...Bonham set???...

[fonts]

...I looked at that Ludwig Bonham set-up in the new MF catalog...is this just a rip-off or are they really a faithful repro of Bonzo's kit?...did Bonzo even play Ludwigs?...

...I am a fan of big thudding drum tone, and this set looks like it might fill the bill...

[Rimshot]

When I saw Bonham and Led Zep in concert in 1969-1970 he was playing a kit very similar to Buddy Rich's kit. 24" kick (that was big) 14" snare, 1 rack tom 12", 2 floor toms, 14" & 16". 24" ride, 20" crash, 18" crash and 15" hi-hats. Only one kick with one pedal (guy had a awsome right foot!) That was pretty much it. I believe that they were Ludwig (maybe not, but I think so)

[borednbuzzed]

26" bass drum!? Holy crap! I could barely see over it!

[kjam22]

When I saw Bonham and Zep in "77".... he had more drums than you could count from where I was. And a gong behind him.

[Bulls Hit]

Yep, he definitely played Ludwigs, and Paiste cymbals

[Fela]

I have seen footage of him playing a vistalite drum set before. And did he really line the bass drum with tinfoil or not. I personally think that vistalite drums sound like cans, but maybe if you lined them with tinfoil they would sound more canny or perhaps uncanny ?

Anywho. What are we having for dinner ?

I gave my vistacans away to a friend that has just been starting drums for quite a while now. He replaced his maple snare with a vistalite snare so now he has vistalite all the way around. Rocking!

Do we have gravy for the potatoes ?

Bonham had a great right foot. He could also really drink the booze. Hey did you see that footage of him in The Song Remains The Same ? What about that mustache ? WHAT ABOUT IT ?

Chairs, need more chairs.

That guy from Tool rocks it. He has wooden drums, mostly.

[Tim Brown]

Originally posted by Rimshot
When I saw Bonham and Led Zep in concert in 1969-1970 he was playing a kit very similar to Buddy Rich's kit. 24" kick (that was big) 14" snare, 1 rack tom 12", 2 floor toms, 14" & 16". 24" ride, 20" crash, 18" crash and 15" hi-hats. Only one kick with one pedal (guy had a awsome right foot!) That was pretty much it. I believe that they were Ludwig (maybe not, but I think so)

Was it maple/woodgrained colored? If so, guess again.
That was a 16"x28" Kick, with 12"x15", 16"x18" & 16"x20" Floors.
(He plays it in the new Led Zeppelin DVD.)
The 15" Tom was so heavy, that Bonzo wound up mounting it in the tom mount AND a snare stand beneath it at the same time, because over the course of the night the tom would begin to move.

It's a double bass set actually, but the other guys in Zeppelin would take away the second kick because Bonzo would go off on these double bass tangents playing as fast as he could, and wouldn't play for the songs! HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!! I love it.
I just wish that I could get some of the footage of him playing double bass.



This particular set also included one of the rare Ludwig 22" Floor toms...which Bonzo had mounted like a suspended bassdrum - up in the air above the 20" Floor....most of the time he didn't bother with it. For a very short period, Ludwig made 22" Floor Toms with a metal Floor Tom hoop with 10 Lugs- they made the original for Carmine Appice, or so I was told.
The Tom mounts were replaced with Roger's Dynasonic mounts, because they were the best at the time.

Carmine Appice was their big Rockgod/Endorser back then so they were willing to do things for him - when Led Zeppelin first came to America they were the opening act for Vanilla Fudge, and as soon as he met Bonham - they hit it off, and he called Ludwig ASAP and said - Give this guy an endorsement! So they did, and the kit included a bunch of new Paiste Cymbals, which Bonham used for his entire career.

So, Bonzo got an exact replica of Carmine Appice's set at the time - minus Carmine's Zildjian preference.



Paul Thompson (the drummer from Roxy Music and the original drummer for Concrete Blonde) is a big Bonzo head, and he owns this particular set now. This is the set that was used to record Led Zeppelin II-IV.

In 1998, I built a replica of this drumkit.
There are a copuple of pictures here.
http://www.geocities.com/jaxmetal/drums/drums.html


The Amber Vistalite kit was a 26" Kick, 14" 6-lug rack tom, 16", 18", & 20" Floors aqccording to Jeff Ochletree - Bonham's roadie, and the owner of "Trick drums" (aluminum)- they would switch between floor toms depending upon how things were sounding and what mood Bonham was in.
They abandoned the set after the shells began cracking. Bonzo never uised this set on any studio releases, only on "The Song Remains The Same."

Then he switched to a Stainless Steel kit just like the original kit Ludwig, except with a 26" Kick, instead of the 28".
Ochletree said by that time, Bonzo was in really bad health and rarely even played the second floor tom, most of his stuff was being played on the mounted tom and one floor.




Tim

[Rimshot]

Tim,

When I saw them they were the opening act, probably Vanilla Fudge, since VF were a local group made good (at least we thought so then ) and all I can remember was the awesome technique and that clean rapid-fire right foot (maybe 1968?) "Good Times-Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown" were their two hits then.

I remember the set being dark, maybe even black, and I was guessing at the sizes of the drums (most drummers then occassionally used a 22" kick, but most were 20", and Bonham's was much bigger). The thing that amazed me was the incredible variety that he got out of only 1 rack and two floor toms. (lesson to be learned there).

They looked like they might be Ludwigs, but I don't know. (Maybe he got them here for the tour)

[Tim Brown]

Originally posted by Rimshot
Tim,

When I saw them they were the opening act, probably Vanilla Fudge, since VF were a local group made good (at least we thought so then ) and all I can remember was the awesome technique and that clean rapid-fire right foot (maybe 1968?) "Good Times-Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown" were their two hits then.

I remember the set being dark, maybe even black, and I was guessing at the sizes of the drums (most drummers then occassionally used a 22" kick, but most were 20", and Bonham's was much bigger). The thing that amazed me was the incredible variety that he got out of only 1 rack and two floor toms. (lesson to be learned there).

They looked like they might be Ludwigs, but I don't know. (Maybe he got them here for the tour)

That was probably before he got his endorsement. He had a Ludwig kit that was a really dark green, that was the same set up but with smaller drums. So, you're probably right on the sizes. That was the tour that got him the endorsement.

I have a book called "Thunder of Drums" that goes through a lot of his drumkits.
It says that he developed that foot technique trying to do a quintuplet on one kick....he was trying to figure out how Carmin Appice was doing it-and when they went on tour, Carmine had a double bass set.
So he went back to England, after knockinghimself for a couple of years developing that foot technique and went and told his friends, "He uses TWO bassdrums!" One of these friends was Bev Bevan from ELO.

It's amazing how many good musicians of that era came from such a small area.

I often wonder if it's the competition factor..you know, when everyone is striving to be better.


Until I got interest in the World's Fastest Drummer....I was kind of slacking off on my playing, and I rarely actually practiced, but then I started uppping my practice time trying to really develop my feet, and now that's finally where I want it, I've progressed to putting at least 45 minutes a day into my rudiments and just making sure my hand technique is where I want it.
Of course...I'm driving everyone nuts just sitting around with a pair of sticks in my hands doing double stroke rolls and paradiddles and double paradiddles. Next rudiment to master - Swiss Triplets!


The cool thing is, I'm not trying to compete with other drummers, I'm competing with myself - just trying to be the best that *I* can be, and right now - my chops are better than they have EVER been - so don't ever say you can't teach an old dog new tricks!




Tim