 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 I said, you know, I used to sit and go through the magazine and play all the charts, you know, the best I could when I was a kid and you always dream as a kid, oh man, someday I'm going to be a drummer and a big band. They're, you know, a rock band and I'm going to be a modern drummer maxing. And then, you know, as you get to hit college and the real world happens, you put that out of your mind pretty quickly, you know, as a regular drummer. 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. But you can go on and read part of it, you know, part of it's on there and so forth. 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. And I know you know Jim and you guys are buddies like all of us are. Yeah. 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. So I basically have, there's a great photo that's circulating around the internet of a Leedy artist painting heads. 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 somebody, you know, they hired artists to sit there and duplicate these 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. I mean, you don't play this side. 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? The cabin on fire and the forest or whatever. 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. It's like, do you really want that, someone's house burning down on the front of your drum? 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. So I just say, hey, look, you know, the regular drums, they just have, you know, weather king has them. 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. These old 1920s and 40s, like a Chinese Tom, especially the big ones, I mean, they sound as good as any floor Tom that you're going to play today. 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? Yeah, because I think, I think it's all of that, especially like with a radio king, that's a solid maple shell, just like with old guitars and old violins, you know, they're taking on eight, you know, years of just mellowing out and you know, what sounds like a radio king today? Nothing, nothing, you know? What sounds like a slinger, a black beater or a Ludwig black beater? 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. And, you know, you didn't ride on a cymbal. 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. You rode on those, but you cupped them with your hand and just made like a splash effect. Yeah. So Gene came along and then he, he just put the drums out in front of the audience, you know, and made it a solo instrument. And I mean, so much innovation came so fast. Really, with him, yeah. Because even, even Chick Webb, Chick Webb before that was still using tempo blocks, a trap table, you know, and he was, you know, he had a ride cymbal, but he was still playing all those, all the traps along with that. 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. Don't have, you know, people are going to get excited. 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. But, you know, on the, on the sets, we, we display all the little splash symbols and all kinds of, you know, hi-hat symbols and the whole trends, you know, the, the whole evolution of the hi-hat. 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. That's the, I usually end my tour with that and it sounds just like a train starting out and then going down the track and there's a train whistle that I put in my mouth and blow the whistle and then there's a train bell thing as it's coming into the station. 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 then with the metal, you hit, oh, it's loud too. Yeah. 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. It's a, it's a box with a bunch of springs inside and there's a lever with a, an angled piece of iron in there and you're rubbing it across these springs and you, you know, you also have to know what you're doing. 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. So it's like doing, you know, a roll from, you know, that that that and all the way down to press rolling all the way back out. 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? We all got to do our part to keep the history alive and you, you as well are all, you guys are all doing a great job. 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. And then as you go down that way in the main hall, there's a glass showcase filled with a sling on black beauty snare drum leather black beauty engraved snare drums. 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. I mean, you do auctions and stuff, but like let's just stay on the trophy again, which again was from a very famous competition that would be like it wasn't run by Gene Krupa, right? 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. It's not like a black beauty snare where it's like, you know, I mean, where does one find a trophy like that? 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. You know, like Jim Messina sold off his collection a couple of years ago. 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. They're hard to ship, you know, all the drum guys will tell you that. 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. I guess, you know. Yeah. 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. I mean, you've got to kind of have a keen eye which you obviously do. 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. So I bought it and I kept it for a little while and then I said, I popped it on eBay and I sold it and it, you know, I broke good money but as soon as I put it in the box to ship it I stopped myself and I said, what am I doing? 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. That was my first painted head trap kit I ever bought and then I didn't buy anything for quite a long time after that, but you know, I go, you go through times where you buy a lot and then you don't and then, you know, so I did that for a while. 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? You know, so just, you know, call me, email me, message me on Facebook. 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. Yeah, but it's different than like if you go and again, you have a wide, you know, passion for a bunch of things with your your eye as a collector. But like, if you go to a museum, you might not people might not love certain eras of art or there's, you know, certain kind of glasswork. I feel like drums are just like really cool to everyone. And it's just such an ancient instrument and it has some it's jazz. 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. And I said, what do you call me that for? 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. I'll bring it in and drop it off and, you know, whatever. 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. You know, it goes off the radar. 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. So you paid all this money and you're like weighing 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. They probably had fires or they just threw them out back in the 20s, you know, 30s. 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. They recorded this black beauty probably the first time it's ever been a black beauty has ever been recorded maybe and they turn this place into a recording studio. 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. So they they recorded, you know, basically recorded eight pieces and then we did I think four other pieces and it's out on a CD. 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. I mean, he's a he's a you know, he played with Journey. 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. I mean, it was like, you know, a dream come true. 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. So he calls me two days later and he goes, would you mind if I came and recorded some of your old drums, you know, recorded some pieces on your drum tonight? 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 just because I'm a crazy collector, put all this stuff out and put it together. 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. Who's going to come now that didn't know about, you know, because my only presence is really on Facebook and Instagram and a little bit, you know, so now that it's got national, you know, in the spotlight. 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. You know, you know, Alan 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.