Whenever I edit this page I put older and older pics on it. Here I am around age 12. Note the instrument that I’m holding. It’s a guitar. This proves that I had a brief fling with that instrument but it was never serious. I could play your G, your C, your F, your basic bar chords and maybe an A minor. That’s about it. All that pressing down of strings hurt my tender digits.
Let’s jump up a few years to the High School marching band. Sorry you can’t see the spats. I loved the spats.
This is just about the time I started studying with Tom Stubbs of the St. Louis Symphony. My first real teacher was Ed Erschen, whom I started studying with when I was nine. He was an old dance band drummer from the forties and fifties. When I was in high school I decided that I wanted to follow my buddy Mark Sparks (now the principal flutist of the SLSO) into classical music. It was a big rush for me when I descended down to Tom’s basement (the original Basement?) and saw a room full of percussion instruments. I was hooked immediately, though I had a long way to go to learn the ways of the orchestral drummer.
After high school I attended the late lamented St. Louis Conservatory of Music for two years. Then I practiced like a fiend and was admitted to the Juilliard School in New York City. This was, to say the least, pretty heady stuff for a midwestern dude.
I was the last student accepted into the studio (from outside of the school) of the late great Saul Goodman. It’s not much of a claim to fame, but one takes what one can get.
My pal Randy Max sent me this a pic of him from that era. Note the stogie!
This is how I like to remember him, irascible as ever and still very capable of getting an amazing sound out of the timpani. He used to stand behind me in lessons and shout, “The sound, the sound, the sound!” He always emphasized musicality and presence. Students were encouraged to be musical forces in the orchestra; playing the right notes in the right place was the beginning of the process, not the end.
Here I am around the time of my first Juilliard graduation way back in 1982. 
That was for my Bachelor’s degree. A year later the scene was replayed when I got my Masters, a common occurrance in those days. People used to say that Juilliard was cut-throat and intense, but I really had a blast. After Mr. Goodman retired, I studied with Roland Kohloff and Buster Bailey, both wonderful players who are sorely missed by all who knew them. In 1983 I received the Saul Goodman Award for Percussion Performance.
OK, here I am at my first job, as timpanist of the Evansville Philharmonic in Evansville, Indiana. 
Back then we played in the local civic auditorium with a temporary shell. Now they play in a a restored theatre, which I’m sure is a lot nicer. Note the Ludwig Dresdens. They were a challenge to play on, has you had to finesse the pitches using the pedal and the fine tuner.
I also played in the Owensboro, KY Symphony and they had the same drums. In fact, their current timpanist, Todd Sheehan, informs me they’ve still got them, though he had the pedal ratchets updated by Falls Percussion so they can now (hopefully,) be tuned entirely by means of the feet.
In 1987, I left Evansville and moved back to St. Louis (where I grew up) and decided to go into commercial music with my brother Dan. Unfortunately, a lot of people had this idea at the same time as we did and St. Louis, while a darn sight bigger than E’ville, was no hotbed of jingles and soundtracks. Still isn’t. So that was rough, but we learned a lot and had some fun. We made some dough, too, but it took a while.
We also had this band called Red Weather. (I am the one on the far right in the chapeau and the long lost hair.) I sang and played percussion, but was not the actual drummer.
Also pictured are (from left) Mark Miller, (drums), Mark Foster (bass), Tom Fulton (guitar), Lisa Campbell (keys and vocals) and my brother Dan (guitar and vocals).
We wrote 100 or so songs and worked incredibly hard at it, but it was a money pit. We’d get guarantees from clubs and pay our people (it was a six piece band) and we’d make zip. In fact, we’d lose money on mailings and publicity, etc. Again, we learned a lot and had some fun.
At the same time, I joined an experimental group called the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble. We did Young Audience shows, a series of concerts, First Night St. Louis and a bunch of other stuff. The reviews were always good and we even won a couple of local awards. I left it in 1996, but it continues to this day. The picture is of the NPE in costumes for First Night in the early 90s.
We did this amazing piece called “The Circle” which was based on Native American mythology. Each of us represented a compass direction (I was south, and green) and we were tied into an enormous 20 foot tall wind chime which we built. I remember it being cold (it was New Year’s Eve) and sweaty at the same time!
I went back to school about twelve years ago and got a masters in media communication from Webster University in St. Louis. Since 2003 years I’ve been at Saint Louis University as an Educational Technologist (yes, there is such a thing.) I work with a great bunch of people in the Reinert Center for Teaching Excellence.
I have been a regular extra percussionist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for close to twenty years which I write about here in the Basement. Click the Contact link at the top of the page for my email address. I always like hearing from visitors to the Basement.
Here is a more recent pic of me with my trusty wood block in Carnegie Hall.
Even more lately I’ve been playing a lot of frame drums, mostly here in the basement but occasionally on gigs as well. Here’s a pic of me and my Cooperman Glen Velez Bodhran.
I got this drum after years of playing a Remo Glen Velez Bodhran and I must say there’s a big difference. The Cooperman drums are hand crafted works of art, as well as beautiful and responsive instruments.
