 Hello and welcome to the Drum History podcast. I'm your host Bart Van Der Zee and today I'm joined by Mr. Drum Archive himself, Andy Yule. Andy, welcome to the podcast. But it's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Yes. You are one of those guys where forever you just kind of see Drum Archive, which we'll explain what it is in a second, but and you just kind of forget, oh, there's a person behind this, like there's a man behind this. Before we start and get into the history, maybe could you explain for someone who doesn't know what Drum Archive is? So Drum Archive, I think is a is a really simple idea. It is simply a collection of vintage drum catalogs. There is no particular definition of vintage. And actually, there's no particular definition of drum. There's all sorts of things on there. But it's just a reference source, which people can use however they wish. Yeah, very, very well put, because, you know, you find all kinds of things. And I've actually found on there that it's always surprising. Like there's always like a little hidden something here there that maybe I didn't, you know, see before. And it does get updated, but it's not like it's getting updated daily, but still you can click around and and find things. I'll add on top of that. Basically, if you go to drumarchive.com, which everyone can do right now, and you'll see that it's just a bunch of brands, you'll see the the the logo of the brand, you click into that. Then you get various years and kind of the cover of the the catalogs. So, Andy, let's let's go back. And what got you into this this collecting of digital catalogs? Because I'm pretty sure you have collected physical catalogs as well. Just give us the whole story. So I was I was thinking about this over there how how I started the site. And we probably have to go back to about 1998, which is from here, the very early days of the internet. It was it was very different. We had no social media. We had no Facebook, Twitter, no Instagram. But in the late 90s, there was a place called Yahoo. And there was a thing on Yahoo called Yahoo groups and people used to get together and create groups. And it was very simple chat forums, very simple chat things. In the late 90s, I was very much into Vistalite drums. I loved the whole acrylic thing, the see-through drums. I had a real connection back to my youth, seeing those on on the music shows here in in England. And I got involved with a Vistalite group on on on Yahoo. And I also had an interest, a professional interest in the internet and websites. And I started off by setting up a website devoted to the Vistalite drums. And that was called Vistalites.com. And I spent a lot of time doing that. I had lots of pictures of the kids. I had the history of the kids. And as a part of that, I started to collect the catalogs. Because obviously, you know, we can all collect drums up to a point, but they're big, they're expensive. And actually, the idea is that you can get together the whole story of the line of drums. And of course, it was before the re-release of Vistalites, because that happened around 2000, I think. So at that point, Vistalites was a story. There was a beginning, a middle and an end. And it was a defined period. And so with a house full of drums and no more space, I started to collect the catalogs and the adverts for Vistalites. And I scanned them in and they all went on onto the website. And that was really interesting. And I had a lot of fun, you know, going through the catalogs, looking at the material and piecing together the history of the line. And as you say, there is something about how times changed. There's something about how styles and fashions within drum kits changed, even just within the sort of period of the Vistalites, 72 to 80. You know, we had the emergence of bigger drum kits, we had the emergence of stronger hardware and so on. And so that was good. I then kind of did the same thing with a French brand called Asper. And I set up a site called AsperDrums.com. The Asper company has actually restarted and they now have the domain and they run that site. But again, I had some drums and that's okay. But then I started to collect the catalogs and pieced together the whole story of it. And I started to get really interested in the catalogs. And as you say, you can see so much about how styles changed. There's something about the evolution of the modern drum kit. And all of the fashions and periods. And you know, we have big kits and then we have concert tons and we have power tons and all that stuff. And I ended up with a whole load of catalogs. I noticed on eBay there were people selling CDs of scans of catalogs. And these were quite expensive. And I thought, you know what, this isn't really in the spirit of the internet. Because of course, in the late 90s and the early 2000s, you know, the internet was quite a big idea about how we can come together and share stuff and do things for good. So I thought, you know what, I'm going to scan these catalogs and I'm just going to put them online for people to share and to share in this stuff. So as a result of that, I put together, I got the domain, drumarchive.com. It was May 2001, I think I first registered the domain. And I bashed out some very simple HTML and actually it hasn't changed. The design hasn't changed. It's really basic code that's driving the site. But what else would it need to be? You know what I mean? It is what it is. Yeah. And you know, I thought, does it need a chat forum? No, it doesn't. Does