Jerry Marotta Unboxing the Yamaha Stage Custom Hip Drum Kit

Join drummer Jerry Marotta as he unboxes the Yamaha Stage Custom Hip drum kit at Dreamland Recording Studios in Hurley, New York.

The Yamaha Stage Custom Hip is a compact drum set featuring a 20" x 8" bass drum and a 13" floor tom equipped with 20-strand snares to provide an alternate snare to the included one. Not included with the Stage Custom Hip but used in this video are Zildjian Kerope hi-hats and ride cymbal plus a Zildjian K Dark Thin Crash cymbal.

In 1979 I had been working with Peter Gabriel for about 2 years and had just started a record with Hall & Oates. We were recording at The Hit Factory on 48th Street in NYC. My friend Fred Waring asked me if I was interested in working with some guys he had hooked up with making music. They were calling the band Change America (interesting how 42 years later the name seems to apply) I thought these guys were great. Particularly the lead singer, Alan Steed. Great voice!

So on the 5th floor of the Hit Factory I was recording with H&O and in the 2nd floor studio we started recording Change America. On this particular track I was fortunate enough to have David Foster who was Producing Daryl & John come down and play an awesome synth track or two. Larry Fast had done the programming. The incredible Bass part was played by Neil Jason who was also working on the H&O record with us. Neil really took the song to another level. Fred played drums. I played percussion and sang some bvox along with Daryl, John, and Alan. I'm pretty sure Tim Cappello played that wicked Sax solo.

The song is called 'Fever' Obviously a dance track from back in the Disco days. I can picture the Engineer's face but I can't remember his name. Michael something. May start with a G. Sorry Michael. Maybe John Smith assisting.

Ironically 1979 was when I started my association with Yamaha thanks to Hagiwara Takahashi ... the Grandfather of Yamaha drums who I met while touring in Japan with Daryl & John. Since then Yamaha has been incredibly good to me. Great company. Great people starting with Hagi there was Doug Buttleman, Steve Edelson, John Wittman, Joe Testa, Jordan Barth and now Greg Crane and Daryl Anderson.

I received the new Hip Custom Stage kit last week and was finally able to break it out for the first time. I thought Fever would be an appropriate soundtrack for the unveiling. The backdrop is Dreamland Studios. The guys doing all the work are Ariel Shafir and John Valessio (both Engineers as well as drummers) Behind the camera is Ken Helmlinger (Bassist and Engineer) They all make up the team at Dreamland.

I will post more of the tracks we recorded soon. Other cast members include a guy who's been like a brother to me for 65 years. My Mentor and my biggest influence Steve Ga ... no ... Rick Marotta. Also Don Grolnick and others who will hopefully reveal themselves if/when they see this. 

I've been digitizing all my media ADAT's. Sony F1 tapes. Foster B-16 tapes. Dat tapes. Slides. Polaroids. Video etc ... so there's a LOT coming down the pike.   

Bass                                       Neil Jason 
Drums                                    Fred Waring
Percussion                            Jerry Marotta
Synths                                   David Foster
Synth Programming               Larry Fast
Guitar                                     Binky Brice
Sax Solo                                Tim Cappello
Lead Vocal                             Alan Steed
Bvox                                      Jerry Marotta  Daryl Hall  Alan Steed 

Produced by Jerry Marotta
Recorded at The Hit Factory 48th St NYC 

 My apologies to those who worked on this and I've forgotten.

Видео Jerry Marotta Unboxing the Yamaha Stage Custom Hip Drum Kit канала jerrymarottamusic