crowd favorites. Can I, can I talk about where these drums are housed first real quick? Yeah. Absolutely. That's really interesting. These drums are actually housed, we would not believe this, but they're housed in a renovated dairy barn from the 1800s. The downstairs levels. So if you know anything about barns, the upstairs levels where they put the hay, the downstairs levels where the cows were. So where I'm sitting right now is basically behind me would have been cows on both sides. So obviously it was my grandparents farm, believe it or not. This is my grandparents farmhouse. So they, they were farmers and this, this was their barn. And then, you know, later on in life when they were pretty much, you know, done with it, I took it over and I didn't want to be a farmer. So I was an antique dealer. So I made it into an antique gallery and hence then it became the drum music. So as you walk through the double doors in the front, you're going to come in and if you turn to the right, you're going to see five kits set up. You're going to see the most kits in the middle. You're going to see the butterfly girl flank to the, if you're standing to the left and then a slingerland greens glass glitter kit to the right, a sea green pearl kit behind that and a top hat and cane kit behind the other group. So there's five kits there. Five drummers can sit down and play. Those are like my highlight kits in here. So they're all right there in this little alcove room with a stone wall behind them. You've seen the pictures on Facebook. It looks great. Yep. So those are all, you know, five fabulous kits from the 1920s all the way to the mid 1940s. So you get a fast tour real quick of how the toms evolved because that's what really evolved on these drums. It's how the toms evolved from Chinese toms to single head tack toms to then a regular kit going to 1941 top hat cane. So and then as you walk down through there are more kits and you're going to, this is like a main hallway down here with kits displayed on both sides and right where I'm sitting under the banner. There's a, these are my trap kits. You're going to see a kit with all kinds of stuff on it. Cowbells and wood blocks and just all kinds of gizmos and gadgets. And then a fifties kit here.  Some memorabilia, you know, from from back in the day, actually there's a trophy in there that I didn't really talk about much in the article. We'll talk. We're going to talk about that. There's a trophy in that case from the 1941 swing contest, the Gene Krupa and Slingerlin sponsored. So it was the second, it was a Louis Belson won that contest and it would have been the same trophy that he got. Well, this was Joe Reiner, the second place winner, his trophy. It's just so neat. I feel like this is the kind of place where you need to focus like on. So there's so many little details where like you see this trophy. I mean, the amount of history behind that competition and that trophy is unbelievable. What's great is not just do I have the trophy. I have all the letters from the Slingerlin factory to Joe Reiner. They had, you know, a conversation back and forth because he got you as a first, second, third runner up in that contest. You got a Slingerlin radio king kit. That was the prize as well as to sit with a big band and all stuff. Anyway, he had ordered special sizes and they upgraded his kit to chrome and I have a picture. I'm sitting behind it, but there's all these great, great letters from Slingerlin drum company that I've been buying. You can sit here, you know, and look through those and read them. That's if they're all the original letters with the trophy. Wow. Yeah. So now to get up on that, but that's really an important thing that I don't think everybody feels that that everybody knows about or understands really how important that piece of memorabilia really is. It started, you know, the Guitar Center still has the drum contest. That's what started it in 1941. That was the first one. Yeah. So yeah, it's an important benchmark in our in our careers here, you know, I would agree completely. And I mean, it it it skyrocketed people in the fame. You know, I mean, that's that's without a doubt where obviously I feel like each of these you're getting them in different places and it's just I mean, it's you're an antique collector dealer.  But it was he was like the face of it and Slingerlin sponsored it. It was at the Worlitzer Auditorium in New York, I believe. And Gene Krupa was the face of it because he was the judge. He came and judged the drummers. They had to play. I don't think it was sing sing sing at that time. I forgot it was something else like maybe drum boogie or something they had to play perfectly. And he and so Louis Belson won. Joe Rainer came in second. I think Carl Kiff was third or something. I'm not sure, but I have a picture. I actually have a photograph of them the day of the contest. Gene is standing in the middle. Louis Belson to his right with Bud Slingerlin and then Joe Rainer is on the other side of Gene Krupa and then two other guys. So I have a photo too. Interesting. It's great. Yeah. Well, OK, so the question then is like, you know, let's just again zero in on the trophy, which is just a really specific.  