it need interactivity? No, it doesn't. It's just like a shelf stacked with catalogs and that's all it is. It's a shelf stacked with catalogs. A load of my friends here in the UK got involved because in those days, sort of, you know, 2001 when I first started, it's kind of hard to believe now but bandwidth was quite expensive. Internet storage was quite expensive. So we ended up actually setting up the archive with a lot of the files hosted on other people's servers because in those days it was pushing the limits of what we could do on one hosting contract. So there was a whole group of us in the UK who could have contributed to this. And then it started to grow and people started to send material in and they kind of got the idea. It's not a complicated idea. It's quite simple. Just scan your stuff, send it in and we share it. So that's kind of it. Not a lot happens on the site nowadays. And if you look at the site, you know, there hasn't been an update for a long time but it's there. It's still getting good traffic. People are still using it. And I hope that people are finding it useful. I mean, it to me is, it has been brought up on the podcast so often. You know, I'm hoping people will listen to that and then go and check it out over the past couple of years of me doing this. It is just such an incredible resource. And like you said, it's a shelf. I've never really thought about it like that where it's not, it doesn't need to be anything too flashy because honestly then sometimes that can be a little too much clicking to get around, which it is very straightforward. I even though I like because if you look at it, you've got the brand, the logo, but you've also got a little tiny flag next to it. So you can see the country, which I find very helpful. So you, you have built a community of people. And I like how you give credit on your site to everyone who has contributed, which I'm sure you've made some good friends and you've become a part of the community. Yeah. And, and, you know, but that's actually what I love about drums and drumming, especially is that sense of community. I don't think you get the same thing with guitarists and bass players. There has always been a real strong community. There's obviously something about the drum shows, go into, you know, meet up and be a part of that and share stories and share experiences. But yeah, you know, why, why, why, why would you not make it a community thing? Because we're not in competition with each other. And there's so many, so many stories to tell and to share and so much information to share. And you mentioned the brands. I mean, it's really interesting. The brands have sometimes been quite difficult because there's a number of places where companies have produced drums under many different brands. So, like, you know, like Miyazi in, in, in Italy, who produced High Percussion and Wooding and Hollywood. Here in the UK, Premiere produced Olympic and Beverly and Hammer and so on. So, you know, there's, there's quite a few head scratching moments where we say, actually, you know, where do we put this? How do we do this? Yeah, it's fascinating. I love it. Yeah. And that's the one that example in particular is very interesting with the Miyazi Hollywood because it's there's not very much information. And it's actually hard to find like an expert on these brands who would come on and talk about it. And if you do, I run into the problem a lot of they don't speak English and they're not comfortable with coming on. I run into that problem with Trixon where because there's sometimes where people, they do and I'm sure they'd be perfectly fine, but it is a little bit daunting and scary to come on a podcast that is based in America where people are speaking English and it's not your, your first language, which of course we would figure it out. But yeah, I mean, do you ever run into any, I'm sure you I would hope you don't, but do you ever run into any legal things where companies are saying, please don't do this. It's copyright or anything like that. So I've never had problems with the legal thing. As I mentioned, I started with Vistalites. And when I first registered the domain for Vistalites.com, obviously at that point Ludwig weren't producing Vistalites, but I assume they still had the trademark. They still owned the name. There was also a company producing little lights that go on bicycles that were called the Vistalite. So there was another thing called Vistalite. That's why I registered the domain and I thought, you know, what of it? Something might happen, something like that. I never had any problems. I bumped into Jim Catalano at the Chicago show in the early 2000s and we had a good chat about Vistalites.com. By that point, they had relaunched the Vistalite line. And there was never any problem, any threat, any concern. And in fact, you know, when I closed that site down, it just felt like the right thing to do to gift the domain back to them because it's their name, it's not my name and I had no claim. But I think as long as you are respectful and as long as you are not obviously, you know, trying to get some money out of it or do, you know, do on the back of their brand, I think the drum companies are probably quite happy with the idea that somebody is curating and celebrating their heritage, especially around the 2000s when a lot of the drum fashion became focused on heritage and looking back to the past and capturing that. Obviously, there was the Vistalite look relaunch, but a lot of the other companies