 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I am honored to be joined by Earl Bennett to talk about the history of drum magazines. Earl, welcome to the podcast Welcome Bart. Thanks for having me Thank you This is a cool one man. It's so it's it's an interesting topic Which I'm excited to get into but before we do that before I forget I want to mention a friend of the show and many Drum, you know nuts all over My friend everyone's friend mr. Mark Cooper has been kind of out of the The limelight for a little bit with his Cooper's vintage drums website. It went down He had some health issues, but Mark Cooper is back and you guys can check out his website vintage drum history Com there's a ton of good stuff there. Mark was on the Slingerland history Which was in the first like 10 or 15 episodes extremely knowledgeable guy Is just super cool. I'm glad he's feeling better and he his knowledge is back up on the internet So check out vintage drum history comm to see what he's doing there. So anyway, Earl back to you This is a neat one you have a You've made a very cool YouTube video that kind of started this whole thing That was the history of drum magazines 1970s to 2022 and it goes through Your history with these magazines along with pretty much And as far as I can tell most of the magazines if not all of the magazines in America some overseas and You have great examples in that YouTube video. I'll link to in the description But today we are here though to talk about that and and learn more about it so without further ado, why don't we just jump in here and You can teach us what you know about the history of drum magazines. Well, great. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on Bart Sure, um, I Watched your show. I listen to your show faithfully. So thank you and I remember that Slingerland one That was a great great one. Very very knowledgeable guy show. I love Slingerland drums, and I think that's where Drum magazines came in for me, you know, when I was a kid I used to read catalogs and the first catalogs I had was at Ludwig Um drum catalog from 1975 with the Vista light kit and I bought a Vista light kit when I was a kid And then I picked up the Slingerland catalog. That's my favorite drummer Danny Serafin played Slingerland drums So drum catalogs led me to one day walking in the music store for my lesson in 1978 I was a senior in high school and there was an issue of modern drummer magazine on the on the tabletop and in doing that Basically what I I found was Tony Williams on there and I never heard of Tony Williams I said wow, what's this and they said this is a new magazine We we're starting to carry it you want to buy one it was two bucks So I bought one and it just started it and they came out quarterly at the time and it was the beginning of Me actually looking for drum magazines all the time whenever I would go in a music store It was drum magazines. That's what I wanted to know. That's what I wanted to find. I was constantly doing that So that was that's really how it started and that's really where it went for me, right? That's awesome Well, and so modern drummer though, and I'm referring back to your video there that was this you got the second Year of it, correct. It didn't come out a year prior the actual magazine started one year before and like is it 77? It started in 1977 the first issue had Buddy Rich on the cover And then it went from there I think Ron Spagnardi who was the editor and publisher of modern drummer was a big jazz drummer guy You know what I mean? So he and Buddy was his guy And he put Buddy on the first issue and that was that was really cool But I don't think that distribution at that point. They were trying to get distribution And matter of fact, I used to get a subscription to Downbeat magazine My grandmother got me a subscription to Downbeat and in the back of Downbeat They were talking about this magazine one of the issues I had and I didn't see it You know is in the ad section in the very back You know if you want a drummer magazine it was modern drumming because I think there was a guitar player magazine That was one of the ones that came in the 70s And I think guitar player had a couple other magazines. They eventually had a bass player and a keyboard player and keyboard came out I saw an interview with Robert Lam the drummer of the keyboardist for Chicago in 1979 and I have that issue of keyboard So they were around right around the same time modern drummer came out They started to bring in other instruments, but guitar player was the first solo instrument You know magazine sure that I could tell it goes way back to like 71 72 73 So they were GPI Publications and they weren't doing drums. So Ron Spagnardi jumped in and said yeah, let's do this and he did it It was it was so such a small magazine I mean they really didn't have readership yet So it took them a couple three or four years to get from quarterly to six times a year To eventually going every month. I think that started like 1982 ish somewhere around there. I was in college at the time. It seems very obvious To say this but like it was a lot different than it is now where magazines Absolutely struggle to exist which we will talk about later down the timeline, but this that it was Such a bigger deal and it was more like that's your your gateway to your favorite drummers is to get your magazine Where I mean I was born in 90 and I remember as a kid in I would say starting in probably 2000 2000 and on for many years. I got every year at Christmas. It was a subscription to modern drummer things changed But I love that like, you know to know that journey for them of like Because you to be a magazine you have to get sponsors. You have to do the interviews It's a lot of work and you're probably not making a lot of money So it makes sense they had to kind of ramp up over time to get there. Yeah And I think that magazine Journalism was starting to become bigger and bigger and it was starting to get niches You know, this is before cable had niches, but right around the same time I worked in the cable industry for years. So The cable television industry and right around 1981 was when you had MTV show up And that's when cable started to be now There's more than four television networks or three television networks actually there wasn't a fourth television network main At the time so I grew up with three TV channels and PBS and a couple independent channels Well, we were starting to see now Magazines were doing the same thing. They were diversifying just like TV channels would eventually diversify So you have specialty niches, you know So it wasn't just life magazine and time magazine and I think modern drummer was the beginning In that early wave of music magazines that were now for certain niches and drummers love catalogs drummers love looking at Pictures of drums. I know many drummers. I mean, that's all Instagram is today, right? I mean Instagram is nothing but drum You know looking at drummers, you know flipping their drummers and what drum kit they got and back then that was the only place You'd see a different kit was either have a drum catalog from a manufacturer or to have a magazine and to see what the new thing That was coming out was yeah, and I was all about the gear. I was always a gear head. I always I Mean I was the guy that in college they would come to can you fix my snare drum? Can you fix this? Can you fix that for me? What should I buy? What drum should I buy? Well, I was doing the research because I was reading all the magazines You know what I mean? I was reading them. I was getting as much information out of them as I possibly could I was learning about my favorite drummers this way what they were into what inspired them what influenced them because there was No podcast. There was no YouTube. There was no internet. There was no Google So this was where we got information and it was the beginning stages of it. So it's pretty cool Very cool. You're right exactly and I think You know it had to be a point where Gear Manufacturers would probably realize. Oh wait, this is a direct way to reach our audience which There's