Like, how does that typical like hunt for something like that work? Yeah. It came to me with a collection of drums, believe it or not. And it kind of right before COVID, I started the 1920s, 30s trap drum sets and sound effects page on Facebook. It's a group. And a lot of I'm sure a lot of people that are listening to this podcast are members of my group because it's pretty active on there. And it's all about these drums that I love from the 20s and 30s and sound effects and stuff. And people post a lot of stuff. Well, a guy had posted that nobody had ever heard of before posted that he started posting all these pictures of painted drums and all this stuff. And so I read he said he was in Texas. His name I can tell his name. His name is Denny Harris, the Denny Harris collection. So I reached out to him a bunch of people. Everybody was reaching out to him because he was an older guy and it was time for him to maybe start selling.  Well, Denny was in a position where he said, I don't need this stuff. I need to sell it. So I basically bought all of it. Now that's in Texas. I'm in New York. So I'm going to these are you don't just put these in a UPS box and ship them. I mean, you're talking about I mean, there were like 20 drum kits, you know, 20 bass drums and maybe not that maybe at least 15 and then parts and all kinds of stuff. He said, I want to sell it all. I got guys that want to cream it by one thing. I said, don't do that. Don't do that because you're going to get stuck with all this stuff. You'll never get rid of. So I made him an offer. He accepted it. The trophy came with it. That was part of the deal because Joe Rainer was his drum teacher and nobody knew the trophy existed at the funeral. His Joe Rainer son or nephew or something. I think his nephew showed up with it and said, what should we do with this? Should we they displayed at the funeral? And then I guess they were like going to throw it away or something. And then he's like, no, I'll take that. So he took them with all the letters. So he had it. And basically it, you know, I purchased everything, including that for the museum and not even I was going to do a museum at the time. But I just thought, what a great collection. And I was like, okay, logistically, I was looking at flights. I'm going to fly to Texas. So, you know, this kind of comes in to probably what you're going to ask is how do you how do you acquire the stuff and how do you get it? Well, they answered. I added your question. Sometimes you think about, do I fly and get this because bass drums are big.  Well, my cousin's husband was he's a truck driver and he was off for a month in the winter. So he was doing some side jobs. He was going to Florida to help somebody take some stuff to Florida. And he had a van and a trailer. And I said, and I was just kidding when I said, hey, do you want to go to Texas and pick up some drums for me? And he's a drummer as well. He loves my museum. And he goes, yeah, I'll do that. And he did. So I sent him from Florida to Texas and then home with this and he went and picked it all up and brought it to me. And it really is the base of my museum. A lot of the painted heads you've seen here came not all, but a bit half of them came from that. Sure. You know, some of it was just lower stuff. I parted it out, sold it off to pay for what I kept. But that's kind of how you acquire stuff. Sometimes you buy collections. And that's what I do in the antique business. I really buy estates. So that's what I like to do. I don't really buy one item at a time too much only if it's really good. But I like to go buy a whole lot of stuff and then go through it and find the treasures and then sell them off. And that's my business. So it's something that I'm used to doing and that's maybe how you get some of this cool stuff, you know, in a lot. So yeah, that's interesting. And then you kind of get that whole like the surprise of you might not know what you're going to get, which is sort of addicting. I'm sure to be like, you know, it is, it is. Yeah. But you know, but when you put together collections, it's it's pretty easy to do, you know, like that when you're used to doing that kind of some people can't wrap their head around buying that much stuff at once. You know, how do you deal with it? How do you pay for it? How do you do all that? But if it's a normal thing you do for a job, it's pretty easy to just transfer it over to this. You know, I mean, it's a it's a business and going back up to the top here looking at the stuff that's been sent over. You got your first job at an auction house at the age of 15 where you learned the antique business. And by 18, you started your own business. So this is not like we're like, you know, you're you're doing this little thing on the side. It's seriously it's the mix of like your love of drums and your like his love of auctions as well. I mean, yeah, two worlds came crashing together and this is the result.  