Simmonsmuseum's Blog

You may think about Ebay whatever you want. But I assume that everyone of you has seen “this very special item” there which you have been searching for half of your life time. Well, in my case I found a set of Musicaid (!) SDSV pads, all obviously assembled by hand, the predecessors of the serial Simmons SDSV pads. In addition to this, a prototype made of solid wood and likely one of the legendary models which had been assembled for the catalogue pictures. Unfortunately the auction was pick-up-only in London, no shipping, but I was prepared to take this long trip but to combine it with a fast visit in St. Albans which was only 30 km north of my pick-up destination. But I had to win the auction first (no doubt about that….). During the endless 10 days till the auction end I sold my Roland PD-80 pads (who needs Roland…) in order to arm myself with some budget. 10 days later I really won that auction! Not really a bargain, but for a rarity like this it’s worth the money.

At once I started to organize the journey: How far is London? 700km? One way 9-10 hours, ferry included. No problem, deep inside I feel like a trucker 🙂

I made an appointment with the seller MJQ, a company trading with used studio gear in the north of London. The children needed a baby-sitter. My brother-in-law was kind enough to take them overnight. Thereafter I booked the ferry Dunkerque/Dover and back. And of course I needed 1 1/2 days off from work for my 24 hour trip. OK…waiting another 10 days…

*another 10 endless days later*

Today’s the day. My first target is Dunkerque/France. Take off is 6am in the morning. The ferry is about to leave at 12:00.

6 am. Ready to go. To be honest, this is a fake: I have positioned the apples because the snickers bars had already been eaten at that time…

12 am: waiting for the ferry Dunkerque-Dover

Best weather

3:30 pm: London. Travelling from Dover to the target street in London/Neasden took 1 1/2 hour, it took another 1 1 1/2 hour finding the exact place of the company in the same street. Thanks to the traffic jam! But finally after the seller directed me by the mobile phone, I arrived. Tired and desperately needing a rest room… In the main this day’s take found it’s way into my trunk.
I have to hurry up. The ferry won’t wait and I don’t know if I will get stuck in the traffic again on the way to St. Albans.

5 pm: St. Albans cathedral

Abbey Mill – production facility for the SDS5 and SDS6 from 1982-1984 (thumbnail is taken from “Complete Simmons Drum Book“)

“Ye Olde Fighting Cocks” – The pub where the staff had the after work beer (thumbnail is taken from “Complete Simmons Drum Book“)

Abbey Mill Lane street sign

6 pm: Hatfield Road 176 – Home of most Musicaid gear such as SDS3/4, early SDSV and the analog Clap Traps (thumbnail is taken from “Complete Simmons Drum Book“)

6:30 pm: Alban Park: SDS7/8/9/1000 and following had been produced in a building just like this one. I formerly stated, that this building is the former Simmons production facility, but it is not. Attended readers and former employees told me, the original Simmons building does not exist anymore but was. It had been replaced by a Volkswagen dealerships

9 pm: waiting for the ferry in Dover

5:30 am: back home again with an SDSV prototype pad

…and a hex-shaped box with Musicaid logo. Good night…

PS: I already had the opportunity to open up one of these Musicaid pads, and they are totally different from any other SDSV pad. But this will definetely fill another post. Stay tuned!

I am still sceptical about Google Streetview. Probably all the information that Google collects will cause the end of the world one day, similar to the scenario drawn in Terminator 2. But to come back to the main issue of this post: Just for fun and after a long time I checked Streetview in order to find out what happened to the old Simmons production facilities. Surprisingly even the side roads such as Abbey Mill Lane where Simmons produced the SDSV have been photographed in 2009:

in the center of the picture you can see Abbey Mill where Simmons produced on the top floor. Yes! British high technology came from probably one of the most picturesque places in Britain! On the right you can see “Ye Olde Fighting Cocks”, the after-work pub…

I took the opportunity and “looked around”: Hatfield Road, where Dave Simmons (likely) built his Musicaid gear (SDS3/4) and the first SDSV prototypes, Abbey Mill, where they started the SDSV production in 1982 and the Alban Park factory, the huge production facilities. Of course Alban Park has changed during the last 23 years: the old Simmons facilities are now a Best Import ltd.. It’s the building in the background next to the Volkswagen dealer. Abbey Mill is now a Bed-And Breakfast accomodation.

All information which I have provided here is unproved, but it will be proved soon 😉

When I seriously started playing music at the age of 13, back in 1983, the medium-term target was of course…girls, as many as possible, as beautiful as possible. I was fascinated by great rock bands, the money, the fame. At this point my experiences with girls were to help them learning latin vocabulary or to teach them mathematical formulas. So it was about time to start something “exciting”. To be honest, I was blinded by a show: I more or less lived from making music for about 15 years, but girls: No progress that might have been related to the fact that I was a music playing vagabond. My “attraction” (if it could be decribed as such) was more based on the fact that I was “recommended” as a reliable, anodying (I try to avoid to say “boring”) listener (at least this reputation is the reason how I got to know my wife, so please: I won’t complain). So all in all the best requirements for someone to start a collection of boring stuff like … hexagonal electronic drums. Probably it worked out to impress a handful of guys. But girls? No… “WHAT do you collect? Electronic drums? What’s that? Next, please…”.
I am happily married, I find some understanding from my wife but I guess that she actually considers my hobby being more than strange: paying a hell of a money for old and unfashionable, often none-working gear. So what?

The answer to the most asked question: “How can I get my own SIMMONS?”. When I got my first SDSV in 2003, I was lucky that the frame already carried the very rare digital cymbal module. It also came with the even more rare cymbal pad. In this case I was very very lucky and I did not need any patience at all. I got the full set, Bd, Sn, 3xTT and Cymbal with all pads, stands and cables for reasonable 500 Euro. Since 2003 I have been waiting to fill the last slot with the long time desired HiHat module. But every time a HiHat module appeared on Ebay (probably once a year only one), It went for a horrendous amount of money and I preferred to wait….until yesterday… A Simmons buddy from Munich wanted to sell his entire rack with 6 modules and HiHat included. He placed a small add in the internet which I saw just 2 hours later. Unfortunately I was only the second who contacted him and he had already promised the unit to a guy from Berlin. Fortunately this guy had to resign from buying it so I took my chance. In the meantime the seller also decided to keep the 5 standard modules, so he only sold the HiHat module at a faire price to me. It is even a very early analog HiHat version taken from the frame SN #119

This demonstrates what “patience” means: 7 years of waiting. I have just passed my 40th birthday and I am confident that I have enough life time left to complete my collection before I die. Probably it may take another 7 years until I find the digital version, but it is worth waiting

When I (re)started my interest for Simmons drums back in 2003, I immediately found a white and shiny 5 piece SDSV kit on Ebay, located in Switzerland. Although I did not win the auction, I was not too disappointed as Simmons drums regularly appeared there from time to time. Since then I daily check Simmons offers on Ebay in several key areas such as US, UK and of course Germany as well as several websites providing small adds and I must say that the offers became less and less over the years, those ones that I found are mostly very expensive and/or in poor condition. So sometimes I think that I started to collect at a better period of time. Those of you who are still desperately waiting for an SDSV or SDX need much more patience and … money. One more reason to keep the remaining gear and all the docs and gossip alive. Simmons, an endangered species…