parallels there to podcasts and YouTube where oh wait, you know Giant music store. I'll say sweetwater because they've sponsored the show in the past But like I see sweetwater ads all the time on YouTube and it's like it's it's how you reach people now I mean, it's the same as Print ads in magazines, but I think it's changed. But anyway, let's all right. So what happens then after modern drummer Well, what happens is modern drummer starts to gain popularity and there's this other this magazine for drums and by about the mid 80s Some other drum magazines start to show up and the earliest one being drums and drumming magazine and a magazine called rhythm and I found them in the local music store that was in Red Bank, New Jersey a place called Jack's music They had a copy of rhythm magazine. I was like, wow, what's this? It's another one. Let's buy it So I bought it and then I saw drums and drumming and drums and drumming was done by the GPI publisher so it was a guitar player publication at first and drums and drumming at that time it was coming out. I think quarterly and then eventually it went to You know, bi-monthly and everything else just like they all did at one point and they all kind of came in and there was You know right there. It was the beginning of like lots of information I think I don't know when NAMM started because I've never been to a NAMM show I've always wanted to go but I think NAMM was starting to be like one of the features in these Magazines you would always see around January that the first NAMM show of the year You know would be there and they'd be doing it probably in April or May They'd put out who are the the new featured Equipment at the NAMM show so it's all that convergence of advertising drum manufacturers And now having a place to give it out to the professional musicians and the semi professional musicians and the amateurs and the kids And I think that's really what started to happen. So rhythm magazine was different. It came from the UK and the United States Matter of fact, it does have a UK base. I've gone back and looked a little bit. So some of the information in my original Discussion of it on YouTube. I got some clarity on some of these things and eventually it goes out of business It stops publishing. I think running a magazine is costly because you know print and color and You know paying for writers and all that kind of stuff. Yeah So that that's that's all part of it So rhythm lasted from like 1988. I dated to till about September of 1990. That was the last issue. I remember that drums and drumming started somewhere probably around the 85 86 ish somewhere in there at that point and then it lasted till probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1991 and that's when it Went under the interesting thing about drums and drumming is drums and drumming leads to another magazine called drum magazine And that's the one from California And that's where the editor from drums and drumming ends up starting that other magazine and drum is an interesting Discussion point to yeah. Well, let me ask then so Modern drummer drums and drumming rhythm. Was there any like differentiating factor between them? like I know drum was more of like a younger California side of things but Was there a big something that's Separated drums and drumming for modern drummer was one more jazzy than the other was one more rock, you know I think they were all going for the same guys, but you know, the rock musicians of the 80s were definitely Featured in all those magazines. They all went for the rock musicians modern drummer always had that more stately jazz drummer Kind of thing because Ron Spignardi was a big jazz drummer musician. He was a percussionist. He wasn't just a drummer I don't know if he did Broadway or whatever But knowing where he lived and the kind of musicians that lived up in North Jersey because I grew up in Jersey So I've got a Jersey background too and I went to college at Jersey City State College and my Teacher in college was a Broadway pit musician. So I kind of know that that scene up there Ron Spignardi really knew some of the guys in that scene because some of the early teaching Articles inside modern drummer were from guys like Roy Burns who was a jazz drummer. There was a guy named Danny Petillo I think his name was he was a show drummer. So I think that was the differentiator I think now we're in the middle 80s MTV and What you saw in rhythm magazine was like a Phil Collins was on the cover You were getting more of the big-name drummers were the first ones in of course the studio musicians were always guys You'd find in the drum magazines like Jeff Piccaro John Robinson Steve Gad Those were the guys and those are the guys that inspired me like seeing an article on Rick Murata and realized Oh, I know this guy. I've seen this guy playing with James Taylor. You know, I saw him on Sesame Street playing with James Taylor I was like, wow, this is that's that that's that guy He's the New York guy that plays a lot of all this stuff and I'm realizing his background I started buying his records and realizing what a great drummer He was you know modern drummer did that for me and then these other magazines started filling that that void You know and getting me more Exposure, yeah, and I do think there was a big change when the when it went to drum magazine in California drummers and the Punk drummers they got way more press in drum than they did in modern drum early on Early on modern drummer stayed with that stately Thing, you know that stately drummer the the drummers that are the working drummers and all that stuff You know, but like you have to cover both sides of it where You have to and you and your video said a lot of times, you know, this is for the boomers and this is for this but like you want You want the pop punk drummers and you the Travis Barker's to be on the cover and it's funny because you held one up And you were like Andrew Hurley on one like well, I don't know what happened to that guy He was a drummer in a fallout boy. So it's like these guys were you know, no schlubs by any means But it's just a different California California vibe to the whole magazine. Yeah, and he was a guy I never heard of you know, I mean and when I got it But when I found it when I was in California doing business and I found that magazine and the first magazines of drum I found were newspapers They look like newspapers You'd find him in music stores for free in a big pile And there was like all these back issues and I just grabbed like as many of the different ones as I can find and stuck them in my bag and Left, you know, it's like product literature, you know in the back in the day. I've got a pro catalog I got Trump magazine. Okay, you know, it was before they were, you know charging for it Because they were trying to get that. I think what happened was when drums and drumming ended This guy Andy who was running the the magazine time. I think it's named dorsher Door chucker or shucker. Sure dorsher he basically Wanted to keep it going and he used a lot of the same writers that were writing for drums and drumming started writing for drum And that's where he took off and he found his niche and he was actually Running right alongside a modern drummer. So you got to give them credit for where they were and what they were doing Yeah, he defined his own Style and I think that's the difference the modern drummer style was the long-form journalism style of longer articles so you had your established writers like Robin Flans and Bill Miller was a writer early on Bruce T. Widditt There was a whole bunch of these guys that wrote for the magazine back in the day and they were the ones that Wrote this long-form kind of journalism longer articles Drums started shortening the articles making them shorter more concise to the point more and it seemed like they were more Selling whatever that product was of the month that like the album that was the the drummer was pushing, you know Like well the drummer we just you just did an album. Let's talk about that album Let's talk about some cuts talk about your equipment number