TDJ-Issue-Three
TDJ-Issue-Three
TDJ-Issue-Three
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27<br />
THE DRUMMER’S JOURNAL<br />
I<br />
can’t remember exactly when I noticed the rusting dentistry chair<br />
and surgical tools in the corner of the workshop, but I remember the<br />
subsequent feeling of dread that washed over me. Matt had seemed<br />
like a nice guy when we first met, but I’d seen enough low budget horror<br />
films to know where this was going.<br />
Obviously, the cymbalsmithing was a ruse – little more than a deception.<br />
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The workshop,<br />
with its white, windowless arches suddenly seemed like an inescapable<br />
cave. With tracks running overhead, the walls shake with each passing<br />
train and the workshop fills with the sound of countless cymbals and<br />
miscellaneous sheet metals reverberating against their metal shelving. It<br />
may as well be the sound of a high-pitched, staccato string section. I<br />
notice the large dull apron; a face obscured by a gas mask and goggles;<br />
an angle grinder swinging at his side. He’d locked the shutters when I<br />
entered. An innocently industrial setting. I was never leaving this place.<br />
www<br />
I left at 18.15. I didn’t ask about the dentist’s chair. I didn’t have to, really.<br />
It turns out Matt Nolan is genuinely a cymbalsmith. He’s not a serial killer.<br />
Statistically, however, it’s probable that there are more sociopaths than<br />
cymbalsmiths in the UK. Cymbalsmithing is an unusual profession. It’s<br />
so unusual that Matt is the only person in the UK independently making<br />
cymbals, alongside only a handful of other individuals worldwide. He<br />
takes a lot of pride in this fact and this is reflected in the quality of his<br />
work.<br />
Describing Matt as a cymbalsmith is actually a slight misnomer. This is<br />
illustrated best by the fact that, hung in a small annexe to the workshop,<br />
there’s a large gong in the shape of a hand, and another like a large<br />
extended batwing. “Triangles, gongs, cymbals, bells – you name it, I’ll<br />
make it,” he grins.