As I have mentioned so many times, the drummer I looked up to more than anyone else was Neil Peart of Rush. Not only was Neil an excellent drummer and one known to experiment with all kinds of percussion instruments, he was also very clever (in my opinion) at coming up with unique yet practical ways to incorporate these additional gadgets into his setup. I highly admired the brilliant ideas he came up with to arrange his kit so that he had this massive collection of drums, cymbals and percussion items totally surrounding him that really didn't take up any more room than any other double-bass "rock" kit of the 1980s.
Yes, I know Neil was doing all this back in the 70s as well, but I didn't come on to the scene until sometime around "Signals," okay? My intensive research into the many multifaceted components of his kit began then and journeyed backwards. Remember, there was no internet back then so this kind of thing took a lot of time and effort. This means I had to go to Tracy Hollingsworth, another very important source of inspiration and encouragement (who had personally attended many Rush concerts), and ask if I could borrow his concert programs. These were elaborate publications featuring very interesting write-ups about the group and the tour (meaning exactly what type and brand of equipment each band member was currently using), as well as numerous full-color and professionally-taken photographs such as the one above. These magnificent picture books were only available to those who actually attended the concerts and happened to have $18.50 they were willing to squander on such a luxury. You couldn't just pop on the internet and download these gems in five seconds and at absolutely no cost as I just did for this article.
So, using my highly-concentrated observational skills I sought by carefully studying these photographs to uncover all the ingenious "tricks-of-the-trade" that Mr. Peart was employing to produce all this percussively-pleasing music from the comfort of a single drum stool, and doing so without his setup looking too much like a huge assemblage of instruments that took up the whole stage.
One of these brilliant conceptions was a custom overhead "rack system" to hang bar chimes, temple blocks, triangles, etc. out of the way but easily reachable. This was way before those hideous drum "cages" came into existence and were commonly used by heavy-metal drummers in the 90s to hold up a forest of cymbal stands. (I hate those.) This was a thin metal frame that stood inconspicuously on either side of Neil, tastefully arranging these secondary percussion instruments along an upper perimeter but keeping them accessible from a seated position.
Another concept that I believe Neil invented was "cymbal stacking." He was the first drummer I came across that ran a cymbal stand up through one cymbal to mount a second cymbal above. This is a great idea for minimizing the number of cymbal stands needed, makes setup quicker and easier, and saves a lot of floor space. Otherwise you have all these intertwining chrome tripods crowding around the base of your set, making it appear as though your drumset is nestled upon a heaping pile of discarded material from a metal recycling facility. Remember, the fewer number of cymbal stands means less to carry and lighter to carry. I don't want a hardware case that weighs three tons and contains nineteen cymbal stands that take an hour to set up and arrange.
There were other clever ideas I "borrowed" from Neil that helped to solve minor problems, such as how to incorporate seven cowbells into my setup without taking up too much room and looking stupid. These things were very important matters to me back then, and to some extent are still relevant to me now. "Maximum Musicality / Minimal Mass" is still my motto and my mission, might I mention. I call it the "MM/MM" factor for short.
In case you might be entertained by such information, as a result of my years of exhaustive research of Mr. Peart's percussion placement practices, I was able to illustrate my findings using AutoCAD, creating this detailed blueprint for inspiration and guidance (click to enlarge):
Of course, Neil's setup has changed dramatically over the years. He has reduced the number of drums he uses and has eliminated all of the cool-looking percussion instruments that were once interwoven into his kit. Now it's all electronic, which is against my religion. For this reason I no longer look to Peart for innovative arrangement ideas and work these things out for myself. Peart is no longer a Percussion Placement Planning Professional as I am, and blueprints are no longer blue.
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To clarify that last statement in this piece, I did not intend to sound critical of Mr. Peart for his choice to go "electronic." Of course a professional drummer of his caliber would utilize the best electronics available in order to sample his old Tama kit, various African drums and all kinds of percussion instruments and sounds. Otherwise, as he has stated in interviews, his kit would indeed take up the entire stage. By my statement "Peart is no longer a Percussion Placement Professional as I am," I simply meant that he no longer has to worry about such issues as "Where and how should I mount this bulky bell tree?" since he can now simply hit a small electronic trigger programmed to produce the sound of that instrument. Peart is still a master at innovative setup ideas (such as inventing hardware that screws directly into the drum platform, eliminating tripods completely), and has the most compact arrangement imaginable that creates more unique sounds than anyone else. I still greatly admire him as an innovative percussionist and setup designer; I simply meant I cannot look to him to copy his ideas for mounting "old school" percussion items since he has advanced well past such archaic methods.
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