Some years ago I really had a lucky break, when, thanks to bumping into an old school friend in a bookshop, I wound up meeting another long lost secondary school buddy, and through him… and so on.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the upshot was that one of these ol’ pals now worked in a local publishing company, who were about to launch a drumming mag, imaginatively titled Drummer<\/i>. They had an editor, and he was looking for writers. Was I interested?<\/p>\n
You betcha!<\/p>\n
My first assignment was perfect, a dream come true: could I write x-hundred words on Led Zep I<\/i> and John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham. Could I ever!?<\/p>\n
Well, I was (and still am) a drummer, and I’d always been good at writing at school. But could I, as an adult not writing professionally, pull this off, on my first attempt?<\/p>\n
I went for a curry with Ian ‘Croftie’ Croft, and we also went to see a local singer do a gig. I guess he was getting a feel for me; was I articulate enough, did we get on ok?<\/p>\n
I submitted my piece. And the rest, as they say, is history. So things went about as peachily as they could’ve done, as far as I was concerned.<\/p>\n
Having passed my test assignment, which was published in issue #1 of Drummer<\/i>, I continued writing a monthly column, called Recycled<\/i>, in which I discussed a classic album from a drumming perspective, every month for about a decade.<\/p>\n
In that time the mag went under three times. Owing me money on the first two occasions. It was always a borderline affair, as Drummer<\/i> never became as established as Rhythm<\/i>, our main U.K. equivalent\/competitor.<\/p>\n
Rhythm<\/i> has been around for donkey’s ears, and has outlived Drummer<\/i>, which did eventually fold for good. Every time things got parlous, and often that would mean a change of editor as well as bankruptcy\/non-payment of contributors, etc, I’d worry I’d be given the heave-ho.<\/p>\n
Miraculously I survived two bankruptcies and numerous changes of editor. But there did finally come a day when I was told they were no longer going to run my Recycled<\/i> feature.<\/p>\n
In the intervening years I’d also got to interview a number of drummers, review quite a lot of drum kits, percussion, CDs and DVDs, and attend some interesting events, like product launches and gigs.<\/p>\n
All told it was great. Of course it’s annoying that some of my work – a few hundred quids worth – was never paid for. But the positives outweigh the negatives as Jupiter is to a grain of sand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some years ago I really had a lucky break, when, thanks to bumping into an old school friend in a bookshop, I wound up meeting another long lost secondary school buddy, and through him… and so on. Anyway, the upshot was that one of these ol’ pals now worked in a local publishing company, who … <\/p>\n