got very big into that heritage thing. So actually having somebody there who's independently curating and celebrating the heritage, I would like to think they're quite happy with it. There's never been any problems, but you are right. They own the copyrights. And if anyone was to create any problems then, yeah, I couldn't fight it if they were inclined to do so. Not that they should or would, but I mean, we are a... I've learned as I've kind of gotten more into the community of like, it's smaller than you would think because we kind of, you know, you meet the people and these people at the drum companies are fans of drums. They probably love your website. I mean, just even not only looking at their own brand of drums on there, but other companies because at the core of it were all nerds who like drum stuff. I mean, and it's just all very positive. I guess I would be in the same boat too, though, in a similar way of doing episodes on Gretch and Ludwig and using the name Gretch and Ludwig and all this stuff and DW and Rogers. But, you know, it's all just to promote. It's a... I'm not going to... People listen to this and they may maybe go, oh, let me look at... Let me look into fives. I have your website up here. Let me look at fives. Let me look at Heyman. Let me look at this. It just kind of leads to... I mean, what's the harm? You know what I mean? It's all very... It's educational. It kind of has that caveat of like, this is an educational website. Yeah, yeah. And I think it might be different if I was making money out of it. Yeah. But the reality is I pay a bit of money every year for the hosting and I put a bit of time into the site. But, you know, I'm not... I'm not earning out of it. So why would any drum company come back and give me a hard time, really? I don't think anyone would care. I mean, but it's safer not to. I'm sure you have a reason not to. But you know how, obviously, through Google or whatever, you can add that little bar at the top with a banner ad where you get a little income. But I'm sure you're doing fine. And that would be not that... What's the point, I guess? Yeah, there's no point. And actually the simplicity of the site, just a banner ad would just mess it up, really. I just want... No, but seriously. You're right. I like that you care enough to not do that. And you would rather have a nice, clean, beautiful website as opposed to something that has like, you know, an ad for someone who, if you were just Googling sneakers, you're going to get sneaker ads on your website. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Have there been any that you think are your like, you know, I've been looking for this forever. You're some holy grail moments for you where you go, oh, I found it. You know, I found my Camco ads or Brady or whoever, Beverly. I'm in the B section on your website right now. Where, oh boy, I found it, you know? So in the early days when it all started off, I guess the Vistalight Tivoli was, you know, the brochure, because that was such an iconic drum kit, obviously, that was the thing that kind of broke the Vistalight line in the end because the lights kept failing. But that was quite special. On a personal level, the catalogue that has always got me excited was actually the first catalogue I've ever got, which was the 1980 Premier catalogue. And it is the catalogue with the silver resonator on the front cover. It has the four rack toms and the two floor toms. As a 12-year-old just starting out to play the drums in 1981, that catalogue absolutely rocked my world. It was the days of concert toms. It was the days of big kits. And I just spent hours and hours and hours looking at that catalogue and I wanted every kit in that catalogue and it was such an emotional connection for me. So when I was able to get a copy of that catalogue on eBay a number of years later, that was a very special moment. But that has nothing to do with the value of the drums or any rarity, to be honest. That's just what floats my boat. Yeah, which I quickly found it because of the way you have it lined up with. You find the brand, you find the year and there it is and it's a very cool, I mean, that is a drum set that a kid, that's the drum set that makes you want to play because the way it's lit and just, I love the layout of these old catalogs. Have you as a fan of these catalogs done much research into the, I don't know, the history kind of of the creation of catalogs and that side of things because they're, you know, you could say, yeah, a photographer shoots a picture, they do the layout, they release it, but I feel like there's a little bit more information there on all these companies creating catalogs, you know? Yeah, I mean, I haven't researched the process but I'll tell you, by just looking at the catalogs and looking at them over time and you sort of touched on this in the introduction, there is something about the extent to which they reflect the era. So, you know, the premiere catalog from around 1967 features a guy behind a drum kit with a lady in a cocktail dress just kind of draped over it. You'd never get away with that today. Yeah, that would be deemed so inappropriate and I think it's really interesting how drum companies have changed and probably actually become a lot more sophisticated in terms of how they market their product. So, in the 1960s, your snare drum options would have been metal or wood. No drum company would go out to market today advertising their drums as metal or wood. And for wood, obviously it would be