Shane's Drums

THE KIT on the front cover is an AJAX kit, well actually it is an EDGWARE, by BOOSY& HAWKS, I guess because they had a factory in the Edgware Road N.W. London.

Theirs very little information I can find, I've got a picture of Jack Parnell in 1955 endorsing AJAX, they stopped making them in 1970, now my kit is pritty funky looking so maybe late 60s.

The sound off it is great (still got the original heads on the underside). I use it as my main kit because it is so light, the look & the tone off it.

• (4 ply) 20" kick with double heads it has a big deep tone
• 16+16" floor tom
• 12+8"tom
• 12+7 pearl soprano. used to record all track in Ireland.

How did I acquire such a thing? …I swapped it! I had and still have half of it, a 13 piece 1980 PREMIER ELITE kit. I got it new £450 for the 5 piece. I was a bit of metalist, carrying all that stuff up and down stairs, you learn, one doesn't need all that stuff to make a good groove, so I swapped half of it for the Ajax…rocking!

THE PREMIER ELITE kit is still a kit to be put next to modern kits, that’s why I've never got another, and I'm always broke. On tracks 3,4 & 7 I used this kit with a premier black shadow 14+8"a big snare drum, I can't get on with it now. However a drum which was rotting in someones loft I cleaned up & repaired, an AJAX snare, very rock sounding with a crackin rimshot tone, old jazz styley, I don't know the age …... 50s?

Cymbals
The ride cymbal in the picture is a 22 inch flat sabian, a bit of a one trick pony but a lovely trick it is.

HI HATS are an old pair of 14 inch Zildjian flange hats, which means the bottom cymbal is flat around the edge, a little trashy, lasted well, 24 years, and they were once stolen & us used as Frisbees as all my cymbals were, returned for a ransom

CRASH an 18 inch istanbul, big full sound long decay, Good example on track 5 where I us it to ride.

CHINA Zildjian trash 18 inch, very loud & mellow, handle with care!

SUPER switzerland crash, looks like its been beaten with a sledge hammer, its been mashed, someone has written shit on it, so I call it my shit cymbal, it sounds like an expensive china.