O.K. thought I'd put this anomalous story about a tiny footnote in Euro/U.S. drum history on record somewhere before I forget it. Not sure this is absolutely the right topic headline but close enough for now. Of incredibly marginal interest to anyone not interested in Camco and/or living in Europe - so figuring my audience is about five. But I guess that's what VSD is about anyway - so here goes.

in 1990 I moved to Denmark where I discovered a brand of drums called PJ Percussion (they still do excellent percussion stuff and stands). What struck me at the time (Camco guy that I was and still am) was that they had lugs like Camco or DW (who at the time were still pretty much a minor cult thing) and I was always a little fascinated about how this came about (though not fascinated enough to ask).

Recently I lost a Camco bass drum claw and thought they might have one (which, against the odds, they did) - at the same time I got the whole story so thought I'd relate it briefly here.

In the late 1970's a Danish drum shop (Drumstick, I think) was desperate to get the Camco agency for Scandinavia. They went to NAMM and did the deal. Got back home, several months go by and no kits were forthcoming (they'd only ordered five). They then discovered that Camco had been sold and split up (as we know, the name went to Tama and tooling went to DW).

They contacted DW (we're talking 1980 here) about getting kits but it was too early in the piece for them to supply much of anything. But the DK guys were not about to give up. They were also tight with the Gon Bop crew who had, by all accounts, a fairly hefty supply of Camco lugs and other fittings (they were the original suppliers of brass shells for DW snares, fact fans).

At some point they let the people at PJ Percussion in Denmark have a whole mess of these original Camco lugs and fittings. Then PJ bought Keller shells (same as Camco used), put the old Camco lugs on them and labelled them under the PJ moniker. I have no idea how many kits they did (not sure they do either) but as late as the early 1990s these were still on sale new in DK. And they still turn up on the second hand market (saw one on consignment but a few days ago).

So if ever you see a kit that looks like a Camco, sounds like a Camco but doesn't say Camco on it (and isn't DW, of course) then this just might be the answer to the riddle.

They also briefly used Camco fittings but decided (quite rightly I think) that Tama stuff was better and used this for the most part.

Hope someone somewhere finds this interesting.

Cheers,

David