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Photography, like drumming, was once a very complicated business. From setting up camera equipment to final adjustments in a darkroom, the journey from capturing an image to hanging it on the wall was a long one back in the days when drummers were tucking calfskin heads and wondering if the light bulb inside the bass drum would go out mid-gig. At least you would have a hard copy - you never worried if the great shot someone took of you behind your vintage Radio Kings or brand new DWs could vanish in a hard drive crash or disappear from an accidental keystroke. We love old photographs of unknown drummers. Some of the allure comes from seeing what cool gear people were using in days gone by and wondering what's become of those great drums. It also connects us to a long tradition of musicians, sharing the same joys and problems working musicians have always faced. Because after all, the story never really changes much, does it?       Well, here we are two years after opening the doors to the Krusty Tubs shop. We're pleased to announce that we've officially booked our 100th sale and would like to say thank you to all our buyers and vintage drum fans around the world. This past year we were able to add lots of vintage sticks to our inventory courtesy of our friends at Banko's Music in Ansonia, CT. As we enter our third year in business, we plan to continue offering a selection of vintage drums, cymbals and accessories and will be loading up the Parts Barn along with testing the waters on some new Krusty Tubs items. Have a safe and healthy holiday and as always, you can contact us at [email protected] or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Bob and Tom   This week – June 6, specifically - is the anniversary of the 1944 invasion of Normandy. The date reminds us of this photograph, which we got via a shop in New Hampshire. The previous owner had no clue who the young men in the photograph might be. All we saw was that the guy in the middle was hovering over a sporty set of mid-20th century duco Leedys with tacked tom heads and not much to prevent them from skidding across the dance floor after the first downbeat. Internet sleuthing didn't reveal this hep cat's identity, but it did tell us that the Lee Temple Orchestra performed at dances in New Jersey. We also discovered that Temple had to be the trumpet player here, a graduate of Maryland's exclusive McDonogh prep school, where he was acknowledged to be a good musician. He went on to study at Rutgers, where he and the other fellows in the photograph played at dances. Temple was studying business, not music, when WWII broke out. He enlisted up in the U.S. Army Air Corps even before Pearl Harbor was bombed. By the time preparations were underway for the allied invasion of France, he was a piloting a P-38 twin-engined fighter-bomber. On the first day of the D-Day invasion, his squadron was flying over France and supporting ground troops when his P-38 was hit and Major Lee Temple was killed. The internet can be a great tool for quick reference about a drum company badge, an oddball piece of hardware, or dating unfamiliar drums. When you dig deeper, you never know what - or who - you're going to find.
 We were kids before box stores, internet sales, and ... shucks, years before the internet itself. Back then one of the few places you could buy a drum or cymbal in this neck of the woods was a little music store called Banko's, a tiny mecca in the Naugatuck River Valley town of Ansonia. Banko's was legendary. Jaguars and Silvertones hung from the ceiling like stalactites. Voxs and Super Reverbs were canyon walls marking a path from the door to the cash register where you would find Frank Banko, a gentleman who confided that he'd once won a date with beauty queen Bess Myerson. If the avalanche of instruments wasn't cool enough, Banko's had a 40% off list price policy -- standard practice today, but exceedingly rare back then. One visit made you a believer.
Frank has been gone for awhile and most of the rarities he sold when they were standard issue/no-big-deal instruments have been gone for decades. Recently, however, the store changed hands and is headed toward a dual role as both a store and community music center. We had the good fortune to poke around in the mysterious innards of the building and will be offering what we discovered. We didn't find any Supraphonics in the original wrappers, but we did come home with a large cache of useful vintage parts, hardware, heads, sticks, and exotica. We'll be getting these treasures into the shop soon, so as the saying goes, "watch this window!" |
Shop Talk is our forum for guest artists, curators and craftsmen to hang around the store and share their stories about inspirations, favorite drums and playing experiences. Our goal is to provide a unique view into the world of drumming as seen through the eyes of the people with the best seat in the house ~ drummers. Krusty Tubs proprietors Bob and Tom were both fortunate to grow up in musical families that exposed them to music and drums early in their childhoods that continue to inspire them today. If you'd like to contribute to Shop Talk, send us an email at [email protected]. Archives
January 2022
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