THE SILVER-SPARKLE SLINGERLAND

Back in the mid-eighties, the second drumset I ever owned, the one I "grew up" with and learned to play on along with Judas Priest, AC-DC and KISS records, was a silver-sparkle Slingerland kit.  Back then I had very little knowledge about drum tuning or maintenance, which caused me to develop a very negative opinion about these drums.  Not realizing what a nice quality, vintage drumkit I had, I didn't realize that the proper heads and tuning would have made them sound quite good.  My only thought was that if I had a huge, brand-new Ludwig kit like Alex Van Halen, then I could sound like him.

For a short while my older brother and I formed "a band" called Iron Cross, which was basically the two of us jamming in the playroom.  We only played a couple of gigs in public which don't bear mentioning - a couple of parties - but this early experience did eventually lead to bigger and better drumsets and an increase in my knowlege about how drums can be fixed up and made to sound better.

In a previous post I wrote that I could not remember the snare that went with this kit, but upon discovering a couple of antique photos I was reminded of the 5-1/2" white marine pearl model that came with the little four-piece.  The fact that the snare did not match the other drums was another reason I didn't like this kit, which would certainly not bother me nowadays.  After all, these were vintage Slingerlands!  If only I had known!  I'm sure with the experience I have now I could make that wooden drum crack!

Besides the infamous Roto-toms in these photos, I also notice the Remo "Black Dot" heads, which were the first plastic heads I ever encountered.  This kit orginally came with white coated heads that were in pretty bad shape, so their replacement with new plastic heads did help a little, but I also removed the bottom heads and rims which understandably didn't bring out the resonance of these drums.  I have never liked the sound of single-headed toms, neither the way they sound or look, so soon after I sold this kit and bought my Ludwig Vistalites I would discover the ringing, thundering sound of double-headed toms and continue in that direction.

Spotting the old Slingerland "Set-o-Matic" tom mount also reminds me of my frustration with this kit.  Because this was an old jazz set, it was never intended to be used for a heavy metal rock band.  No matter how tight I twisted the screws on that tom mount, they would always eventually come loose and the tom would sag down onto the kick drum.  I can remember using a wrench to tighten the metal clamp around the plastic swivel ball as tight as I possibly could, only to have that tom drop again after a few solid whacks of the drumsticks.  At one point I got so mad I threw the wrench at the drums and made a small hole in the bass drum shell.  I felt pretty bad about that, but became more determined than ever to get rid of this kit.

One final note: Although the Slingerland "Set-o-Matic" tom mount was not ideal for rock drummers, the plastic ball concept was probably the inspiration for Tama's "Omni-ball" tom mount design, which works quite well owing to the heavier metal (no pun intended), superior tighteners and "teeth" that secure the tom in almost any position one can imagine.  In my humble opinion, nobody makes hardware better than Tama, which is why they are the drums I still play today.

But I would love to have this old Slingerland kit back, or at least one like it...