out, you know that kind of thing So you get more people in it too by that one by the way, you know, sure and there's There's no right or wrong and I know You had mentioned in your video that you are you love long-form journalism. You enjoy the long Articles I guess obviously everyone says people from like my generation have no attention span But I do I do see both sides of it where for me like If I can actually sit down and like take the time and read a long article, it's great But I also do like, you know crazy flashy colors of these, you know new drummers coming up and Little blurbs and it's just little bites that you can digest. I think there's room for both, you know Oh, yeah There and there was room for both at that point in time. Yeah matter of fact There was so much room in the drum magazine world that when Jonathan mover decided in 2007 I'm gonna start another magazine. There was still room for it, but this was unfortunately gonna be short-lived because Publishing in general was starting to lose something by the mid-2000s and Again, my wife was a journalist my wife wrote for modern drum. I have to say this this is part of what would brings me to this whole thing because She was writing for newspapers early on in our marriage. It was one of the ways we would make a little extra money I would work and do gigs and she would do gigs with me and she would write for newspapers and She queried modern drummer to write an article for modern drummer and that's how she started working for modern drummer And so I got a little bit more of the inside baseball Publishing thing from her because what she was going through and she was writing for other magazines like a magazine called contemporary Christian music CCM and She was one of the editors on that magazine for a while and they were at a Nashville and so I got to see publishing where it was going and by the end of You know the century so to speak I guess that's the end of that old. I'm really that old the end of the century Things were changing. Yeah, and when you got to the 2000s time magazine didn't know how to sell its magazine anymore You know, I mean and the New York Times didn't know we're how to how am I gonna sell online, you know And it's all about making money. I mean until they've got the web presence and everything else and you know We all saw this coming. I mean when we think about why magazines are no longer here anymore You really have to look at CDs. Remember CDs those things those little discs You know, I used to record to want to be on a CD to get my name on You'd have to burn your disc and then put it in your car when you get done recording and Yeah, I I did all that I mean because I've mixed albums and I've played on albums and stuff Yeah, I mean and there's nothing better than seeing your name on an album, you know But today I'm on all kinds of Spotify stuff in the last year, but nobody would know it You know, who's gonna know about it because there's no credits. Yeah, there's no credits Yeah, so the world changed but in 2013 they said we're going digital We're gonna get rid of CDs and if an artist puts out a CD it's for themselves or if they put it in an album It's a vanity thing now. It's like let's charge 40 bucks for a Record, you know a record. Yeah. Yeah, it makes me think of like there's like parallels to there's that turn There's like parallels to like what came to mind immediately I'm sure there's tons of drum examples But like like Kodak where like companies like didn't pivot to digital and they disappear because they should have When they when they you know could have and they suffered for it They didn't ride the wave, which you know, whatever. They probably just didn't see it coming and magazines Newspapers everyone always talks about how you know, their local newspaper used to be this thick and now it's like a Little magazine kind of thing. It's just a sign of the times But one thing worth mentioning too you talked about CDs is how correct me if I'm wrong And I kind of remember this drum used to have a CD that would come with it, right? It was actually drum head drum drum head was ahead drum head was ahead of the time in 2007 They were produced a CD with the with the magazine They'd sell them in the music stores and you'd buy it and bring it home And you had all kinds of playing examples one of the things all these magazines have and I Tend to think I think about the articles. I think about the drummers in the magazines so to speak But in actuality they were all teaching magazines they always had articles about technique and about playing jazz playing rock and Drumhead was one of the better ones. I mean modern drummer was great too early on. It was it was super cool. Nothing Nothing like seeing how to Mutate paradiddles and take George Stone's book, you know stick control and do whatever you want to do to it but um drumhead was ahead of themselves when they added that CD to their magazine and then eventually it Went to online because it didn't make sense to send CDs It didn't mail them through the mail, you know and half the time they get broken or something Something happened to them, you know Well, now there's not even a disc drive on like like my computer It's like I'll get school pictures from like my son's school and there's no it's on a disc And it's like I don't I have to take it to like my mom's computer and put it in there It's like there's no so that's that's gone But I remember getting a mojo magazine as a kid that had a CD and it was like Pink Floyd edition And it was awesome and I listened to it and it would be in my little binder of CDs and stuff like that Like it is an important part of the history to kind of have that physical thing Yeah, and it was a way to listen to new music and get exposed to new music Yeah, get exposed to drumless music a lot of the times in with drum head It was drumless tracks so you were but I mean I'll tell you what modern drummers version of that was because modern Drummer was one of the first magazines to have a sound file in their magazine And I'll never forget the issue the issue. I don't remember the issue who was on the cover But remember what was in the issue? It was Jeff Piccaro playing piste symbols and it was on a little plastic record That came in the middle of the magazine You ripped it out and you put it on your record player and you listen to it And it was all about him playing his Pisces 2002 Pisces symbols Wow, and it was just a sound file I think there was a couple other examples of that too in modern drummer So it was a record. So it went from records to CDs, you know, yeah to which online I'm sure the drum industry didn't invent that other magazines were probably doing that and sending out You know or in a box of cereal you'd get a little record or something like that. I'm sure that's not a new thing but so before we go too much further, let's talk about and Stop me if I'm getting ahead of myself, but I think it was in the 90s not so modern drummer Which is an important because on the timeline, I mean that's kind of around where we are correct with John Aldridge and not so modern drummer Yeah, not so modern drummer. I my exposure to that was again during my California trips I ran into this magazine in the drum shop. One of the things I would do when I go on road trips for work Was I would find a good place to eat nice hotel and where's the drum shop? If I was in town for a week, I'm gonna find forks. I'm gonna find whatever drum shops in town and A lot of times the drum shops were the places you would find something like not Not so modern drummer, which was a magazine that was designed for collectors of vintage drums that's what it was all about and They had a little community and the community would basically Trade and buy and sell in the back of the magazine and then they would do articles on Very old vintage gear. I mean this is like like 40s and 50s vintage gear back in that day in the 90s Cuz the 70s drum kit was not vintage now today. It is vintage, but back then it wasn't so you were looking at K Zilz and symbols or you know old-a Zilzians or a Slingerland radio king snare drum and you learned all