Taking a step back for a little while.

My spring has turned out to be more interesting than I'd planned, especially with the community activist band I've been part of since 2018.
I've enjoyed my time with Unpresidented Brass Band, but since February 2020 the majority of the band has taken a more militant turn, preferring to play at protests and rallies where there's a higher likelihood that confrontations will happen.

I played my last gig with them last Tuesday. It was supposed to be a peaceful gathering at my alma mater (Portland State), with speakers and a few tunes from the band. Instead, it was crashed by Black Bloc kids who riled up the crowd and forced the rally to become a march. I went along, but as things progressed and the Black Bloc kids began upending trashcans and breaking windows of businesses and the courthouse, and then setting off an explosive device at ground level a hundred feet from me, it became clear that this was not what I wanted. I bailed out and took the bus home.

Conversations over the next several days helped me to realize that the band was going in a direction I didn't want to follow, so I officially quit a couple days ago. We're all still friendly, and I have offered to help refurbish any drums they might find this spring and summer.

What do I want in a community band experience? In short, less destruction and more community-building and engagement. I don't want to support aggro kids exercising their privilege while they break things. I want to partner with public schools whose arts finding has dried up; I want to give free concerts in parks and play at neighborhood street fairs, and at a Honk! festival again.

I was willing to overlook the fact that I was the only drummer there with rudimental chops while we played at the gentler events. But now that I've left, I also have to admit to myself that if I gather with other drummers again, I want to play with folks who will elevate my drumming and make me become a better player. That's not something I would say directly to the drummers in UBB, but there it is.

So we have parted ways as amicably as possible..

I will probably just chop alone for a while and ponder what my next steps as a drummer might be.
I'd like to find a group of drummers that really read and play, and who rehearse places that I can get to easily; but that is not super-likely in inner Northeast Portland. Portland, being a lefty kind of place (which is fine, my politics are fairly lefty too) that sees rudimental drumming as "militaristic" and not as an art form, is short on folks who really love playing this stuff. 

If I lived in New England, I'd find all sorts of drumming possibilities to feed my interest.
But not here.

So I'll chop alone and see what happens over the next few months.
Meanwhile, I'm starting a new job as a part-time music director at a synagogue, and that will keep me pretty busy. So for now, I'm drumming alone again, just to drum.

I am short on discretionary funds, so unless drum manufacturers want to give me product to test and review,  that piece will also quiet down for awhile.

Here's a few videos to keep you amused in the meantime.

Happy chopping!