Premier Kit

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Premier Kit

It’s been too many years since I’ve seen Mr. Campbell (aka @patatomic) set up his kit. I got to see him get it going last night while working on a video thing for him and another friend. There is no better kick sound than what Patrick gets, no offense to other drummer friends. His technique creates a sustained boom that sounds kind of old-timey and yet fills the room with a rumble that makes me want to have the kick drum’s babies.

I first met Pat in 1992 when we auditioned him for Swim Herschel Swim. He showed up with a vintage Camco silver sparkle kit and I’ll never forget when we fired it up and the sound that his kick made. Within a nanosecond I knew he was the one. Everybody else in the band felt the same way. In one of the rehearsals, we joked about “Pat”, the Julia Sweeney character from Saturday Night Live. I said something about seeing an Action Cats fake SNL commercial and one of the cats was called “Cat Atomic”. I made the obvious connection that anybody named Pat who could create a bass drum sound that omninous and delicious should be called “Pat Atomic”. The nickname stuck. Here’s the parody commercial (relevant bit around :34 seconds):

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I haven’t seen this particular kit up close and personally, so I was thrilled to be able to shoot some video last night and feel those low frequencies in a room setting once again. This photo doesn’t really do the kit justice. I was testing the light and the lens and wasn’t concentrating on getting the most ultimate fantastic shot in the universe. That will come later.