about black beauties. Yeah, all that good stuff Yeah, so it was kind of cool. Yeah, and there's um, I don't know a ton but from doing so many interviews with Rob Cook and John Aldridge I had one I would recommend that if people are interested in learning more about that I think in John Aldridge's episode, which was about drum engraving He though, of course, he talked about not so modern drummer and and how it was like I forget the story I got to listen back to that about how he would go to like his wife's job and like do the Xerox copy and like tape little things onto a piece of paper and then print it and Really fascinating story Which it's kind of a that's kind of an underdog story, which now it's it's I believe George Lawrence continues it and it's a Email newsletter that you can get that is full of great information So he went digital and has a huge subscriber ship. So it's kind of you know, he had to pivot what you have to do Which is again, it's all back into that mid 2000 teens everything started to pivot Yeah, because it became a world where if you didn't pivot you were going to be in trouble You know eventually and eventually modern drummer does get into trouble and I know one day you'll talk to The current owner of modern drummer. So and when you do that, he can tell you all about that, you know How they've had a pivot but yeah, well, I appreciate you Let me mention because I appreciate you team that up because probably very soon after that today's the 30th of December in January 10th, I'm talking to David Frangione Just to get an update on modern drummer We were talking kind of through an email and it's like hey You should come back on the show because he has been on before So people listening can look forward to that and get a little bit more of an update on what's up with modern drummer because Earl and I both love the magazine and Both of us grew up on it in different times So we you know, it holds a very special place and everyone's heart So look forward to that if you're a fan of modern drummer, but okay, so carry on from there Well, I guess let's go back to modern drummer modern drummer did have another publication at one point in time They had a magazine called modern percussionist That's how much Ron Spagnardi loved percussion that he started a magazine on percussionists and mallet players And there was like Dave Samuels was on the cover once Lee Howard Stevens was on the cover once these were classical one was a jazz marimba player one was a jazz Classical marimba player jazz vibraphonist, okay Among other percussionists that they had but that didn't have any traction didn't take off, you know So we get through the 80s and it shakes down, you know, and now we still got modern drummer on the top And then we have drums starting to come up and then some other magazine shows up at my drum shop in New Jersey It was called talking drum and it seemed like it was from a guy in The Baltimore area I assume Baltimore Washington, DC area because he always went to this blues alley club I think it was in Baltimore and he would take pictures and he would interview the drummers and he was really into gear so he always took lots of shots of the drums and talked a lot about the equipment and You know talking about drum equipment was a big deal My wife used to you know, whenever she did an article for modern drummer You had to talk to the drummer about what equipment they use that was a big because you have to you have to and Plus the drum companies expected it because Okay, they want to sell their products So if you're if you're a Yamaha endorser, you better talk about Yamaha drums if you're a zillian symbol player You better tell about zillians, you know, yeah So it was a very important part of the article was to get the equipment in you know for the their endorsements You know and this guy was really big on the picture side of it And that was one of the things that was always great when you found good pictures You didn't always get great pictures Now there was a Photojournalist for modern drummer Lisa Wells who's famous. She died of cancer years ago But um, she was one of the rock journalists that used to really get some great photos of the drum kits and stuff But I'm sure there were a few other guys. I don't remember all the names of the people No, of course, but you're really looking for that talking drum though I remember you holding it up in the video. It was black and white, correct the photos Yeah, all the photos were black and white and they never were able to move it to color They got color on the front. Oh, it was expensive. Yeah I mean, I there's a magazine that I started Subscribed to from the recording in because I know you're a recording person. I don't know if you had this magazine It's a magazine called tape op I don't know if you ever heard of I've seen it They used to have at the studio I used to work at the stacks of magazines you kind of thumb through from going back to the 80s and that was one and Mixed magazine and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah well tape op started and like right around the end of the 90s and The owner of tape op didn't sell the magazine. He gave it away. It was all on advertisers You know to produce the magazine I was I got into that around that the second or third year of tape op. I got I still get tape op They still send them to me But they were black and white forever until they got enough Advertising revenue to go, you know color and now they're color. They've got color in there But it's expensive to go color. That's a big part of this whole thing is how you produce your magazine What's it going to look like is it going to be gloss finish flat finish, you know all that stuff? So I think with talking drum and with modern drummer and drums and drumming all of these you got to kind of remember too That it's important that this is like each magazine almost has like its own little like Ecosystem around it and it makes me think of like You know if we if you look at modern drummer If you look at modern drummer, if you look at any of these like There's a bunch of journalists who work there. There's photographers who work there There's advertising people who work there like It supports a lot of people's lives to have a functioning magazine But it takes a lot of people with different skill sets Who want to be using that skill set for a drum magazine? Yeah, and what you ended up having at all these magazines is an editor publisher And then a very skeleton crew of the real team that was getting paid and the rest were all freelance Like my wife was a freelance journalist. So the freelance journalists have to write for other magazines and There must be some exclusivity to like, you know, if you're writing for md. You can't be writing for Drum, I'm sure there was that my wife never tried that But you could write for other music journalists journalism magazines like maybe rolling stone or guitar player or something else You could go in a different genre and be okay to cross over like my wife was writing for a christian magazine So that was a a different thing, you know, yeah, um, but yeah, you're right. It is an ecosystem and You know the people that are in Running the magazine at different times you can see their stylistic Journey for the magazine, you know first Ron Spagnardi and then, you know, he brought in certain editors like rick van horn and rick maddingly and then eventually bill miller and then after bill miller passed away I I lost track of who was running it. Um, I forget the name of the guy was running it Basically, you know, they put their their slant on it. That's what always happens, you know, whoever's running the magazine That's what happens. Sure. And I think one of the interesting control issues. That's a control issue Who's in power at the magazine, right? We're talking about One of the interesting magazines, uh stories that I've learned From the other side of it was drumhead because jonathan mover was working for a publisher Who was backing the magazine early on and then that guy started going a different direction and jonathan tells the story So you have to listen