So outside of drums, what's your typical items that you sell? So in my store, which is actually above us now because I had to move up there when I did the drum museum. I have an antique store. It's General Merchandise by focus more around country antiques from the 18th to 19th century. And then I kind of skipped the Victorian age because it's not very popular right now. Then I do industrial cool industrial metal objects and then mid-century modern is very hot. So I do a lot of that and I make a lot of lighting. So that also plays in well with restoring drums because I'm working with metal all the time because I actually create lights. I'm like a lighting designer and a lighting creator. So I make all this industrial style farmhouse style lighting. So when it comes to working with metal and having to fabricate things for drums or whatever, a lot of stuff I can do right in my shop, which is right downstairs around another section of the museum. Awesome. Yeah. So there's a lot going on in this one building, believe it or not. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The old dairy farm. I mean, auctions are really cool like real deal which you're probably doing things with it every day. But I think for most people in the last decade plus it's been online auctions. Right. I went to an auction once when I was younger with a friend. I still enjoy them. I don't own one anymore but I was in kind of a motorcycle phase which was awesome. And buddy of mine, we went to this and they were auctioning off old Harleys that were AMF when they were owned by like the Italian AMF company. But so he bought a few. I ended up buying I think this is sometimes what happens with auctions is I bought like 20 front fenders to vintage Harleys for like $15. Then I ended up having 20 of these things sitting around like a music space for like four years before anyone bought them and it's like, I think you have probably learned you got to be careful what you buy because you could actually win it and then end up with a bunch of stuff sitting around.  Well, and actually how this whole space started down here will back up just a little bit. I have an antique store upstairs now but that's not how it started. Back in the day eBay was a very hot venue. And as you know, a lot of good drums were sold on eBay. My karate got probably half of his collection through eBay contacts, you know. So it was a very viable online auction back in the day. I don't really consider it that great now. But back in the day I'm talking 20 years ago. It was the thing. So I actually had an eBay store here and I had pickers out on the road buying for me, bringing stuff to me. These are older guys that didn't even know how to turn a computer on. And I was a young I'm not super computer savvy but I knew how to do eBay. I took wonderful pictures. I had the really good pictures and I knew how to pack and ship stuff. So I created a business of saying, okay, bring me the stuff. I'll list it. Let eBay, you know, even on eBay it'll sell. I'll pack it, ship it and I'll take a percentage. So the reason I'm telling you this is because while we were doing this they were bringing all kinds of stuff and I said, oh, bring me drums and bring me guitars and horns and instruments because I have a background in that stuff. I know and it's selling really well on eBay. So my guys started finding drums, you know, and guitars and stuff and we sold violins all kinds of stuff. But one day one of my pickers came in and he had a Gretch round badge brass shell snare drum deep one in the case with all the stuff. Fresh out of an attic. And he said, ah, you can buy this because I know you like it was somebody who I didn't put stuff on eBay for. He just was a picker that sold stuff to me.  I love this stuff. I should be buying it not selling. And that was the day I started collecting drums. Believe it or not. Hmm. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. It was like, it was like, all of a sudden I came in like, I should be so then I started buying started looking on eBay. I started studying the catalogs, the old catalogs, the ones that I could source online. I think I bought a Ludwig CD that had the catalogs and I started looking through all the and that's when I fell in love with traps. You know, they didn't really show painted heads in those rooms but I saw the cowbells and all the temple blocks and all the early kits and how cool they looked and I'm like, I got to get one of those, you know, so then I think I bought my first one on eBay. I bought, I still have it. It's a Leedy, the ship silhouette and it came with temple blocks and the whole thing and so I bought that.  I had some drums and then I did a house renovation and as you know, when you do that, you don't have money for drums. So dear God, no, I did a big house renovation. So that took all my money for that. But then I got back into it and then because in the last 10 years, this has been created in the last 10 years. Yeah, which is like a formalized museum. I mean, it's like a you can come and visit and check it out and like, are you open all the time? I mean, we can get, we can plug it all more towards the end, but like, how do people come and visit?  