On another post someone was talking about young drummers breaking sticks. Well a guy I know asked if I had anything for sale since his son was a beginner drummer and wanted to upgrade some of his gear. (He didn't tell me at the time but I guess he kept breaking stuff.)
So the guy brought his kid by, maybe 14 years old, and he starts looking at my drums and immediately zones in on a Craviotto snare, one of my favorites and tries to buy it for the kid. I had to insist that it wasn't for sale. So I show him what I've got to sell, a 5 year old 10 ply stop sign badge maple Gretsch, a 1970's premier snare, a ludwig Vistalite, and a 1980s Mapex maple 7x14, but he's not interested in any of that. He has set his sites on a Gretsch COB stop sign '70's that I really don't want to sell. So I told him it was out of his price range and he asks "how much?" and I said 400 bucks, way more than I think its worth, and he reaches in his pocket and starts counting hundreds.
So I reluctantly sold the thing, like the money, but wasn't planning on letting go of that snare.
Ok so the point of the post is that I get called to come by and "tune up" the snare because they say it doesn't sound good anymore.
When I get there he's using it as a side snare, in addition to 13" yamaha Musashi, and he only has one snare stand so he's got this drum sitting on an orange spackling compound tub. Its duct taped to the tub. he's got wads of paper towels duct taped to the top and bottom heads, he's cranked the lugs so tight the hoop looks bent, and it has obviously been dropped because there's a dent on the side of the drum.
He then proceeds to demonstrate how "crappy" it sounds by beating it full force with enormous mallet size sticks. In addition it's missing one of the tension rods which he said is stripped. (not when I sold it)
HELP! can I do an intervention and rescue that poor drum? Can you ban someone from playing vintage drums??? Or should I say abusing them.