to jonathan's story on it But he's going a different direction and jonathan goes I want to buy the magazine from you and I want to run it my way because i'm i'm doing all the work Anyhow i'm going to find a different way to back this and go a different direction and he did and he kept the integrity of the magazine intact The whole time that it was being produced Matter of fact, their last issue was the same time md ended for me. It's kind of funny Yeah, I got I got the steve gad gadhamans issue of drumhead and i've never seen another issue after that And I still have issues left in my subscription Try a free 30 day trial of drumio by heading to the link in the description of this episode From beginners to pros drumio has something for everyone help support drum history and get a free 30 day trial by clicking the link That whole thing of it just of these magazines kind of just ending or being online only it's it seems like just the the people's tastes of The way they like to ingest their information has gone more, you know, I don't even want to say digital print pdfs I mean really it's like Videos audio. It's it's just a different Uh world now I think podcasts have replaced the need for reading an interview You know, like your podcast has replaced the need to Read about john robinson talking about drums to being transcribed by a writer into a magazine You know And I think that when I go looking for I want to hear an interview on a drummer I'm gonna go search the drummer's name and I'm gonna see if it's on a podcast or if it's on a youtube video and It's kind of interesting that Like I interviewed john robinson. There's a story to that. Yeah, I mean I took a lesson from him and that's that lesson turned into Him going, how do you make drumless tracks? Is there a way to do that? I said, yeah I do that because he heard me play something I I sent him a video of me playing one of his songs and he says to me goes He goes, how did you how'd you take the drums off of back in the high life? I said, well, I got this program. I started explaining to him. He goes, can you do that for me? I said, yeah, sure. He goes, can you do it for like five six songs? Like, yeah, what would you charge me? I'm like, well, give me another lesson and do an interview with me. That's awesome. You know, that's how that worked, you know That's awesome. Yeah, and he's a great guy and I learned a lot and I got to ask the questions I always wanted to ask because I've always wanted to sit there and ask these kind of questions like well What makes you Who are the bass players you worked with and how did you work with them on this song? How'd you work with them on that song? I wanted to ask some of those kind of crazy questions Because that's what I was looking for in an article in modern drummer or an article in drum or an article in drum I was trying to figure out like what makes this guy tick You know Well, you would have enough experience from reading all of these to know What you're looking for because you've got so much uh background in reading other people's work, you know, you're perfect for it And you know, that's the thing that lacks a lot of times in interviewers On the internet from my experience is that guys don't do the research you've done you do a lot of research I can tell yeah, you know just the research you did for this and I'm just me Well, you're not just you and I think I mentioned at the beginning but your YouTube channel and you're a phenomenal player to stick out and you know kind of Float to the top in YouTube is harder. I think than anything else because there's so Many people but you have to be on there. That's where everyone is and I think you're killing it Well, I thank you. I appreciate you taking a look to it some of the things are done Um, and I think YouTube's all another there's all another two sides of YouTube now Of course, there's the production team side of YouTube where she got a lot of guys doing that And then you got the youtubers like the ones who started the whole thing Like drumming started in his his basement, you know what I mean or wherever And then all of a sudden he turned it into something but he was ahead of the game There was a head of the curve right there, you know the 2007 2008 of youtube nobody knew what youtube was I start I joined youtube 2006. It tells me I didn't post a video until 2011 when I got a camera phone on a phone You know and I didn't really post a video on youtube until 2016 when I started to realize that hey, I better do this and I have this Studio capability I've been doing I've had a recording studio since 1999 So I knew the audio side. How do you do the video? I had to learn that So we have to continue to morph that that's that's the reality of it And that's the same the reality for publishing, you know, I mean they have to morph So what are we going to go to? I mean, but I think the other side of it though that's kind of missed is like the Uh besides physically holding something, you know what I mean? Like it's cool to like, you know, you're on a beach or you're on an airplane or you're in your family Or wherever you're you're you're changing. You're flipping a page. It's awesome Uh, and it it holds your attention and that's the only thing you're doing as opposed to like listening to us right now talking about this Someone's probably walking their dog or doing their dishes or doing something. You know what I mean? like you can do other other stuff, but it's also very like Curated where like here's this article. Here's this article where I mean, it's a great thing. But again to use us an example as an example They're gonna get this one, you know, hour-ish interview for this week But with a magazine you get so many different articles. I like the ads You get cool pictures. You get all these different variety of things That's sort of what's missing from You know one youtube video or one podcast episode you bring a great point In matter of fact, I looked forward to the magazine having ads in it Where I hate ads on youtube it's like And I feel bad when I put ads on my Monetized videos the stuff that I create You know, because you have to because that's there's a couple you make a couple cents on it You know what I mean? So yeah, I make a few hundred dollars from google each year. Well, thank you google You know, thank you for giving me a little bit of something back, you know, but It it's a tough world to monetize. I mean, I don't know how the music industry is surviving You know and truth of the matter is why do you need a record label today? That's another question You can ask yourself. You know, I'm sure that'd be a great podcast topic. So someday. Absolutely. Yeah Yeah, for sure Would now be a good time to talk about the drum size stuff Yeah, let's talk about that because that's that was what got me to to do that YouTube video. I was listening to your power tom podcast with Kyle Schneider. Yeah, right. He was it was a great guy, but I thought he just Didn't take it back as far as I knew it goes back because drum sizes has been something that The drum industry been dealing with in the 70s and the 60s I mean if you really go back to the 40s and 50s and look at drum kits I mean, it wasn't always a four piece kit. I mean and some of the odd sizes we have today like Going back to slingerland. I'm just going to show you something. I know, you know Slingerland had this traveling kit with the strangest drum sizes. It was a 14 by 20 bass drum That was a standard It had a 9 by 13 and I think it had a 16 by 16 No bottom heads. So there were concert toms And the 10 inch tom they had a 10 inch tom attached to it, which was a 9 by 10 That's an oddball size that wasn't in any catalogs except slingerland made this one kit that would kind of like nest together I think you could put them together and then we're taking them to a gig And they only made them in the early 70s late 60s early 70s, then they were gone So I didn't even see him until I found out later when I started getting like all my catalogs on pdf Which I have a whole slew of catalogs on pdf. I went back. I said, what is this kit? And then I started seeing them on