With a $70,000 price mark, Musa Drums from Italy claimed to have built the most expensive drum kit of the world at NAMM 2019. But we found a way to take something off that price in case you are considering a loan for it. Because, as a drum manufacturer, you just cannot spell the name of Gene Krupa wrong when using it on a drumset as a reference to drum history. Also, the kit has skull lugs that represent and is the skull of Buddy Rich - making this is an even more interesting article on a uniquely built drum set, made out of 50-year old vinegar barrels.
Musa Drums did a huge effort on building a unique drum kit. Its design is a plentitude of ideas combined in a drum set that also has drum lugs as a reproduction of the skull of considerably the best - and dead - drummer ever. As explained in the video, the idea behind using the 1,000+ images on the drums' bands (not as an inlay), is to show the history of drums in four main phases. A few things can be said about that.
The history of drums, according to Musa
The beat of the heart, represented as a heart on the bass drum.
The next phase in the Musa drum history is a gorilla placed on the bands of the drums. The pounding on the chest of this animal represents the beat. Cool, but incoherent with the fact that Gorillas beat their chests as a show of power or as an act of aggression.
Buddy Rich's skull In the video it is said that the age of Classic Jazz is represented by the reproduction of the skull of Buddy Rich on the drums' lugs. Musa says these lugs are representations of Buddy's actual skull.
We just featured the LP Skull shakers as a gadget shaker, and now we have Buddy's head bones representing drum history. The use of Buddy's skull as lugs looks more like a metal style design than something that refers to Classic Jazz.
Daft Punk helmet The Daft Punk helmet used on the lugs on the two snare drums represents the digital age that we are in now - on an acoustic set.
The Gene Krupra error (not a misspelling there!) At the NAMM Show there is never enough time to check all the 1,000+ images on the bands on these drums, or go into the meaning of them. But when you watch the video closely, you'll notice that at least one of the 20 people working on this drumset was not a drummer. Simply because we can't think of any drum making artist making the mistake of spelling the name of Gene Krupa wrong. So, unless it was Banksy himself making this error, the value of $70,000 might drop a little after the publication of this article.
Gene Krupra Gene Krupa misspelled on the first band of the floor tom.
The $70,000 Musa drumset
Buddy Rich skull lugs
Daft Punk helmet
Concluding, we are impressed by the drums and the designs match the them. But the amount of reprensentations on this kit do not entirely show a cohesive idea on making the ultimate and most expensive thematic drum kit. For instance, what does Family Guy represent on it? Or the Netflix logo and the smoking turd? Perhaps sticking with one theme per drum kit is a safer way to go. At least then, overlooking typos probably won't happen that easily.
