The Resurrection Of The Council Of Circles

Well, it’s a new year and it’s a good thing too because I was getting tired of the old one. Let’s face it, 2006 really sucked on many different levels for a lot of folks. There is no time to look back. You just have to keep moving forward and maybe things will curve back around full circle and you can see where you were then.

Some History

When I first headed down the music road at about age 11, I wasn’t sure where I would go. I knew I could sing okay. I knew I could write lyrics or poems. I wanted to do something else though. The players were cooler than the singers, and if they could play and sing, all the better and all the cooler. I tried guitar, but it seemed too difficult for my uncoordinated fingers. I tried piano, but there was too much emphasis on trying to read music rather than to actually see what music could come from inside me.

Frustrated by my own clumsiness with the melodic instruments and VERY discouraged by my family, I began to gain an interest in drumming. I mean sure, they don’t get to dance around like the singer or guitarist, but how hard could drumming be, I thought. So, I pestered my parents forever for, if not a whole drum set, then maybe at least a snare drum and some sticks for Christmas of 1981. It took a lot of pestering on my teenage part. If I recall correctly, I think that being a drummer is right up there on the list of things that parents don’t want you to do. It’s right next to dealing drugs and being a hit man. My folks came through though, and my dream was realized... and their nightmare was too. Now, not only was the rockingly loud stereo from my basement bedroom ever so prominent. My snare drumming along with it was just as loud too. And, I became hardened by the words that always cut my heart out and stomped on it. “TURN IT DOWN!”


After I got the snare drum, I really got the bug and the chronic pestering of the parents for a whole drum kit began. I had saved up some money and bought myself a hi-hat stand and some cymbals out of a Sears catalog, but I couldn’t afford a whole kit and I didn’t have a job while I went to school. Dad came through around the time of my 14th birthday that following March. He saw an ad at his workplace offering for sale some (VERY) used older “Zimgar” drums for about $45. There was a bass drum, a snare drum (with no snares or springs under the head), a tom and a few cymbals and stands. All of it was old and had been in someone’s basement for years, but I was thrilled with it. I got all excited and set up to play my very first red sparkle finish drum kit.

Eventually, I got a job and was able to buy myself my first brand new set of drums. It was a five piece black Pearl set which quickly became a seven piece set with the addition of some concert toms. Then, it became a nine piece set with some other larger toms. And, then a fifteen piece when my buddy sold me some of his drum stuff plus more cymbals and so on and so on. I just kept adding other pieces and percussion instruments all around me and formed what is known as a satellite drum kit.

The Music

The music began with me just pounding out drum patterns and working out verses and chorus and bridges and such, all as instrumental drum songs. Then, I started writing words and singing with the drums using my other two talents. I saw myself as a modern day caveman musician using modern day instruments and musical ideas but approaching it in way that was very primitive and aggressive. For a while, in the 80’s, I got into playing with along prerecorded tapes of electronic rhythms and music. Eventually, I realized that I liked the freedom of the organic musical approach and I perfected the art of drum songs. Playing loud and fast and singing along with my Janet Jackson style hands free headset microphone with no melodic music. From January of 1984 to December of 1993, I recorded some 20 something albums on cassettes issued in VERY limited editions of 10 or less. I also played countless days with the “Council Of Circles,” the name I gave to my drum kit, taken from a book called “Flatland” by Edwin Abbott. I would play these endless private concerts for me, myself and I. It just seemed more constructive than Nintendo to fill my time here in this life. I never felt the urge to join a band even though there were a few offers. I have never felt much of a drive to share my music with anyone. I always thought that was kind of silly.

After a while, because I wanted to spend more time working as a melodic singer/songwriter using bass guitar and/or keyboards, the “Council Of Circles” disdrummed-ed. (kind of) I still used the Council for recording rhythms in my other melodic music, but in that sense, they became more like session players. I never use them to compose music anymore. Only to complement other instruments on my other recordings.

The Resurrection

So, now with the new drum assembly, I’ve been changing things pretty drastically. For starters, I’m using a much smaller kit (eight drums is less than fifteen) I am using lighter sticks than my old Pro-Mark 747s and I am also using brushes these days. So, the general approach is much lighter, fluent and jazzier than the battery of pounding of my formative years. The inclination that ‘doing more with less is best’ is in play as well as the idea of approaching the drums as much more of a melodic instrument. This was and will always be the grounds I like to explore. I still have to fight off the urge to want to add everything under the sun to my new kit, but I made it a rule that in order to be included in my new kit, something must be round like a circle. None of these square drums or triangles.


I developed an incredible discipline for playing drums during my teens and still to this day, I can set a firm schedule for playing and stick to it. No days off. Every day it’s an hour long non-stop drum solo going into all the different musical areas that I’m currently exploring. There are quite a few works in progress as well as some resurrected things from my past and plenty of room for jazzy improvisation between the rim shots, funky groove zones, snares, off ethnic pulses and the inner ghost of Keith Moon who pokes his goofiness into the equation from time to time.

My current drum kit consists of this:

Ludwig Accent Series in “Red Wine” finish:
22” X 16” bass drum
8” X 8” concert tom
10” X 8” concert tom
12” X 10” tom
13” X 11 tom
16” X 16” floor tom
6 ½” X 14” metal snare

13” X 5 ½ pearl piccolo snare (the black one from my last B-day)
All the toms are closed with Evans clear heads. Evans white heads are on the snare drums.

13” Paiste hi-hat cymbals
20” Paiste ride cymbal
18” Zildjian crash cymbal (from my old kit Zildjians just have a beautiful decay)
18” Paiste crash cymbal (occasionally, not pictured )
Rhythmtech hat trick (tambourine that fits on hi-hat stand over cymbals)
wind chimes

drumsticks: Vic Firth 7AN (the N stands for nylon tips)
brushes: Regal Tip