on ebay and I was like, oh Wow, so that's a nine by that's a nine by 10 There was no nine by 10 in the 70s catalogs of Ludwig or slingerland that I could find except for for concert toms It was there. So that was a power size. So I'm thinking the sizes of the drums Go back further and that's what inspired me to go Let me let me do this youtube thing on these drum magazines and let's touch on this thing about sizes Here's the thing modern drummer being an american magazine Having slingerland Gretch Ludwig and rogers as their main First advertisers in the magazine They were the first ones because tama was just starting to come up Yamaha really doesn't break forward until the 80s in the in advertising world They start advertising heavily, you know the recording custom kit becomes something steve gattis or endorser in 77 so The japanese companies embrace the sizing of the american drum companies to the tee Everything is Shell, you know eight by 12 eight inch depth shell 12 inch head tom Everything's that way but in actuality if you go back to the uk you go look at a sonar catalog From germany or you look at a premier catalog from the uk. They were backwards They were actually doing The head first and then the the depth of the shell So it is a european thing to do that Well, the first time we started to see the real controversy of it is drum magazine drum said we're gonna differentiate ourselves And I don't know if this was a conscious decision But it definitely was something that said we're gonna draw the line here and we're gonna say we're gonna do it this way And that would became like this like every time I see something in drum I'd go Hey, that's the wrongs. They're not using the right sizes and it was really super confusing with power toms Because when you had square sized power toms What what what are we talking about? I mean 14 by 14 is that 14 head 14 shell diameter or is it Shell diameter head, you know, which one is it? You know, I mean snares are kind of obvious if it's like a 5 by 14 It's like or 5 and a half by 14. That's pretty obvious what that is But when you get to toms, it's like Is it 8 by 10 or is it 10 by 8 and it's like It we're where The times it happens where it could go either way. It's just like and you need to see a picture. It's sort of it gets a little Uh confusing it gets crazy and I think drum Really was the magazine that kind of flipped it So put them both against now they could have had a european influence And I mean i'm not saying in europe they weren't having magazines using that sizing system They probably did Matter of fact, it was my european youtube Subscribers that said wait a second. You're wrong about this They it was the premier catalog They used the same sizing that we're we're talking about or the sonar catalog And I went I looked at the sonar and I said, yeah, you're right Because I have a premier catalog from the 70s. I got a sonar catalog from the 70s. So they're Europe was doing depth by diameter There we go in Yeah, 8 by 12 is American that's depth by diameter of the head Europe was doing head diameter. So before uh 12 by 8 12 by 8 Versus 8 by 12, which confused about it right now is confusing. It's confusing. I know it's very confusing 12 by 8 that would be a european sizing for germany for sonar for premier But the japanese said no, we're gonna stay with the american That's that's the way because they they were making the stencil kits. Like you I love the stencil kit podcast Oh, yeah mark patch. That was a good one. That was great. And they were using american sizing You know, it was american sizing on that because they were selling those kits like To americans tons of those kits those kits They were the drum kits that I saw when I was a kid. I wanted one of those I didn't want him one out of the sears catalog, you know Yeah, it's interesting that the History of that does come back to a magazine, which of course it does because that's what everyone was like reading And that's what that's what everyone that's that's where everyone was getting their information You know, and that's the taste maker kind of thing where Uh, it spreads from there to the streets and actually I think they were starting to sneak it in to drums and drumming Before it went under because drums and drumming pulled the plug You know and then all of a sudden it becomes drum and I didn't realize it But I think some of the latter issues of drums and drumming It was gone But when I went into rhythm magazine with the one that was uk based They were using mostly traditional american sizing But every once in a while, I guess if the author was from the uk they might flip it around So That's where the fuzziness started to happen But for me it was never fuzzy. It was always like look at look at a drum catalog Look at it. Look at yamaha's catalog. It's eight by 12, you know, it's it's got to be that's the right way to do it But now it's it's a little fuzzy. It's fuzzy now And you know when the interesting thing is the europeans didn't change the inches to centimeters You know, even if you look at sabian symbols, I I used to play a lot of sabian symbols back in the day Um, it was the first symbols I could really afford to buy a full set of at one point And they had centimeters on it We never went to 51 centimeters for a 20 inch ride symbol or 19 inch ride symbol whatever it was We stayed in inches because the united states influenced on And a matter of fact the drum kit is truly an american instrument Sure You know, you there's no denying that it came from the united states that went through the jazz drummers William f. Ludwig's, you know Building the first bass drum pedal, you know, all that stuff brings it this to a clearly an american instrument even the europeans will Concede to that one. Yeah, so staying in that sizing makes sense to me, but That's where the confusion came in In my book. Okay. Well that clarifies the confusion Uh, it's still confusing when you look at different things, but I think that clarifies where the confusion comes from So, all right, there's some there's a couple more drum magazines on the list, correct? Yeah Um, well drum magazine now drum magazine is california-based Got the punk drummers in it. They're basically doing that thing a lot of rock drummers a lot of punk drummers, you know They're doing the van tours, you know, the uh, I mean, I remember my my son was big into Wanted to go see those the warp tour. Yeah, you know vans warp tour You know, they're they're big on that stuff and then all of a sudden they're realizing Well, we're not getting certain readers that md's getting they got the classic traditional boomer You know studio drummer guys So they put out a magazine called traps and they tried it and it was quarterly at first And I think it stayed quarterly. I don't think it ever got passed quarterly And they put some classic drummers on it like tony williams Um, I think john bonham might have been on it one of them Steve gad was on it. I think he was on the last one, I believe um So that was kind of a an interesting magazine and that was them going to more long form journalism longer articles more In-depth analysis of the the albums they played on the drum kits they used and About their career, you know, it was and it was it was more that kind of thing. That's interesting. It seems like with traps and um Modern percussionists like you almost have to have it all in one magazine like traps It's getting a little too narrow. You know what I mean? Like it seems like you have to kind of balance The main magazine to accommodate everyone as opposed to having one super specific Enthusiast beyond enthusiast kind of magazine Yeah, and I think what's what drove that was drumhead entering the market Because I think Probably what happened was at one of those nam shows they started hearing about oh There's another magazine coming and it's going to have that niche and that's where drumhead took that was their sweet spot They went they jumped right in they saw modern drummers starting to write smaller shorter articles going for the punk rock drummers and Trying to add more of the you know more the rock drummers