I really try to give tours during the week because on the weekends, obviously, I'm open upstairs. So it's a little tough and that's when a lot of drummers, you know, they're gigging on the weekends anyway. So I'll accommodate you on the weekend. If we need to, if you really want to see it, you know, if that's the only time you can come, we'll figure it out. But mostly, I like to have people come during the week so I can block off time to spend it you because once you get in here, you don't want to leave. You know, there's so much to see and so much to do and learn and play and it's fun. It's a fun, even non-drummers. I've had so many people come in that don't know anything about drums and I give them my tour and they go, that's the best museum tour I've ever had. This is so interesting, you know, it's yeah, for sure. And I let them play drums are drums are like, we're biased because we love the drums.   I feel like drums are just like really cool to everyone.  It's it's it's really just a fun thing for drummers and non-drummers to be looking at. You know why? Because even a non-drummer, you can put a pair of sticks in their hand and they can tap on a drum and they can get a sound out of it where hand me a guitar. I don't know anything about a guitar. I mean, I could strum but it sounds terrible. I mean, right? A non-drummer can can at least play a drum and they get something out of it. You know, they can hear what it sounds like. You know, they can't play rhythms like buddy rich but they can play that usually ever somebody has rhythm. You can play a rhythm on a drum and get something out of it like piano, guitar, any other put a trumpet in your hand. You can't even play. I can't even make a trumpet play, you know? No, so a trumpet museum would be no good for me to go to, you know? Yeah. Don't start the north of trumpet museum, please. I promise I won't. Are you still acquiring things? Are you still expanding? Is this never ending the museum? Of course, always because you're always, you know, it's it's full. I will say it's pretty full right now, but you're always, I guess I'm always upgrading and I and in the article. Okay. So Bob Meyers, I don't know if you talked about Meyers yet. No, his name his name has come up. Yeah. Yeah. He's a professional drummer and he's, he loves this place. He's been here a few times and and he has a good collection too. He calls me two for Tim, two for Tim.  He goes, cause you like two of everything and I do. And it's in the article. They talk about that. Mark said, why did they call you to? Well, I said, if you have two of something rare, if something else comes along that's rare, you have something to barter. See the antique business barter game, you like try to get Nick White to sell one of his sound effects. He won't, but if you have something to barter with him that he doesn't have, he will barter with you, you know. So this is an example. So I'm always looking for better examples of stuff I have, maybe, you know, and if something comes up like I bought, I've got a slinger on Black Beauty, which is sitting right next to me, which is one of the, we'll talk about that, I'm sure, but that's one of the rarest terms in the world. Well, I bought that one and then like not six months later, somebody saw it on on my site, which is usually what happens and contacted me from Canada and said, I think I have one of those and I'm like, well, send me pictures and he did. And sure enough, he did. He did. He had one. Was he a not, was he a drummer himself? Or was this like a, yeah, he was a drummer, but you want to go into the story? It's a great one. Yeah, please tell us about it. So slinger on Black Beauty, 1928, it was in the new, the first slinger Lynn catalog. Okay. It was never in any catalog after that. And the next one came out 30 or 32. Not very many were made. Right now, we know we think 18, 18 of them in the world. I own number 17 and number 18. Okay. So 17. I bought from Jim Messina. He had per to, he did a great video on it. He found it in Florida from an old guy around the East Coast who actually used to live in Syracuse, New York or near Syracuse, which is two hours from me up here in New York. He got that drum in the sixties from a guy that found it in an attic in Syracuse in the 1960s. So, and he had it for years, played it now. He ever didn't do so. It needed some restoration. It didn't need parts. It just needed to be cleaned and relattered and all that. So we, we did that. And it's the one sitting next. