Bang the Drum All Day - Todd Rundgren
Part 2 of 3 of the "allergy trilogy." My percussion origin story.
(You can find part 1 of the allergy trilogy here.)
As a kid and young teen I was obsessed with drumming.
Whenever and wherever music would be playing, chances were strong you’d find me bashing whatever surface happened to be nearby: the car seat, my desk, my bed, the kitchen table, the table at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Carl's Jr., my thighs — if it’s within reach, it’s within beats.
I did dream of one day owning an actual drum kit. One bought at Guitar Center or from a neighbor; not one constructed from couch cushions, throw pillows and inverted pie tins. My family lived in a condo; our living-space shared walls with our neighbors. A physical drum set wasn’t an option my parents would ever agree to.
“Why don’t you take up the harmonica?” my dad would unhelpfully suggest. “Or the kazoo?”
I shook my head at his clueless dashing of my rock star dreams, went upstairs to my room, blasted Rush’s 2112 and let out my frustrations by perfecting my air-drumming skills along with Neil Peart.
I fantasized about the 10-piece Tama kit I would buy when I was old enough to move out of my parents’ home and get my own place where I could bang on my drums all day.
On a weekend during my senior year of high school, my buddy Rick and I rode our bikes to his father’s pawn shop. Inside the store, featured prominently in a window display, were a pair of shiny red congas. (My embellishment-loving memory has added a beam of light shining down upon the drums as if from the heavens.)
My breath and heart both skipped a beat when I first laid eyes on them. (In a bit of foreshadowing, I will soon learn that skipping a beat is a tasty and dynamic percussive technique, especially when playing hand drums.)
I walked up to the congas as if in a trance and gently rubbed my palms across their smooth skins. Then I lifted my hands into the air, feeling the call to hit the drum heads with my palms. The congas cried out, “Do it!” I cried out, “Okay!”
My hands came down upon both drums at the same time. It felt good. It felt right.
It sounded pretty terrible. They probably needed to be tuned, I surmised.
I’d seen congueros perform in bands like Santana and War, but it wasn’t until that moment that it occurred to me that congas were something I could play.
The pair of red congas were on sale for 150 dollars, but Rick’s father said I could have them for a hundred. I gave him the sixty I had on me and promised to pay him the balance when I got paid from my part-time job at Wherehouse Records.
Rick’s dad offered to drive the congas home for me. I’m pretty sure he never asked me if my parents were okay with my new music-making purchase. I’d already learned that Rick’s dad was the coolest parent ever. He’d taken Rick and me to see AC/DC in concert at Irvine Meadows a few weeks prior and was head banging more ferociously than we were. (This story will surely be featured in a future EW&SL piece.)
My parents relented fairly quickly. It was clear to them that I was not going to take no for an answer. I was a good kid. I would be going away to college soon. I also promised not to play after 8pm.
For the next couple of months I would practice the congas every day. Practice is maybe not the right word. I had no idea what I was doing. My years of air-drumming taught me basic rhythm, so I simply transposed that to the congas. This was fine for playing along to records, but I needed to learn how to really play them. I needed lessons.
One day during lunch at school, an Argentinian band named Arco Iris performed in the quad. There were three musicians in the group. Ara Tokatlian, the bandleader, played a variety of woodwinds: flute, saxophone, pan pipes. Danais Wynnycka-Tokatlian, his wife, sang and played assorted small percussion: mostly bells and shakers. The third member, and the one I couldn’t keep my eyes off of, Hartt Stearns, played hand percussion, mostly congas and bongos.
The sounds he was getting from his drums astounded me. I could pick out at least a dozen different tones. He was using his hands and fingers and even his elbow to create a wide dynamic range. My bedroom conga playing sounded nothing like what I was hearing.
After Arco Iris finished their performance, I approached Hartt and asked him if he gave lessons.
“Do you have your own conga drums?”
I told him that I bought a pair a couple months ago.
“Great!” he said and handed me his card. “Call me tomorrow and we can set up a schedule.”
The next six months leading up to my move to Santa Cruz for college, I received weekly lessons from Hartt.
He taught me some technique — how to make a proper open tone, the difference between open and closed slaps, the muff hit — but his approach was more hands off. He wanted me to play from the inside out, not the outside in. I didn’t know what that meant, but I listened and nodded.
I told him that I wanted to be a rock percussionist. I was good with learning traditional rhythms from around the world, but ultimately I wanted to play in a soul or funk or rock band.
Hartt’s first homework assignment for me was to make a mix tape of 3 songs I wanted to learn on congas. Then I was to listen to each song over and over and try and figure out what the conguero was playing.
