Closing time

Dull Drums stored up for themselves riches in Heaven

The Dull Drums are a band. Not just a band in the “people playing jams together” sense, but a band in the purest sense of the word.

The Dull Drums are a band with complete songs, songs with dynamics and hooks. Hooks that anyone who has heard them more than once will have memorized. Hooks the members of the group re-work, stretch out, and use as a bedrock for improvisation, all while trading the wank of jam bands for pure-rock extremity. I’ve found myself hung-over on mornings after their shows, my notepad scarred with drunken hieroglyphics. “Heisenberg uncertainty-tempo,” and “Hope they don’t read their own reviews” were just a few of the dumbstruck scribbles they inspired.

The Dull Drums are a group of phenomenal musicians, and it’s with a heart just as heavy as their riffs that I have to write: “The Dull Drums were a band.”

Bands, like all things good in life, end for various reasons, and I won’t go into why they split. Garage rock is still going strong in Tulsa, but the kings have quit, and they’ve left an odd vacancy.

Nearly anyone I’ve met who knew of The Dull Drums and wasn’t allergic to the blues scale loved them, but I once overheard someone say, “No one in Tulsa ever needs to see that band play again.” I disagree, but I understood what this person meant. The void the group’s absence created is this: The Dull Drums would play any show they could.

The Dull Drums played their own headlining bills where they would shred for hours and demolish the bar. They could also, and frequently did, play in town several times a month. Instead of protecting their own buzz, The Dull Drums would open for out-of-town acts, pulling in enough of their friends to cover the sound of the crickets for travelers.

That position of scene self-sacrifice is one of absolute import in a thriving music town. Tulsa continues to gain recognition as a music city, finding its name on the lips of both fans and bands far afield of the plains. That’s a rep well deserved (and hard-earned), but if the pool of always-down-to-play bands dries up, so will the flow of new music from visiting acts. Have you ever stumbled into a local bar and said to yourself, “Holy shit, who the hell is this?” That out-of-town band that blew your mind may have a nice time in Tulsa, but it won’t come back if those musicians don’t know a local band to help draw a crowd.

The reason local bands play with out-of-town groups isn’t strictly altruistic, though. Bands benefit directly from networking with nationwide acts. Our world is more digitized every day, but the best way for bands to meet has stayed pre-historic: get in the same room and wail.

A band playing your favorite bar for the 12th time in three months may be securing the last connection they need for a decent tour down the road. And touring is usually what bands dream of and play towards. It also enables members to tell their parents they know what the hell they’re doing with their lives. Bands get to see the world with gas bought through record sales, and they get to encounter things of which people working real jobs toward retirement could only dream. Just ask one of The Dull Drums guys about the Colorado road-kill incident.

Although it doesn’t sound altruistic to have your bar’s calendar stolen for the purpose of someone else’s road-trip planning, the tour-networking band has a plover/crocodile relationship with its local scene: Just as those bands wouldn’t come back without a local to play with, they might have not heard of your town if it wasn’t for the bands on the road spreading Tulsa’s good word.

Anytime I’ve gone on tour I’ve come home to an inbox full of show requests from people in bands with which we just played. The Dull Drums were a band that hit the road frequently, too, and helped establish Tulsa as a stopover for pysch and garage acts en route to Austin. It’s the ouroboros of the homie hook up, and it keeps Tulsa stocked with fresh acts.

Of course, none of that would matter if The Dull Drums sucked, but The Dull Drums didn’t. They could have held their own at any festival stage, and deserved to have their songs on damn near every station in the country.

That’s why it’s both a blessing and bummer that The Dull Drums never turned down a show they were offered, and were completely, and bafflingly excellent.