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful, beautiful example of a slinger Lynn Black Beauty. Shell is in like mint conditions. It's really nice. Can people play that if they come to the museum? Absolutely. And then that's yeah, that's a big draw because where else are you going to do that? Right? Yeah. So I got that one and I'm like, okay, I'm set. I've got my slinger Black Beauty. I wanted one forever. I missed one at the Chicago show two years ago. You know, two years before I bought this one, it just wasn't the right time. And I didn't buy it. And I, I regretted it ever since, you know, but I loved it because this was from Syracuse and I'm going to, I'm going to talk a little bit about that with some other kits that came from Syracuse. And we'll talk about that in a minute, but let's continue with the Black Beauty Store. So I bought this one. Had it, was in love with it. Guy calls, got, gets a hold of me from Canada says, I think I have one. Here's the great story. I said, tell me the background of this Black Beauty. He goes, well, I was a teacher and I'm retired now. And there was another teacher. We're both retiring at the same time. And she came into my classroom and said, look, we're cleaning up my father's house. There's a drum and a black case. We don't have any use for it. Do you want it? You can have it. Otherwise, we're going to put it on the curb or send it to Goodwill or throw it away. One of the other. Okay. He goes, yeah, bring it in. But he goes, I'm not going to be here tomorrow. She goes, I'm not either.  So he never saw her again. She brought the drum and left it on his desk. He comes in like the next week, opens it up and it's just some great black drum. He didn't know what it was. He figured it was just the Ludwig. So he had it for a while. Now remember, this thing was going to go in the trash or to Goodwill or something. So he got this drum for free. So he gets hold of me. Anyway, I said, yeah, it's a slinger on black beauty. So I bought it and I shipped it from Canada to here. I did the label and of course, FedEx drove me crazy because they lost it. Oh, well, it went off.  All of a sudden it's like, Oh, your package is not trackable right now. And I'm like, it was supposed to be here overnight. You know, I've paid to have it sent overnight. Don't give me a heart attack because you can't ensure it.  You know, so I did. I did do it and opening here for and we opened it up and I really did open the box and do it live on Facebook where I had not seen the drum and it's beautiful and I have not. I chose not to restore them because it's not in bad shape. You know, the shell could be cleaned and relacquered but it's beautiful. It's all original. It's all intact. The gold is shiny. It's really beautiful. So I got that one, you know, right after this one which was crazy crazy. Man, and there may be more out there which goes on the 18. Yeah. Man, that's awesome. Yeah. Geez. And then you said other drums and Syracuse is there. So what's special about Syracuse? Okay. So and the problem is Slingolin drum company doesn't have files to go back that far.  I guess we'll go to the 30s because that's when Slingolin was really cranking out the stuff. They were new in the drum business 28. They got in. So there must have been a really good music store in Syracuse that sold Slingolin because this black beauty came from there. My green glass glitter kit with a side trap table which nobody's ever seen one. That whole kit came from the Syracuse area and a sea green glass a sea green Pearl set came from the same place. All came from the same place in Syracuse and a very rare broadcaster drum in a which is a solid maple shell with a walnut veneer over it. Again, made for one or two years very rare all came from the same area. So there had to be some music store that was getting like the prototype stuff the really early good stuff, you know, from Slingolin at that time. Yeah. Just I love. Yeah. That it's just that like that next level like the history can keep going deeper and deeper of like here's a cool drum but here's where it came from. Oh, and that area must have had some serious collectors and some some people with some serious disposable money because they all came out of houses, you know, that I basically sourced and it's funny that there must have been a really good music store in that area that sold that stuff. But yeah, I'm sure you are. I mean, you go to Chicago New York City, you're going to find stuff like that but for to turn up in a small town in Syracuse and so small, but it's still an upstate New York town and find all this rare stuff there, you know, so I'm sure running the Syracuse now trying to find stuff but no, I already got it all. It's Syracuse has been they have no drums left there. That's hysterical. Awesome. Let's talk about New Jersey percussion ensemble. So Peter Jarvis and you had a podcast with Pete. Yep. Good friend of mine. They actually came here. Pete wrote eight pieces for the New Jersey percussion ensemble eight pieces for snare drum for snare drums in this museum. So they came in. They chose snare drums right off my rack. You know, we kind of Pete and I kind of went through the pieces and what kind of snare drum he wanted. So we chose all Vince's drums.  