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	The Boss "Dr.Rhythm Section" DR5. This is a sweet little unit. It's all the kits from the Boss 80's, early 90's drum machine sounds (The "808" kit as well!), plus a neat little sequencer. I use it mostly with students as a metronome but I also run it through triggers when I'm using the jungle kit. The 808 sound is such a cool part of jungle. Note the incredibly confusing notepad.
	The Allan & Heath DP1000 small venue digital powered mixer. Wowee wow wow, I love this guy. I bought this about 3 years ago when I cashed in my RRSP and never regretted it. It took awhile to get used to the controls but it's a dream, really. It's really effective when I record music to my mini disc. I've recorded my bands several times and there have been some very decent off-the-floor mixes. Some of the audio examples on this were recorded through it. Some of the features are the two effects channels (reverb and delays), it's power (three hundred watts a side- enough for a small band or solo), and of course it's MIDI compatible, which makes this a very powerful little mixer. My favorite part is the way you can change to any preprogrammed EQ and speaker setting with one push of a button. God, I love digital technology.
	The Gibson Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro Plus: This rack mounted real time sampler was the end of a four year long quest: to find a way to sample drums live and in real time effectively. I'd tried other samplers, but nothing comes close to the Echoplex. Originally I bought it to be able to play live Jungle with a band. For those that don't know, Jungle is a fast and rhythmic form of eclectronica (sometimes called Rave music) that features several tracks of drum samples stacked on top of each for incredible effect. I'd never be able to match that unless I had an instrument of my own to even the odds. This machine can do things that cannot be matched by any other machine this side of a fully loaded laptop. Some of it's features allow me to record a sample, overdub unlimited tracks over top and then subtract any overdub I don't like. It also lets you reverse the sample, record it quantized to several other tracks, punch in and replace a section of the sample, slow to half time, the options are endless. The fact that all it's functions can be assigned to MIDI triggers makes it even more awesome. Now you can plug other devices into it and trigger sequences or set the sample to follow an external MIDI clock. Ah, it's just amazing. Of course, the applications go beyond live performance. I've discovered that you can use it as a compositional tool as well. I've written and recorded several demos on the Echoplex. I've never been able to simply create a song out of thin air as soon as I think of it. What a beautiful instrument.
	The Sharp MD-MT15 Mini Disc player. I got this thing over six years ago, the same time a couple of friends were buying theirs. My one friend has since been through at least 6, while I still have the original. I won't tell you what his brand is, but it sounds like...Pony. Anyway, the sound quality of Mini Discs is great, I've recorded myself on a cruise ship playing showtunes with a crappy little ten-dollar microphone and the sound is surprisingly good. When I write on the Echoplex, I record to this player. And I can't tell you how many times I've dropped it. Lots.
	My dumbek. Note the cool stickers from past shows and festivals. There's also Spider Man, Mysterio and Iron Man.
	TEACHING SECTION1: Ted Reed's Syncopation and George Stone's Stick Control. These two books are the bibles of my profession. My teacher, Chris McCann, taught out of these books. The Percussion department at Humber College teaches out of these books. I teach and learn out of them every single day. There are so many applications for each of these books, I'm still finding new ways to approach them after 15 years of playing. Syncopation contains mainly jazz and syncopated figures individually or together in exercise form (they're more like complete songs almost). Stick Control has repeating hand exercises which build dexterity and a rhythmic vocabulary that goes far beyond hands. Every exercise in this book can be applied to the kit in a myriad of ways. Chris McCann actually had me playing patterns such as RLRR LRLL in triplet form against the jazz ride pattern. Very cool.
	The Casio DZ-1 drum translator: Basically it's a converter unit that is the bridge between a trigger and a MIDI device. Without this, there would be no electronic drums. You plug the trigger via a quarter inch cable and find what MIDI channel and patch you'd like to assign to the trigger. Pretty simple once you figure it out.
	Roland four pad drum trigger. All the smooth outside sections (not the ridged) are triggers as well as the middle. I'd like to get one of their newer mesh ones.
	The Boss Sp-303 phrase sampler. I thought this was going to be the sampler I used live, but it doesn't work in real time. You have to edit the start and end of the sample. It's more like a "create you own beat box sounds" type machine. I run it through the other Roland four pad trigger through it. The cool feature on this little guy is that you have about 23 onboard effects that you can use to change any sample you have running through it. It also does little sequences but not very long ones.
	The Basic Set Up. Ah, Yamaha, you make the best drums in the world. These are the Maple Customs. 14" inch snare, 10, 12 and 14 inch toms and the bass is 22". The cymbals are all Zildjian (of course) with a 18" dark crash being used as a ride. The small crash is a 16" thin crash and the hihats are top beat. I think I might be buried with this kit.
	This is my favorite setup. This is my super badass, every drum I could find, all-purpose-Jungle-funk kit. Note that there are three, count em three snare drums (four if you count the dirbekka as a snare). The ten inch, nestled where the high tom usually is, is a neat little Pearl that I found for about 200 bucks. What a deal. On top of the thin crash cymbal you can see what appears to be two little crappy warped and cracked hihats from a children's set. They're actually my combination hand claps-and substitute hihat for when I play double kick. Mostly they're just hand claps.
	My pandeiro. This is a Brazilian handrum which is very versatile. I feel I could express a great number of beats from a great many cultures with this in my hand.
	me in a tree.
	That's crazy Spencer Evans from Pico De Gallo and me performing.
	This is Clyde Forsberg making his monster sounds. Clyde is the trumpet for Pico. He's one of the most talented, intelligent people I've ever met and has a wonderfully twisted sense of humour. He's currently living in Istanbul.
	(from left): Brian Howell, congero of Pico, Jonathan "Bunny" Stewart (sax), and Mike Sakell, ex timbale player.
	The bandstand of the Carnival Ecstasy, where I worked in early 2004. That hung over guy was my roomate. Good guy.
	Long shot of the Ecstasy. That's my friend Maja in the foreground
	The orchestra of the Mikado (summer 2005) warming up for a show.
	Me performing a teaching clinic at the Blue Skies music festival (98).
	The Pico De Gallo logo. Designed for us by artist Don Maynard.