I chose “Oye Como Va” by Santana, “Life During Wartime,” by Talking Heads, and “Long Train Runnin’” by The Doobie Brothers.
Three of the greatest songs in rock history, right? My now self is impressed with my 18-year-old self for his choices.
One of the first things Hartt said to me during our second lesson was that the congas I owned, while okay for our lessons, were essentially pieces of crap. If I was serious about playing, I should purchase higher quality drums.
The next day I looked in the “musical instruments” section of the PennySaver, a local weekly magazine listing items for sale in a variety of categories. Lo and behold, a posting for a set of three Gon-Bops congas appeared.
I didn’t know anything about what to look for in a set of congas. I had no idea that Gon-Bops was one of the top percussion companies in the world. It was this ignorance that led to me buying a premier quinto, conga and tumba drum for only 300 dollars. In total. They probably were worth more than 1000 bucks. The owner was getting married and had to sell a bunch of his stuff to pay for the wedding.
My new drums sounded friggin’ amazing! Where my first congas were a constant struggle to produce a clean, reliable tone, my Gon-Bops sang in perfect pitch. It was like eating McDonald’s your whole life and then finally having a meal at Chez Panisse.
UC Santa Cruz Here I Come
As I would be living in a shared room in the dorms at UCSC, bringing my conga drums with me was not an option. So a week before my six-hour drive from Southern California to Santa Cruz, I decided to purchase a set of Gon-Bops bongos. They were compact and sounded sweet. Hartt gave me one final bongo lesson before we said our goodbyes.
I would never see Hartt again. (Cue sad music.)
Once I’d finished unpacking my stuff and meeting my new roommate Chris, I went down to the basement laundry room to wash some clothes. Right away I could feel the strong acoustics of the room. It was “live,” a sound person might say.
After starting the wash, I went back up to my room, grabbed my bongos and headed back to the laundry room.
It’s possible I also took a hit or two from a joint before heading back down. The details are a bit hazy. Anyway, I was sitting on the edge of a wooden bench, my bongos between my thighs and I’m jamming out to a song in my head. The whoosh of the washing machine provided a perfect sonic backdrop.
It didn’t take long before I was completely lost in the magical zone that only can be reached while playing bongos. Just ask Matthew McConaughey. Though unlike Mr. Alright Alright Alright, I was fully dressed that day.
After a few minutes, I opened my eyes and a guy with messy, wavy blonde hair was standing in the laundry room doorway smiling at me.
“That sounds really good, man.”
“Thanks,” I said, not sure if he was messing with me or complimenting me.
He approached and introduced himself as John.
I shook his hand and then he told me that he was the guitarist and singer in a band and they could use a percussionist.
“Really?” I was a bit surprised as school hadn’t even started yet. He’d already assembled a band?
He did in fact, and they would be rehearsing later that day in one of the music rooms between Porter and Kresge buildings. I informed him that I only had my bongos with me; I played congas but I couldn’t bring them.
“That’s perfect!” John said and smiled broadly. “There’s a set of LP congas in the practice room.”
A few hours later I would meet the other guys who would make up my very first rock and roll band. John of course was the lead guitarist and vocalist. Then there was Burke on bass, Mike on drum kit and Jeff on saxophone and keyboards. A few months later we would add Harold on trombone.
They’d already picked out a name, Snack Pac. “Like we’re tasty and sweet and come in all kinds of flavors,” John explained to me.
The tasty flavors we exhibited were classic rock, soul, funk, hip-hop and jazz. The other guys also played as part of a jazz ensemble and were super skilled musicians. I felt like the odd man out, having been percussing officially for a little over six months.
Snack Pac played about half originals and half covers. Songs by bands like Little Feat, Stevie Wonder, Talking Heads and, a year later, Earth Wind & Fire.
We quickly built a following on campus and were soon headlining college music events and festivals. We played a couple shows a month. It was pretty much the ideal college band situation. Snack Pac had a gig the 2nd week of classes. I more or less learned the songs live as we performed them.
We played music that got people on their feet and dancing. We were a party band. We provided space for people to cut loose.
In less than a year I went from never playing any drums at all to being the percussionist in a band playing in front of a quad packed with a thousand students.
I would play in a variety of bands and ensembles in the decades post-college. Groups I loved being part of. But none of them were rock bands. And the sheer joy and performance-fueled high I felt in Snack Pac would never be equaled.
Below is a taste from a Snack Pac concert at a club called OT Price’s in Capitola, California in February 1990. This was our take on the Sanford and Sons TV theme song.