The sound in here is phenomenal, by the way. You can just come in and yes, Steve comes in with his three cameras and just records and his guy said he barely has to edit it. It's great. The sounds great. Cool.  It gets released tomorrow on iTunes, Amazon Music, Spotify. It's Jarvis and Friends Volume 4. It's that's the outside of my place right there for the people watching YouTube and get to see it. But to me, that's a really big deal. Oh, yeah, that's awesome and Pete's a great guy and like you said, former guest on the podcast. So it's cool to kind of cross, you know, promoting each other's stuff. Pete Jarvis is a genius composer and musician. Yeah, he really is. And he's a good friend. That's awesome. Yeah, it was great. So we've done that and then I don't know. Do you want to talk about Steve Smith? Yeah, please do because you guys clearly from from his promotion of, you know, he's he posts videos. It's obviously good for business for you, but he genuinely clearly likes coming there. I mean, you guys seem so you guys seem to have built kind of a, you know, pretty good friendship. So what's the story with that? Okay, it's a great story and I'll keep it short and a little bit for you. But basically, Steve found out about my my drum collection. I was not a museum. He found out about my drum collection because I make remember I told you I make lights. I make lamps and I make lighting and I sell some of them in a bookstore downtown that he frequents. He actually lives near here. He has a summer home near Oneonta that he stays in part of the summer. So he's here. So he went into this bookstore, bought a lamp and then his wife was checking out my Facebook page and saw a post of a Steve Smith drum head that I'd acquired. I said, I was all excited. Oh, look, I got a drum head from Steve Smith and he signed to somebody, you know, and I had it for the collection. And so he saw the pictures of this place. Well, his neighbor where he lives actually knows me. So his neighbor brought him here to my to the drum collection and I didn't know if Steve was going to like old drums.  He was a jazz drummer for Idol Information. I knew all that and I followed him over the years. But who knew if he liked old drums? So he comes in and he's very nice. He and his wife and my friend came and he goes, well, these drums look great. He goes, can you play them? And I said, yeah, sure. He says, I can play. I said, yes, so he sat down and now there wasn't as much out as there is now. Of course, you guys can't see it, but there were. I put out everything I had at the time, you know, because I knew he was coming. So I made a presentation bar. He came in. He sat down and played everything I had out really well too. And and he's just and at one point he's smiling year to year and his wife turns to my girlfriend, Lin and my friend, Ron who had brought him here and says, oh my gosh, he's having a blast. He's just having the time of his life, you know. And so we played everything. It was very nice. He gave me some gifts and it was just great meeting Steve Smith.  So on the way out, he he signed a drum head for me, right? And he said, great museum. I should have had it, but he said great music. He wrote on the drum head. Thanks for the visit. Great museum. And he's the first one that coined the frame. The phrase museum. Wow. Oh, I guess I do have a museum. He called the museum. So as Steve Smith calls the museum, I guess you better change your name. Yeah. Then it then you added on museum. I mean, that's totally true. I did.  And what are you going to do? Tell Steve Smith? No, I guess I really wouldn't like that. I said, I would be, I would be on and sure that would be great. So he came. He said, we're going to be there all day. So I'm going to bring my equipment. So he came like mid morning and he was here all day and we laid down, he laid down four or five recordings with video and he's been releasing those. He released one like pretty quick right after he has a guy to edit some stuff, puts his from the practice room. And I think he called it from beyond the practice room. And what a great day that was. I spent the whole day with Steve Smith here. I mean, that was. It just like not that you need legitimizing or anything, but it just encourages what you're doing. When someone of that stature says, this is cool. Keep going. Can I come and play with you and do stuff there? I mean, talk about like just like a bit of a pat on the back, you know, that's awesome.  And then all of a sudden, you know, Steve Smith comes and modern drummer comes and I mean, I don't know. It's who knows what's going to happen in the future. I guess that's what I'm waiting to see with the article.  