maple or birch and how many plies and what bearing edges and it's become so scientific nowadays. Yes. And, you know, the values and the way that companies pitch and promote and describe their product has changed enormously over the years. And yes, there's a fashion thing. You know, the 80s were very light and day glow. The 70s, it was all about big hardware and concert toms. So, you know, you can see all of these trends, all of these trends. It's fascinating. It is. It's such a geek, I love it. No, but it's like, it just never ends. It's so much more to look into. And the 90s, I feel like you see more of the like, you would see the, and I'm referring basically to some like Sabian ads and things, but you'd see the like Chad Smith or the more of the visual of like, here's the drummer and they're standing there holding their snare and they've got long hair and a bandana and it's very, but going back to how you said with the premiere ad where there's, you know, the woman who's kind of got her hair, she's holding her hair. There was a lot of that with Rogers and things like that where it was, you know, it would be very sexualized where, and it would be the man and kind of a tuxedo and the woman Trixon had some ads like that, which were, those are especially cool, colorful ads, the old Trixon ones, but it's a different time. I don't think anyone looks at it now and goes, you know, ooh, we don't like that. It's just, you look at it and it's, I heard someone say once about movies when I was in school, they were talking, it was like a film class and they were talking about how a movie good or bad, no matter if it's the worst movie in the world, it gives you a snapshot into that time, be it if it's an example of the way, you know, the quality of the camera, if it's the cars in the background, if it's anything. And I think that translates over to this where it lets you see, you know, if it's the most interesting ad in the world or not, it just lets you see kind of what was happening at that time, you know, what the style of clothing people were wearing. I think you can get more out of it than just kind of looking at it and go, okay, wood snare, metal snare. It just lets you see, oh, they like to use the stripes a lot in this year or all that good stuff. And I feel like there was probably competition between brands, you know, like to have the better catalog at the time. Oh, I'm sure there was because of course in those days, and this is all pre-internet, the catalog was, I guess, the primary tool for marketing and positioning the product on the marketplace. So it was hugely important to the companies back then that they produced a really good catalog because that spoke, obviously that spoke about the specification and the options and all that kind of technical stuff, but actually that spoke so much more about the presentation and the value and the style and all of that stuff, which is again, all about that emotional connection. And that's what drives people to make that purchasing decision, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think of being a kid and being on drum websites and just looking at it, because I came up, I was born in 90, so kind of coming up in, you know, I'd be 10 and around 2000 and it would be like, you know, that time or the internet, you know, you got your dial-up internet and you're looking at brands, you're on Ludwig.com or whatever, DW's website. And really physically have, I mean, you would have catalogs at that point in time, but it was just kind of a different, it wasn't the same. The question would be, though, how do you, how would young drummers, old drummers, famous drummers, anyone receive the catalog? Would it typically be a stack of them at a shop and you would grab one when you're there or would it be mail or you order one? How would that work? Yeah. So it was largely through the dealer network. I mean, that's how I got that 1980 premiere catalog. I went to the local drum shop. They were a premiere dealer. I had that in my hand. That was special. So it was through the dealer network. Yes, they were doing mail order for the catalogs, music shows, music fairs, music events. But I think it was mostly through the dealer network. And that, I think, in a way, you know, that made it very localized because you kind of had to be in the locale of a dealer to have access to this material in those days. It obviously is completely different now with the internet. But, you know, you kind of have to have that locality, that connection with the brand. The internet has completely changed everything. And as you say, we can dial up any website now, go and look at the product. And in a sense, that's great. Because you can have, you know, the different websites open on your screen at the same time and you can do a direct comparison and all that. But there is a downside to this because we don't, with the websites, we don't capture the moment in time. Yes. And in 20 years time when today's Pearl or Tama or Yamaha kits are the vintage, I think it's going to be quite difficult to go back and capture that moment in time in quite the same way that we can with the physical catalog. Because the physical catalogs will print if they were done and that's it. It's frozen in time. And I think we've kind of lost that with the internet. Yeah. And it's almost like a you can't quite go back or you can't quite go home sort of thing where like if they made catalogs now it would be sort of for the sake of like a throwback or whatever because at that point it was what