And by the beginning I mean from around 2004 onwards! …As time went by during my years working music retail looking after the drum department in the local music store and just me being me, I was always thinking up ways to improve, learn and self-educate so I could hopefully pass on any skerric of knowledge to the next person – I love helping people in any way I can!
So between running a busy drum floor, orders and all that jazz 6 days a week and of course performing in a working band I decided I could somehow find the time to begin producing a little local-level drummers magazine where I planned to expand the things I had learned, the people I had met and share as much as I could with my customers and anyone out there interested in drums really!
p.s. the silly person aforementioned was my long time friend Frank Burns, who I spent countless hours talking to every week for many years – we’re both chatter boxes really! Frank enabled me to bring a lot of my ideas to life when it came to promoting the world of drums and he saw things in the kind of way I did – passion first – then business; definitely in that order.
The “The Drummers Collective” was born… (yes I know Drummers Collective is a magazine – but this was THE Drummers Collective)
The ‘zine basically began as a pamphlet which I created in good old Microsoft Publisher (yeah my computer skills are basic at the best of times) The aim was to really involve local drummers, educate, surprise and empower any drummer to keep a positive notion no matter what thier level, background or intention – regardless, I wanted to be there for them all. Distribution was directly through the store and I had amassed somewhere between 4-500 drummers on my direct mailing list – yes, I hand packed envelopes and sent them out to people individually!
I was so humbled and fortunate that even after the first issue it sparked a positive response, so I set out to hold a special in store master class with local teacher Pete Westbrook and get all these awesome drumming customers down for a night of entertainment, prizes and everything drums!
The very first official masterclass I had organised was a little scary, but was immensely successful to say the least.
I had also been involved for several years with a local college and thier annual Rock Summer School which ran over the christmas holidays and facilitated a week of tailored tutoring from established musicians and industry professionals from all over Australia – this particular year Mark Kennedy, an Australian drummer with a truly expansive working career was the drum tutor, so I also took the time to catch up with him and basically just spent the afternoon together conversing about his travels and drumming stories – such a nice guy too!
This gave me the confidence to organise something a little bigger…So I called up my mate Frank (Music Link) and we tabled a few ideas but decided we’d approach an amazing Australian drummer and clinician Grant Collins to hold a master class.
The wheels were set in motion and the first thing I realised I needed was a bigger venue – namely for Grants giant drumset!
Several months a million phonecalls and emails went by and then it was show time!
Grant provided an incredible evening for a packed room of over 180 local drummers! It really was such a great feeling knowing I was instrumental in enabling events like this for local drummers and to have someone as intelligent, humble and informative as Grant as my first big clinic just filled me with a feeling of true happiness and a sense of being.
Somewhere between all that madness I also facilitated a clinic from drummer and author Roby Corelli who was promoting his newest titles based around the finer techniques with ghost notes and refined hand/foot technique – Roby really opened my eyes (and ears) when it came to filling the spaces in simple and traditional drum patterns – a very smart and switched on guy indeed!
And the clinics didn’t stop there either! Michael Barker (John Butler Trio) and the infamous Virgil Donati also put on some mind blowing master classes for the Tasmanian drumming community! To be able to have heavyweight players bring thier years of talent and skill to audiences in Tasmania really just is something I’d only ever dreamed of!
After what was a great and very successful time growing some of my ideas into reality I felt it was time I expanded my passion for music and helping people into a new realm.
As most creative people are aware of and unfortunately most of us suffer from various forms of depression, anxieties and other mental illnesses and certainly not being immune myself, I decided I wanted to teach and use music as a tool to engage positive movements in peoples lives – not just with drumming, but all music.
This concept is not new by any means but was really reinforced so many times by the musicians i’d met over the years.
I enrolled and completed my Diploma in Music Theory which led me to become a music tutor for the Australian Childrens Music Foundation where I delivered thier program via a high security youth detention centre to assist with rehabilitating young adults who were preparing to re-enter society.
During the weekly lessons I enabled the students to choose any instrument and song they desired and we then set out to learn it, practice it over time and produce a live recorded version of the song with a backing track – a simple but tangible accomplishment that some of these young people had not had in life before but now knew they had the skills to achieve something from start to finish.
Needless to say this was hardly a job for me at all, but more so a labor of love!
My contract eventually expired at the facility which was going through large financial government cuts at the time and sadly the music program was not high on thier list (amongst other things)
I then went onto focussing on a band I was working with at the time, Sole Stickers. We were practicing flat out, recording, playing gigs around the country and really planting ourselves hard with a solid set.
We were very fortunate to produce an album with Jon Auer (Big Star, The Posies) which led us to play even bigger shows and support some great artists! One of my personal highlights was our regular shows at The Tote in Melbourne where we made it to thier 30 years of the Tote legends list! That and our tour support with Hoodoo Gurus was also super awesome!
I had also gained a 3 year gold endorsement with Ddrum drums at the time which was just a little bit mind-blowing for me as a player!
This was Falls Festival – pretty sure I broke both of my crash cymbals that day 😦
Time passed, gigs were plentiful, sticks were broken and after some time I ended up the owner of a pretty rad little retro-vintage cafe which had quite a large floor plan which I set out to host local musicians in on the weekends and evenings- which we did! Many song/EP launches, poetry slams and even a Dr Who club etc. were had there – it was such a rad little space tucked away in the Launceston cbd, plus you can’t go wrong with a space for live music and endless coffee on tap!
Image courtesy of WithinOneMoment
Image courtesy of WithinOneMoment
A few years went by and thousands of coffees later here I am, in Queensland!
Queensland has been my home for almost 5 years now and I really love the place! Brisbane particularly has such a thriving creative music + arts scene that constantly is redefining the high levels of talent this country has to offer and I truly feel humbled to begin my new journey here and meet + work with you all!
I’ll finish this blog post up now but stay tuned for more as I begin to settle into Brisbane and its music scene.
For everyone that has supported and welcomed me being the new guy so far I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and I can’t wait to get to know you all more!
~Matt
Brisbane Drums Blog 