Rogers Parklane: Thrifty Traveler, Wandering Minstrel

[tommykat1]

For a special venue coming up in a couple of weeks in California, the logistics are interesting: roughly 200 "camps," many of them musical, few of them with drum sets waiting to be played. There are plenty of guitars, horns, mandolins, fiddles, keyboards, etc., but, like the keyboard, drums are hard to tote.

So, I bought a special hand truck with a folding platform and modified it so that it could work as both a standard hand truck--for hauling important things like cases of beer and whiskey--but also used to tote "Stew McGoo" (that's the name the original owner etched in the rims of my Rogers Parklane!) from site to site.

So here goes--

Standard hand truck mode with platform closed:




Platform open and special "drum cushion" installed on frame with carriage bolts. Note PVC cups bolted to the platform:



"Stew McGoo," strapped in place in "folded" mode. With the high tom and ride/crash cymbal "Swivoed" in, the hand truck and cocktail outfit will fit through a standard door jamb. Also, thanks to the unique nature of Rogers' fabulous Swiv-o-Matic hardware and solid drum construction, everything stands on the three floor tom legs. So, you just pick up the outfit and place the legs in the PVC cups:





But, if there are no doors to go through or stairs to climb, "Stew McGoo" can also be hauled from venue to venue in fully playable mode! No setup or breakdown time!

[Daddy-O]

Say, the cart is a nifty idea....


...but that Rogers kit is just KOOL!!!!


Cocktail drum porn at it's finest!

[jmettam]

Very Nice TommyKat!

Any idea how much the entire kit weighs with the cymbals and all?

Thanks for the great photos!

- John

[tommykat1]

Hi John. Just got back from the gig in California where I played Stew McGoo night and day for 10 days. what a blast!

Don't know the weight of the whole marianne. I can fit all of it (except the cart, of course) in three cases and a backpack that I can lug in one trip. But it is at the top limit weight-wise for comfort. What I like is that these are real drums, ie, no compromise with snare, tom or floor tom.

BTW, I have two three inch felts, three gels and a Remo Falam slam pad on the floor tom/bass drum head, and it STILL thunders. I have to be careful how hard I kick it. We played acoustically--only the keyboard was sightly amped--so I used brushes pretty much all of the time.

[tommykat1]

Bump! I have a friend interested in my hand truck idea...

[jmettam]

The hand truck is amazing! I wish there was a way to get it on there in a "ready to play" configuration. That would truly be something!