Let's let's see who comes in the future to visit. Yeah. So we may have to do another podcast and do up a lineup of who comes. Yes. Well, people listening to this are usually diehard drum fans and many of them probably live within driving distance. So as you mentioned before, it's basically get in touch with you during the week, make your way over to, you know, north of drums on Facebook, which I'll I'll post all the links to everything down there. Let me just logistically tell people where we are just so you know, it's pretty easy. We're basically three hours from everywhere in the on the East Coast. So we're three hours. And we're going to say three to four with three to four hours from Boston, three to four hours from New York City, three to four hours to Rochester and Buffalo and three to four hours to the border of Canada. So we're kind of right in the middle and we're right near Cooperstown, New York. So everybody knows Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame. I'm basically 30 minutes from Cooperstown. That's awesome. So very, very close. Yeah. And just to let people know if you can't get here, say you're in another country, you know, say you're in England, I've done a lot of stuff with Sticky Wicket.  I have yet to. I need to have him on the show. I'm a fan of his YouTube. You need to have him on the show. He's great. Yeah, I know. So we did some video things together. You know, Sticks and I have done some video collaboration with this museum and then with his friend, Harry. So we've done some stuff and he's going to come here when he comes to the States. He's going to come visit me and stay for a while. Well, we'll post some video. It's going to be fun whenever he gets here. Yeah, but if you can't get here, you know, it's not possible if we actually get here. I am going to offer what we're doing right now kind of is like a zoom. We can do a zoom tour, a virtual tour of the museum. If you want to see something, you know, want to see something specific, we can talk about it. I can play it for you. You won't get to play it, but in that one, I am going to right now, there's there's only like a donation. If you want to come to the museum, you don't have to give anything. It's free by donation. If I do the zoom thing, just because I've got to schedule the time and have the equipment, I am going to there's going to be a fee for that. But, you know, you know, I will give you a wonderful tour up to up to an hour with you here, looking at everything, playing everything, looking at stuff in great detail. Yeah, so we can do that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that sounds fun. And I mean, as as again, anything that I can, I will share in the description where, you know, on Tim's website and everything and you know, you have to there's a value that goes to you putting in the time and walking through it with people. So I think that's worth, you know, paying for and all that good stuff. So awesome, Tim. Well, I'm very glad that we got, you know, together. I know you've been a busy guy and you're getting, you know, everything put together and and all that good stuff. So really pumped to have you here. And for people listening, Tim has been kind enough. He's going to stick around and we're going to do one of the Patreon bonus episodes. And the question is going to be about Tim is going to explain how to put together a trap kit and how to acquire it and basically build out one of the really cool, you know, 1920s trap kits that we all love to look at and has all the accessories and cool things that that got you into it to begin with. So if you want to hear that, go to drumhistorypodcast.com Patreon link and you can, you know, hear those for two bucks a month. So, Tim, this has been awesome, man. I hope to come to the museum someday. I'm a little further away than four hours. I'm in Cincinnati. So I'm probably seven or eight or nine hours. I think just kind of totally guessing. But someday I will make it there. Great. Can't wait to have you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for being here. Thanks. It was great. I had a great time.


Thanks gentlemen man. We're doing some discovery today kind of like Christopher Columbus except we're actually discovering it Yeah, yeah Christopher Too much discovering more like Colonize I'm not gonna lie if I was mayor I would implement a tax system. Oh We sound like Ronnie already buddy. Make me mayor. Y'all are done Oh That hurt Davis I look how they put a cap of 100 people in this city like there's not goddamn 45 courts to play on and 95 stores to go to and 65 sitting emotes you can experiment with don't forget you can kneel Yes, of course the kneeling emote how essential It's been a serious grind since launch So it's a huge shout out to Postmates for helping sponsors video They've been keeping me fed ladies and gentlemen for those who don't know Postmates is a food delivery app There's access to tons of local restaurants in your area delivers right to your door The app is very simple. You choose the restaurant you want you choose what you want to get from the restaurant Then you can watch in real time as the delivery person brings the food to your door and on top of that They got a beautiful juicy promo code agent zero zero you see it on the screen right now If you put it in for all new users, you get $150 delivery fee credit so I'm gonna leave a link in the description Go ahead download Postmates when you get there you