Todd Rundgren is a Musical Maverick
It was only a few years ago when I realized that “Bang the Drum All Day” was written and performed by Todd Rundgren. Based on prior Rundgren songs I’d heard, “Bang the Drum” did not sonically resemble any of them. At all. I assumed “Bang…” was a David Lindley tune or perhaps a peppy Jimmy Buffett ditty.
The cheesy, Carribean-preset organ sound, the group sing-along vocals designed to emulate the specific joy derived after imbibing several strong Pina Coladas and a day at the beach, the way the word “the” in “bang on the drum all day” is sung with a hard “E,” the “hey” and “huh” chants during the extended bass solo half way into the tune, none of it linked to my idea of what a Todd Rundgren song sounded like.
But once I accepted that this earworm was indeed from his 1982 album The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect, I assumed it was Rundgren’s most recognizable tune. That might be the case, but in terms of number of plays on Spotify, “Bang The Drum” is the third most played tune. The #2 spot goes to “Hello It’s Me” from his 1972 double album Something/Anything?
The #1 song? Another hit from Something/Anything? — “I Saw the Light.” A fantastic song, but bigger than “Bang the Drum All Day? I think not.
To attempt to recap Todd’s Rundgren’s immense contributions to rock history would be a fool’s errand. His stamp on the music industry is incomparably vast, has lasted for almost 60 years, and is still going strong. His impact as a musician, as a songwriter, as a band-leader, and as a producer is arguably unrivaled.
It’s mind-blowing that he was inducted into the rock-and-roll hall of fame just two years ago in 2021. Two years ago. Not that he really cared about things like that. My friend
of has written about Mr. Rundgren in several posts, but this piece below is my favorite.It’s where I learned that “Bang the Drum All Day,” my earworm du jour, a song that has been played at literally thousands of sporting events, was a bit of an odd match. Todd never even liked baseball, yet his percussion-loving anthem has been used as walk-up music for dozens of players since 1983, and two of his sons, Rex and Randy, were professional minor league baseball players! Wowza!
In an interview with the DePauw University radio station WGRE, Rundgren said: "It's a party anthem, and at least once a year I get a request to use it in a commercial or a movie. I hate playing it live, though. I feel ape-like. My hands get tired, my ears get tired. But the audience loves it."
Some of the commercial uses of this song include a TV commercial for Carnival Cruise Lines and a scene in the TV show The Office. It is played at a variety of sporting events and frequently used in movie trailers. Radio stations often play it at quitting time (5 p.m.), as an anthem for working stiffs ready to escape the clutches of their employer. In 2012, Rundgren said that the song makes him "six figures every couple of months," thanks mostly to Carnival.
Dang.
If only Snack Pac could have taken advantage of our campus-wide popularity and parlayed it into a stadium anthem. Coulda woulda shoulda….
But What About Allergies? Why You Such a Liar?
Good questions. Not a sneeze to be found here. You will learn the connection between my becoming a percussionist and solving the riddle of my chronic hay fever in part 3. Then it’ll all make perfect sense. Or at least imperfect sense.
Until then, my suggestion is to pick up a pair of chopsticks or a couple of spoons, hit play on the playlist below and bang on all nearby surfaces for all or part of the day. But stop by 8pm or you might be grounded and be sent to bed hungry.
Drums are friggin’ the best, am I right?
“Bang On the Drum All Day.” A classic? A silly gimmicky song? Did you know it was Todd Rundgren from the beginning?
I want to thank all my new readers who are here at Earworm and Song Loops for the first or second time. I do love getting feedback and comments!
If you prefer to give feedback via email, send it to ambidextwords@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading!
If you missed part one of the allergy trilogy, here it is:
My dad was/is a huge fan of Arco Iris. I didn’t know they were known outside Argentina!
Brilliant! That was the first I knew you had been in a band (several!), first I knew about various kinds of Congas (of course, I went and did a little research, because nerds etc.), and I even learned a little more about Rundgren (longevity counts for a lot, though I still think "Hello It's Me" is a terrible song). One nitpick: people who were raised on McDonalds actually prefer it. My friend Gary, a Bay Area transplant from a small town in Nebraska, was really excited some years ago to host his father, who was traveling outside their home town for the first time in his life. Gary took him to, you guessed it, Chez Panisse for his welcome dinner. When the main course arrived, Gary's dad looked at it and said "Where's the food?" He then refused to eat it because it was "weird". Gary cancelled all the rest of their reservations for the week, and they ate al their meals at Denny's after that.