you had. It is like albums. Like now it's neat to hold it and it's awesome to have a big album. But at that point it was all you had where when you might listen to an album but then in five minutes you're going to go listen to Spotify or whatever because it's easier. So it is, that is an interesting point where I'm sure that I guess leads to another question of do brands still I've seen I know they have pamphlets you get them at the drum shows I've got some cool ones that I've gotten but is it still in vogue for brands to have catalogs and materials that are widespread or is it more of a you know you might get it at a trade show kind of thing. I get the sense certainly here in England I get the sense that there's very little being printed now. I haven't seen a physical catalog for many years to be honest. And actually if I was on the market to buy a new kit today I would want to go to the website because it's absolutely current if it's on the website now it's absolutely current. This is why we do the internet I guess. I'm not aware of anyone producing catalogs in any quantity or any significance now. As you click through drumarchive.com there's differences of like what you'll refer to as like a flyer or a catalog or things like that or like it might be like a pamphlet or something which they still do I mean it shows there still are like things that you can physically hold but I don't think they're being produced every year or bi-annually with substantial amount of gear and pictures it might be more of like a reference at drum shows but do you know when would be the it's hard to say when the end of it was because it's still it's probably not really really over but it maybe 90s does that seem fair to say that it was kind of the end of the catalog I think it's probably around the 2000s I think in the 90s because it's essentially been put out by the rise of the internet and the extent to which internet access is now ubiquitous so it's probably around the 2000s and obviously the big drum company's now put a lot of time and effort into their websites and obviously you can do things on a website you can have video on a website you can have audio clips on a website it is genuinely a multimedia experience which you obviously don't get with your shiny glossy catalog but I'm a bit old school I just like to hold it yeah but again it's with the power of the internet you can zoom in and digitally look at it and enhance it which is really neat one thing too as I look at your website and I just see all the different flags it's like it really crosses borders these catalogs of like the layout is really pretty similar from I'm looking there's Hoshino in Japan there's High Percussion in Italy, there's Heyman in England there's Honour in Germany Dandy in Australia I mean but if you click into them they're pretty similar it's like they're all kind of following a format which really levels the playing field across the globe for drummers of what was presented to them absolutely there is a very clear format that they all followed you'd start off with a page or two of your top endorsers you'd then have your kits and you'd start off with your most desirable kits and then kind of work down the range to maybe your entry level kits then you have hardware snare drums, bass drum pedals, accessories and so on there was some interesting stuff in the 70s and 80s when many of the catalogs included things like cymbals so I guess in those days the cymbal companies would have local distribution deals with the drum companies so I have a Pearl catalog from Japan which has I think Pistey cymbals listed and so on that was quite I think also drumheads they list Remo or Evans drumheads but there is I think pretty much a formula Ludwig did things a little differently Ludwig started off not with the endorsers, Ludwig started off with the company and so if you look at something like the 1980 Ludwig catalog you'd have Bill Ludwig II and Bill Ludwig III on that second page and then you would have the senior management and the sales team listed over a couple of pages and that sense actually that Ludwig still was a family thing company in the togetherness thing that was quite unusual I like that, I do really like that it says you know these are the people behind your drums I ended up when I was collecting Vistalites I ended up buying a parade snare drum that had the name Leo Palace stenciled on the case and I worked out that he actually was one of the sales reps for Ludwig and I found his picture in the catalog and I made that connection with it and it was great now I think of like from doing the show I've kind of met a lot of these people but I think of Ludwig and you think of Jim Catalano and Uli Salazar if you get involved a little bit more than just kind of watching from the outside you do learn who these people are and it's similar nowadays because you find them on Facebook and stuff it's very similar and I'm on the Ludwig page right now of your site it's interesting Ludwig especially because it gets kind of I'm sure you maybe had to have a moment of where do I put this with brands where it becomes WFL it becomes Leedy and Ludwig and it goes well what does this go in Leedy or does this go in Ludwig or where does this one go it must have you must have had to think about it a little bit yeah I did and I kind of broke my own rules as well because I have created a section specifically for Vistalite which is obviously not a company it was a brand that Ludwig did but because of the history of the site and