Unintentional Polyrythms

At the South Country Fair, you'll find poets, musicians, jugglers, fire-spinners, volunteers, craftsmen, neighbours, friends, and...drummers. At 2:00 in the morning, when the two-four of Milwaukee's best beer has moved into the second half, and the yee-hah, whoop's and hollers have moved out of the context of the stage, where the performers are being encouraged for an amazing solo, and into the realm of the camps, let the drums begin. Around the camp, which smells of the peculiar combination of campfire smoke, barbecued steak and deep woods off ( 28.5% deet), a skunk wanders by every now and again, never seen, but you know its there because it's walking by, followed by young men giggling. If you're not careful, you might find yourself trying to sleep when the campers next door start up at about 2:30 in the morning with something that sounds like this:

boom bid a bid a bid a boom boom bid a bid a
boom bid a bid a bid a boom boom bid a bid a
boom bid a bid a bid a boom boom bid a bid a BOOM BOOM

When the 2nd drum comes in and it's a little bit off, it sounds closer to this:

boboom bidom boom bidbid boom bida bidboom bid a bid a booboom bidm boom bid a bid a boom bidboom bidboom bid a bboom bidid a bid a booboom bidm boboom bidom bid a bid a booboom bidmboom biboom bidd bid a bboom bidid a bid a boom boom bidboom bid a bid a

and now, the stand-up base (4 feet, from your already-pounding head at 3:00am)
dum, dom, dum, dom, boo, doo, bum, du, bu

... "Well, I heard that train a coming..."

Now the process repeats till 5:30 am, all the while, I lie in my tent thinking to myself how loud things are and that maybe I should go out and say something to them, you know, get them to pack up their drums and hit the road - but, then I remember that I'm not wearing any pants and that it's a package deal. Anything goes at the SCF.

By the time morning rolled around, I might have got 2 winks of sleep, but probably not. I did have something to whine about though. The next day with the temperature exceeding that 30 degree celcius mark, I was exhausted - and actually kind of grateful to the drummers. Without them, the river never would have felt so good in the late morning and then again in the early afternoon. Maybe the music wouldn't have sounded as good either. I think that by denying my body sleep, I must have heightened the rest of my senses for the rest of the weekend because it turned out fantastic. Great friends, music, food, and a cold old man river flowing - what could be better than that? I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.

This is Tom, he didn't sleep well either - I guess he'll use the knife to "fix" some of those pesky drum skins!