Vintage bass drum pedal

This is a vintage bass drum pedal gifted to me recently by a local business man who learned that I was restoring an old Ludwig bass drum.

I think that the footpad reveals that it is a Ludwig interpretation of a Fraser, patented bass drum pedal from around 1920.

The pedal is much worn and corroded but by no means beyond restoration.

I will begin by removing the badly corroded components, clean up the brass, replace the spring and link yolk. The badly worn pivots and fulcrums I will fill with braze and re drill. After a refit of all new components, screws, etc, I will have the unit nickel plated.

The Hoovers.

If you think Hoovers suck you should see us blow!

"Tim Heraud's the name, the dog's called Bulla" said the King country cat and the black dog crouching on my kitchen floor in Grey lynn. "I heard you play drums?"
Not again I thought, (still no drum kit). "Our drummer just quit but you can use hers, her name is Fiona... do you mind if we call you Fiona to save confusion?"

By now we were living in a beaten up villa (ex brothel) in Auckland having sold the Helensville property and settled our affairs there.
I had a job as a sign writer / production manager and as luck would have it two of my colleagues owned drum kits. I bought a half size Aria kit from Mykie (pictured) and later a black Tama Rockstar kit from Mark James.




















The Hoovers at the Kiwi Tavern: Stuart Hoover: Guitars and BV's, Harmen (Fiona) Hoover: Drums and BV's Tim Hoover: Guitar, Vocals and songs and Early Dave Hoover: Double bass and BV's.

Stewart Shepherd, Harmen Hielkema, Tim Heraud, Dave Wishart.

To read a bit more about the Hoovers from a different perspective try this link.

The Gumdiggers Bush Band

Some time later after the birth of our son Robert in 1984 I began to feel the need to establish roots for my young family. I sold my drums and spent several years working in the building industry to build up the capital for our first home. We eventually settled in Helensville , Northwest of Auckland where we bought our first house. By then our twin boys had come along (though unfortunately one died in a mysterious cot death at the young age of three weeks).
It was in Helensville where our daughter was born.
All this time I had ignored my musical urges. Whilst running the local second hand shop I came across the best drum kit I was ever to own. It was an early '70's Slingerland kit. I joined a casual group of local musicians who played Albert King style blues which I thoroughly enjoyed. John Martin on bass and Allan Stevens on guitar, both were very accomplished players. As I recall we made a reasonable fist of that ouevre for skinny, privileged white boys
Financial difficulties saw me sell that beautiful kit and music was again off the menu.
The one day I came into the shop and was welcomed by the ephemeral sound of an ocarina.
From behind an aisle of second hand items popped up an impish young Dutch musician who had heard that a musician of Dutch decent owned the local second hand shop. Marcus Goddefroi played Swedish key fiddle, ocarina, a self made violin, piano, harmonica, piano and button accordion and bones, (all instruments equally well!). Marcus introduced me to Bill and Kath Worsfold who were seeking a percussionist and vocalist for their band the Gum Diggers Bush Band. I sadly admitted that I no longer had a kit of drums. Bill encouraged me to try playing a tea chest bass, lager phone, bones and an old snare drum. I quickly took to the eccentric, authentic old New Zealand music that Bill collected. I learned to sing in harmony and was soon gigging regularly with Bill Worsfold on classical/flamenco guitar, Kath on accordion, whistles and vocals, Bob Uhe on violin and mandolin and Marcus.































The Gumdiggers Bush Band. Helensville, 1989.
Left to right: Harmen Hielkema: Tea Chest Bass, vocals. Bill Worsfold: Acoustic Guitar, Vocals. Kath Worsfold: Accordion, whistles, vocals. Bob Uhe: Mandolin, Violin, vocals.

That was me thoroughly fast tracked into the New Zealand folk scene.
I adored playing that tea chest bass, I could not put it down, I loved the close vocal harmonies we rehearsed endlessly. As I look back I see how well this experience set me up for what was to follow.

Harmen

A new title image for my blog

The past is the past.
















My previous blog title photograph (above) was of me at age 26. I was playing a chrome on fibre glass, Fibes kit with Ziljan cymbals. At that time I was playing in a cover band called the Voyeurs with Marc Dombowski (guitar and vocals), Paul Martin (Guitar and vocals), Gary Harvey and Lee Cooper who alternated on bass and vocals. We covered Rolling Stones and Iggy Pop material playing at various venues around greater Auckland.

Previous to that, in the late 1970's, I was active playing drums with a 3 piece band doing receptions and backing acts like Frankie Rowles and Billy T James through the Hegan Entertainment Agency.

This black and white image was captured at the Orewa Town Hall in 1983 by a photographer colleague, Rebecca ? who worked with me at the Hibuscus Coaster news paper.