These days I own some really nice drum gear, at least in my opinion. It was not always so. In 1975 I was a 16 year old kid playing a beat to death set of blue sparkle 1960s drums. I traded a bass bought at a five and ten for that drum kit. Needless to say, it was not exactly high end equipment.
A drummer friend of mine were at a great local drum shop called "DRUMS" to pick up sticks or maybe a drum head. In the window was the coolest kit that I'd ever seen. It was brand new Slingerlands in a black chrome finish. (Slingerland called it "Blakrome".) The bass drum was virgin, the 12" and 13" toms were mounted on a separate stand, very unusual for that time. I fell in love with that kit.
I don't remember what it cost, it didn't matter. It was way out of reach of this high school boy.
A few years later I bought a nice, clean, used set of 1965 champagne sparkle Slingerlands. I was the second owner, and that kit was great. I owned that kit and gigged a lot in Pittsburgh, and later, in south Florida with that kit. Unfortunately, in my early twenties (the early 1980s) I ran into financial issues which meant selling off my most precious possessions, my Slingerlands.
It was a lot of years before I owned a really nice kit again, but I did own several kits and gigged through the rest of that decade and the beginning of the next. In 1991 I was run over by a truck. Yes, a truck. I was on my motorcycle, and a "gentleman" in a truck missed an exit and took me out. My left side was crushed, it was questionable whether I'd walk again, much less play the drums. My hospital and physical therapy bills totaled over $600,000, you can refer to me as the .6 million dollar man... Insurance covered most of this, but in order to live I again had to sell my worldly possessions, my Sea Doo, my motorcycles, and my drums in order to live.
Fast forward to early 1992. I was living back in Pittsburgh, and my physical therapist thought that I might try to incorporate drumming into my physical therapy. A good friend took me out shopping for drums. "DRUMS", the shop where I used to shop as a teenager had been out of business for a few years, we went to another shop, called Drum World to see what they had available used. Back in the corner of the store was a set of 975 blackrome Slingerlands with a virgin bass. Could it be?
Inside each drum was a chrome sticker from the shop where the kit was originally old. "DRUMS"! By this point, seventeen years after I first saw them in a drum shop window they had some wear and tear, but it was still a cool kit. I bought it on the spot, and still own it today. If you look closely you can see the chrome sticker inside the bass drum. This photo was taken of the kit in 2008.
So, in answer to the question I've owned these Slingerlands since 1992, but I fell in love with them in 1975.
1975 Slingerlands in 2008.jpg
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