because it actually all started with the Vistalite catalogs I've ended up with with a whole little section to devoted to the Vistalites but yeah the company histories are really sometimes quite challenging and sometimes someone will send in a catalogue from a brand I've never heard of and I think well you know how what do I do with this how do I find this yeah well that's a great point because these brands I mean really and what came to mind first when you said that from looking on here was brands like Orange where we think of like Orange Amps who are still very popular but Orange Drums you know it looks like that was 1975 to like 80 and those are really cool those are also like 12 year olds drooling over their catalogue kind of covers with big you know big drums and stuff like that but maybe it just would have disappeared you know I'm sure people would have remembered but a generation later and it makes you think what else there's got to be a couple brands that are just lost you know absolutely and so the Orange Drums were made by Capell and so when the Orange material came in I thought do I put this with the Capell stuff or do I do I give it its own page and I figured yeah give it its own page it was a brand it was marketed in its own right yeah but yeah there's all sorts of quirks and anomalies around this there is and hearing you talk about it you really it really lets you look at this at a deeper level because I just clicked on Capell and you go oh yeah that's basically the same cover as Orange with a different drum set it's like the graphic designer of the day just kind of went okay Capell logo goes here alright Orange logo goes here it's really similar I mean these are very very interesting another question I have for you would be about early catalogs it seemed like it was somewhat common and I've heard about this on the show where something was in the catalog but no one has physically ever seen that drum like like maybe it was a prototype maybe they just didn't make it have you any experience kind of seeing that and learning about that I've I've never seen anything in a catalog that I didn't think was made I have seen various things appear in real life that never appeared in the catalogs that's interesting the other way yeah the other way around and I mean it may maybe not not huge differences but I guess you know for example on a snare drum a particular combination of lugs and strainer or particular shell size or something that never made it into the catalog and yet these things these things appear on the forums on the internet and there's quite a lot of that but I guess a lot of that is due to the fact that there was a cycle of production for these catalogs it might have been annual it might have been you know less frequent than that but of course I guess there was continual production changes for the company so there's there's all sorts of drums out there that weren't in the catalogs I've never come across a thing in a catalog I must admit and I'm sure there are many experts out there who will know more about that than I do yeah and I think I'm just referring to people who would say like you know oh this rap was advertised or this size or this configuration like you said and there are the master collectors who have a single drum and they say I've never been able to find that which maybe means they made ten of them or something but it's also interesting too because from my experience looking at these early early catalogs will have a lot of you know you go back to the trap drummer stuff where there was like bird whistles and all this stuff and and ratchets and things like that where it was a lot of very detailed a lot of skews a lot of items in there which it seems like over the years it kind of got pared down a little bit to be less line items and prices and more about the visual in the picture yeah and I think and it's interesting I think there was definitely a moment when the catalog and the price list separated and I think that was probably quite a significant moment and obviously you know as the marketing developed and they moved into other markets to other territories I guess you know you would want to do that but yeah I mean the scale of stuff some of the very old stuff I guess it reflects the extent to which the role of the drummer has changed and actually what it means to be a drummer now as opposed to what it meant to be in a drummer in you know maybe the 1940s or 1950s it was a very different world back then yeah it almost seems more like catalogs in the 70s 80s 90s became more about trying to grab people's attention and get people really interested in the drums from a flashy cover versus earlier you know pre 1960 and all and before that it was almost more like a you know for the industry I need a new snare okay number whatever here's the price yeah yeah and so it was it was all about the technical specification yes it was all about the size the type of rims the heads whatever it was it was simply about the specification but you're right it's now I guess the selling the marketing needs to connect with people on a very different level and I guess that probably reflects how marketing has changed more generally this is not just about drums it's the way everything is marketed now we're all buying into a lifestyle we don't buy products we buy a lifestyle and I guess that applies to drums as much as it does to anything I think you're right and just to back up and you said about the price list how it's separated because on your site you there are