can order whatever you want use the code agent zero zero and you'll get that deal And oh, I think my food has arrived fellas. Yeah, sir. Thanks, man taking it from the door Okay What's wrong with you, man? Hey drink some water man or some Postmates code agent zero zero Again, it's a huge shout out to Postmates for helping sponsor this video link in the description. Make sure go check it out All right, we're here at the rents of court with a group of friends. Let's head over here. Click X I think this one is glitched. Let's go to other one. I think that one's glitched right there Okay, there's four courts I'm glad they put windows there to overlook the city to add lag just in case it wasn't lagging enough Basketball, oh my god. I which one of y'all own a basketball, bro Okay I only know how to crazy Yeah Big defense, do you know how to pass?  I got you to play do the play to the play Yes, you guys literally don't have plays You killed me right there, bro You should be though you should be shoot it though. Shoot it. Yeah, he won't I Curious let it to clear Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's up with this guy, bro, bro. Just trying to get a good look Oh I don't understand those three there's three badges. Yeah, I don't have any badges on my player right now, bro Give me that bush Hey, yo flex. I'm running Whoa, they gave you a second ankle breaker, bro, and they gave you 24 on the clock Every snatch back is an ankle breaker It actually isn't a dribble move you even need skill for every every snatch back is another ankle breaker This is insane.  Oh my god Whoa, whoa, whoa, bro that badge is so OP. Oh my god, Davis I've never seen anything like that if that doesn't get nerfed I would genuinely be surprised because it's not even playable. You could just do that You look like you could average 12 snatch backs of possession, bro. Whoa. I go on this NPC got the fatty god I know you're not talking about this guy you just walked by No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What in the world? Prince. Prince. You've walked past this man and said this NPC has the fatty? No. No, no, no, no. That's not how it works. This is the guy bro. What are you seeing him? Davis get up bro come on. No, Davis. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to do an orgy. I'm done.  I fellas, let's get it, my. I did not mean to put this man on my team. Please don't say it. Hey, who? Thomas Davis? Yes. Damn, that euro was good. Mike. I knew you were going to do that step back. I knew you were going to do that step back but I have it. No, no, no, no, no, no. What is he going to do? He's going to give you the win. Hello? Prince, you're so old. They made that pass for you? See, I just set you up. I set you up for a better score.   There's something about agents, dude. Green up. I'm telling you, this could be a good build.  Bro, it doesn't even let me stop you on those. It lets me stop anyone else, Davis. Anyone else gets stopped on those. And he's six foot seven. Yo, Prince. I mean, pow, got flesh. He's, he don't want no smoke. At all.  This defense is like, it's not the defense is bad.  In your eye.  Why did you just kiss me in the trunk like that? That was essential. Why? I'm in lit right now. I'm tired of playing defense. I'm 24 seconds. Shoot the ball. No. And he gets it back. You can't make it up. Bro, I'm going to break some. I can literally. I'm going to make some. We got the moments. Man, let's miss the whole blue on the mirror. I'm not leaving the paint. They can't shoot. Yo, stop leaving me open, Davis. That's disrespect from Davis. D-up. I swear, if you help it, it's over for you. I got him. I got him. He's going to run out of balance. Davis is literally right now, Dick eating, taking up whole shots. Oh my God. Oh, man. For what it's worth, the rent to court is a decent idea. I don't like the fact that we have to pay VC. It seems like it's fairly glitchy. It has some interesting concepts, like the fact that we can dee each other up. We can flip courts and go to the other side. It's interesting. It almost feels like an improved my court experience, but with some of the same problems the my court used to have. Like the camera on the 2s, 3s, 4s, plus. Like the camera shouldn't be so f***ing stuffed. We've been talking about that for so long.  It is also a little frustrating that this isn't the second floor of the Gatorade facility, so you have to hear bad music before you come up here. Then you have to throw on headphones and hear bad music when he takes the headphones off on the staircase to come up here. Then you have headphones again just to stop hearing bad music. Besides the point though, Davis is cooking everybody with his curry dribbles. He's going to drive undoubtedly. Oh, there you go. He's going to get this one though. That builder is ridiculous driving. Insane. Yo Prince, where are you going? I don't know. I'm lost. I believe everyone's links in the description man. Some videos on the screen right now. If you haven't already subscribed to the channel, please.