in more of the progressive drummers more that less of the boomer drummers more of the extra Millennial drummers. Okay. I I'm only delineating for the reason of you see there's a change going on here Sure, and all of a sudden drumhead comes in he goes We're gonna we're gonna keep right into these boomers because you know, they buy they're buying a lot of gear still at this point Yeah, so we can get somebody to back us from an advertising dollar probably And they jumped in and I think that word of that got to these guys and drum and they said let's try traps And they tried to go against it but drumhead actually Succeeded and I thought that I thought they had a great run, you know, I mean it's a shame. They went under too, but I'm sure COVID didn't help, you know, so That's a whole That's another topic. I know that's a whole another topic. Um, that whole thing is just gotta be it's brutal for any business, but especially just print magazines and it's almost like The nail in the coffin of something that was just going kind of slowly going away. It's it Perpetuated this just like drop off, you know Yeah, and I think that might have been The nails unfortunately was COVID because you know drumhead died pretty It just happened like you got an issue and they're planning another issue and then they're not here anymore and the same thing happened with md. It was like You can't get the issue now md is still around in a digital format, but getting a print version of it's not there and So I'll leave that alone. It is what it is. I think the last I mean I had an md subscription Until it just sort of like you said stopped showing up. Um, but I think the last magazine I got was, um From people I worked with you know, it was my birthday and they went someone ran to Barnes & Noble or whatever and got me a Drumhead magazine. I think it had Gavin Harrison on it Um And it was great. It was awesome. It's just like it's so cool. It's just like a physical thing you hold But um, I think that was the last one besides I probably had an md show up here and there After that, but that was the last drumhead. I got I I always love to go to like I feel like Barnes & Noble Or where at borders wherever there's always that kind of specialty Magazine section with cars and like there'd be like the gun magazines and then the guitar and then the drums So cool so cool to pick one up And it's a shame that those places borders went first and I think Barnes & Nobles is still there I had a good friend of mine. We were talking. He saw my youtube video He's not a drummer But he saw it because he watches a lot of youtube And he said I was in Barnes & Nobles and I went to see if you're telling the truth He goes i'm gonna see if you're telling the truth. There's no more drum magazines. So he asked them. He said, yeah, there's no drum magazines They're all gone So there's still a guitar player apparently or some kind of guitar magazine like maybe Vintage guitar or something like that. But yeah, where should we go from here? Should we Are there less? Are there other magazines we should talk about? Yeah, let's talk about a couple and a couple like how they dropped off too. All right. Um, There was a in 2000s. There was a couple magazines that kind of came into being One of them was a magazine called vintage drummer that kind of rather quickly became classic drummer and classic drummer again was in that same space of the boomer I think it was run by a boomer First they were going for the vintage trying to like be on the not so modern drummer kind of side of vintage drums But then realized classic drummer articles were were cool. So they had guys like danie serif and karmann apasy They even found other guys that never got a shot in modern drummer Like I remember seeing one of these guys who played with kenny login You know kenny rogers in the first edition forget the guy's name, but he played on some records and stuff So they were going for like that niche of these drummers that were I guess favorites of this the guy on the magazine, you know what I mean? but they quickly went from print In about 2011 12 and jumped into a total digital format right there And it was like they saw the writing on the the wall. They weren't going to be able to sell enough magazines They went digital. They went pdf. They didn't care They made it they made it Free They made it free And I had it until they stopped making them, you know, I had it as soon as they went free It was like they just wanted to get some average, you know, and that's the thing about advertising I don't know if I actually had a season in the the end of the 2000s to 2015 because I had a recording studio I have a my studio name is sanctuary sound now. It's really a private studio I was trying to be public at one point, but I couldn't make a business of being a recording Engine that is hard. Yeah, you know that. You know, that's all about So I had it listed as sanctuary sound. So tape op comes to sanctuary sound at my address I started getting magazines from mix magazine for free eq for free You know, they just would sit like I got on their magazine list and they said, oh This is a recording studio. We're gonna send it to you. They want it to be on the coffee table So people are thumbing through it when they're Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they didn't realize it was going on my coffee table and I'd sit there One guy, but you buy gear, you know, whatever Well, I was I and I was subscribing to sound on sound, you know Which is probably the the best audio magazine there was at the time Yeah, and I still think it's around and they saw the model too. That was about 2013 14 They said we're gonna have a print magazine and a digital and they made it Appealing price-wise to get both And I went both I had an iPad. I went both those flying on planes. I could download it That if you're gonna go digital, you've got to make it appealing where you can put it on the device And you can store it because if you can't store it, it's useless And it's cool how some of them have like interactive Stuff where click here and you know, and then a video plays or there's like, you know It's it lets you do stuff and and zoom in on the kit and stuff like that. But that's development. That's expensive This whole thing is like to be a smaller Magazine it's like That's tough. It's a lot of development. Matter of fact the coolest, um The coolest iPad book there is I don't know if you know about this book or not Peter Erskine wrote a book No Beethoven it's called It was written I think in 2012 13 14 ish Somewhere in that range. I I just got an iPad in 2012 So I bought them. I bought it. It was a gig A gig of space on a 16 gig iPad. Okay But I bought it I still have it on my iPad today, which has got a lot more space now But that original iPad I had I bought it and I read it in I was traveling a lot a lot of hotel nights It was the coolest book because it was all audio visual. There was clips in it. There was playing performances There were photos and photos and photos and it was One gig of space to to download this book, but it is one of the earliest multimedia Book experiences that I've ever seen and it's all based on Peter Erskine's life and his time with weather report and Steps ahead and all that stuff. It's it's a great book Of course, not many people have the iPad space to handle it at that point. So I think you can still get it though But that and I mean if you're going to go to a magazine format You've got to have it's got to be able to have both If you want to have those those examples, that's great In a digital format But it's also got to be something where you can get your it in your hand And you feel like you can read it on a plane And I remember I used to fight I used to call modern drummer back in the Mid-2000s before the new owner was there. Okay, they were putting out PDFs And I would get a PDF I get an email link and I get a PDF and I download it And I have a whole bunch of them saved That I still have on my iPads because when I fly on a plane I don't have any magazines anymore So I still got all those old modern drummer PDFs that I have awesome