literal like someone asked me one time hey do you know what this drum is and do you know how much it would have cost of course I immediately go to drumarchive.com and a lot of times though you would find a price list where you'd have to find the drum because you know and you know I don't want to say it's annoying but it would sort of be back in the day like alright well how much does the thing cost if you look on a menu if there's no price and it's like market price or something it's like well what is the price just tell me where you'd have to refer to another pamphlet or something like that you know but I guess I guess that's the thing about you know if you were picking up your catalog at your local dealer you then kind of want you want to start that conversation about the price and actually maybe not putting the price in the catalog forces the customer to speak to the dealer and actually strike that conversation up so maybe it was quite a powerful thing to take the prices out of the catalogs So there's some with every category in the world there's some dark things that I think it's good to avoid but also maybe just kind of touch on because you know you want to repeat history but have you come across any controversial things where you said I don't want to put that up I haven't I haven't put in the thing that I felt inappropriate to go up I've never censored anything and I think there was actually something about you know the going back to the ideal of this it is a reference source and I think if it is to be true to its mission as being a reference source we sometimes have to be prepared to put stuff up or deal with stuff that we might not be comfortable with nowadays and I think you know as long as we're doing that sensitively and you know Drama Archive Pass is no judgment on anything it's a bookshelf so if it's there that's what was done in the day and you can put your own interpretation on that So it's really interesting I think sometimes too it's kind of a game to kind of click through the website with these very very old companies and see try and find what the earliest ones are like Nokes and Nikolai and things like that and these brands where it's in the 20s and it's kind of like you know how early can you find with these and I think if you step back from the individual companies and look at the site as a whole what you have here is a record of the evolution of our instruments yes because you can see how it has changed the things that have the developments that have happened over the years the things that they tried and weren't successful and there's lots of oddities and there's lots of things that people tried at different times the Pearl Extender range where they put the bigger lugs on to put the bigger heads on the shelves and all sorts of strange things like that that came and went but step back from it all and you actually get a real sense I think for how the instrument has evolved over the last century and perhaps that's the best thing about it it's neat too because people might look at this and just say what is that I've never seen that before there's a lot of oddities and things like that and even then you have like Pete Engelhardt metal percussion where truly works of art I mean there are some things that you really wouldn't see anywhere else and I just think it's a great resource that I have been on this website so many times and to this day looking now to the side while we're doing this to kind of keep up with it I'm just like oh my god I haven't seen that one before and it's interesting because to know that you have not been updating it that much it's not like I'm missing things daily where oh you know Andy updated something new it's just the sheer amount of information on there it's just such a good resource alright Andy well this has just been awesome usually at the end I say is there anything people want to promote drumarchive.com I mean I think that's anywhere else you want to direct people to see what you've got going on yeah no just visit the site spend time there look learn and if you come across something that we haven't got please send it in love it that's so cool it's like community based it's like peer to peer way early version of that so Andy has been kind enough he's going to hang out for a Patreon bonus episode and he shared some really cool information with me so what we're going to talk about is I didn't know this and I still don't know the answer he's going to tell me in a minute but Vistalites originally had a different name and that appeared in the catalog and Andy's kind of teased it a little bit to say you know you got to join Patreon to find out so if you're interested in finding out from someone like Andy who's very very interested in Vistalites you can join Patreon go to drumhistorypodcast.com there's a Patreon button $2 a month gets you the bonus episodes and there's a couple tiers up from that so Andy it's just been awesome to get to meet you and put a face behind the website that I visit I would say probably 3 or 4 times a week I was on it last night unrelated to just us doing this interview I was looking up things about Frank Wolf drums for a chick web episode that will be out before this but what else would I go it would you've taken out so much of the hunt and the guesswork in this and I think all of us drum nerds owe you a big thank you for doing what you've done I appreciate it that's really kind of you to say so thanks Bart and it's been great to meet you and I've really enjoyed chatting about the site thank you