Here Comes the Golden Sun: Premier B303, early 70's

I've come a long with Premier drums since my first post about Beverley Blue Badge here on this blog. A couple of years ago I basically knew nothing about Premier except that my hero, Keith Moon, played Premier. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this blog, for most of my drumming career I didn't care about drums as something other than something to play. I didn't know the history of any of the brands and never really bothered with any geeky details.

Well that all changed big-time in recent years.

And regarding Premier, I now consider it one of my obsessions.

For a couple of years now I've been eager to get a kit with 14x8 toms (like Mr Moon), so when I was recently invited to join a new The Who tribute band down here in Budapest, I finally had a perfect excuse to finally make a move.

Stacked up at Will's Drum Shop

Using various Facebook groups, I found this lovely kit for a good price at the legendary Will's Drum Shop in Sunderland, UK, owned and operated by Will Wright. If you don't know about Will and his shop, and if you love drums, be sure to read this article from the Drummer's Journal. It's worth your time.

Anyway, all I knew was that the sizes were what I wanted (12x8, 14x8, 16x15, 22x14) and that the kit had plenty of signs of wear and some extra holes on the kick. The price was right, so I placed total trust in Will's reputation and bought the kit without much pissing around, so to speak. Here's what it looked like stacked up at Will's shop (right).

When she arrived, I realized the main issue was certainly the extra holes. A previous owner had removed the disappearing spurs and added the Premier folding spurs. The job wasn't very well done, but the spurs do the job, and holes can be filled.

The edges on the 14" tom were really horrible. As former Premier endorser John Maher from the Buzzcocks has said on the Premier Group on Facebook, Premier made great shells but did not always cut the best edges. Again, no worries. I've already had them recut.

And now I'll let the pictures speak a thousand words. You can see that I've polished them up nicely. You can't hear how great they sound, so just take my word for it. When we have "Who practice" I really find myself in the room with The Who... it is THAT sound from LPs like Who's Next and Quadrophenia. Perfect. I have G2 Clear on top and Coated Ambassador on the botom. My theory is that the clear head will be more like Moon's Everyplay Extra, but I have no proof except that I'm hearing very Moonie sounds with this head combo.

This was the key to getting these babies clean and shiny

Newly painted hoops

Mahogany shells lightly sanded and polished with beeswax

My weapons: CX-80 is a teflon spray that really brought out the shine in the wrap. 

P for Premier. Love it.

All polished and shiny. Teflon spray did the job.

The kick has a funny little cowbell holder... Another extra hole, but I don't care!

The oval mount has a small stress fracture, as is typical of this model.