and I thumb through them And I I will do I will read on an iPad when I'm on a plane because there's nothing else to read You know, but um Truthfully if you can't get a PDF where you can get thumb through it It's not really going to work and the PDF the iPad doesn't work at the beach. Unfortunately I try it. I try it out my phone or on phone never works. It's too small. Yeah So you gotta have an iPad or town. It's too bright, you know So that's where the magazine that feeling in your hand means something, you know And then that you get home and the magazine is like crumpled And it's like been wet in certain corners and that that's like that is a well-read magazine And I've got 45 years of modern drummer magazine like that. That's they're all awesome You know all over the place. Yeah, I also want to mention tom tom magazine, which is a really cool Female dedicated drum magazine. I've reached out to him before but I got to follow up I'd love to do a episode all about them So any other magazines we should talk about that that didn't make it through as we, uh You know get closer to the end here I think we hit all the ones I really covered in that youtube video, you know, so we hit everything pretty much now Were there others there could have been others, you know, they could have tried and there were a few minor ones I kind of brought into that but I don't think they're the maid. They're not the majors We talked about all the majors. Yeah, and there's like Regional I feel like there's like a difference between like a magazine and like what people refer to as like a zine where it's like More of like a diy type which is popular and like my brother is in the art world and does stuff with that where it's like More of a diy self-printed magazine. I guarantee you there's lots of those that maybe if people know about they can comment below and Tell us about because I'm sure Earl would want to know that and maybe get his hands on them because it seems like You love that kind of stuff so um and then beyond in other countries like Earl said at the beginning In that world, there's too many for us to even begin to mention And and we don't know about ones that might be in the country You live in that you're listening to right now But again comment and let us know on social media or youtube wherever you're listening to this Some of the cool magazines that you enjoy now or you grew up with or anything like that Last question for you Earl. What were the articles basically that your your wife was writing for modern drummer? Is she a drummer? Well, my wife married a drummer And I will say this about a wife that marries a drummer were married almost 40 years to be 40 years in march um one of her things was she wanted to get into my headspace because she knew that that's What I was was a drummer. She never wanted me to not be a drummer. I mean now when my son was born There was this one point where I thought like well, I got to get a job at a gas station and she goes No, you need to get a gig you don't need a job at a gas station You need to keep playing drums Cool And she encouraged me to find a wedding gig that I you know and I did get a wedding gig And then we got a wedding gig together and she got in the show with me and So we we she's an artist. I'm an artist. She's a songwriter um So that was really the connection she learned drums because she was also a writer She learned it so that she could be in my world. That was part of it the articles that she wrote she was the She was the one that queried modern drummer for the first christian drummer article on ccm music This was before ccm music was really anything known by everybody Um, everybody knows amy grant She just got some kennedy center award this week. I think so she's um, she's huge amy grants huge Well, amy grant was just beginning in the late 70s early 80s and she was starting to take off And ccm music was starting to take off on the back of an amy grant There were other ccm artists a lot of ccm artists in the 70s and 80s that most people don't know about unless you were a really a dedicated christian living in the church world But um amy grant kind of took it to the masses And then all of a sudden you would have your michael w smiths your dc talks and it would just keep going to where it's at today where Everybody knows about it. It's huge. It's it's it's a genre under itself But she wrote the first christian drummer article. It was two parts Um, and the interesting thing was the drummers that were in the article I had some say in who she chose so You know because yeah, they were you're a drummer Yeah, these were bands. I like so I picked the drummers. I like you know, I will say my one regret was we got an album by this band called white heart and I didn't know white heart at the time and um Unfortunately, it came in it was just a little late in getting there. She was already picked her six drummers One of them I didn't agree with but She just had an easy it was an easy we we saw a concert and she talked to the guy Yeah, but the drummer for white heart was a guy named um chris mcqueal So chris mcqueal is the drummer. I wish she'd interviewed for that article because he became huge. He's a huge drummer, you know um, but she ended up interviewing guys, um You know the first group of guys probably nobody knows them except guys that followed christian music Then she would end up interviewing greg morrow who's played with the dixie chicks and james taylor, but also played with amy grant She interviewed two guys that were session drummers in nashville. One of them a guy named john hammond Famous session drummer. He plays with amy grant too. He's another guy plays We wasn't playing with amy grant at the time. He played on an album. I played on I played on an album in nashville in 87 I got replaced by john hammond. So wow, it's an honor Hey, what was it was an honor to get replaced by john hammond. It was also an interesting I remember walking him out to the car with his cymbals and saying to him Saying, you know john, um, my wife writes for modern drummer I'm gonna see if I can get you in modern drummer and he must have thought I was crazy He must have really like I just replaced this poor drummer. I just replaced this poor drummer And he's going to try to get me to modern drummer. That's crazy. You never know That's why you got to be nice to people in general. You just never know Who who knows who and what's going to lead to what and uh, that's a testament to to you Uh Which I have learned from looking at your youtube and and stephanie your wife I was looking at her youtube channel as well. You're both very just nice Uh friendly people and I think that came across In this very strongly Well, thank you. I and I think that's what's important in life is being nice to people Yeah, I think the world needs a lot more nice people. You're a nice person too So that's what comes that that comes across all the time the way you treat all your guests. So I appreciate it Earl as we're kind of finishing up here Why don't you tell people about your youtube channel and where they can find you and any anywhere else? They want you want to direct them I have a youtube channel. It's under earl bennett earl drum. I play a lot of drum covers I have a show called ask earl anything and people ask me crazy drum questions about What symbols to use and what sticks to buy and why do you play this way or why do you do that? Um, it's been going on for about six years. So I've got a I got a pretty good subscriber base like yeah Almost 7 000. So I'm getting awesome. I will put a link in the description for earls channel and all that good stuff Again, check out vintage drum history dot com. That's mark cooper's new website On that note earl. Thank you for doing the work and and uh, you know, you did all the work on your youtube channel And I just kind of plucked you and said hey, can you do this on my show? And I think you killed it So um, thank you for being here and sharing your knowledge Well, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it and keep doing the great work you're doing because I love your show So Awesome. Thank you, earl