U.S. Mercury....an old friend

[Boone Hawks]

Hello,
Boone Hawks living here in St. Petersburg, Fla. 2009
My home town was Pt. Pleasant,N.J. until 1984.

Ah yes, U.S. Mercury drums ! Bringing back memories from 1971.
My first drum set. Red sparkle U.S.Mercury. It's Christmas time and Dad says,
"What color do you want"? "Red or Blue"?
And after seeing Don Brewer's drums, I said RED !!

All of a sudden, here they are....Snare= 5x14 RackTom=8x12 FloorTom=16x16 Kick=14x20
The kick drum (we used to call 'em a bass drum back then) had 8 lugs.
The cheaper japanese bass's had 6 lugs, and so I felt I had a better set.

The shells were thin (3 ply?) and had a smell to them.
The chrome lasted a long time and didn't flake off.
The kick pedal bit the dust quick.
The cost was about $130 and they held up well from me learning Led Zep, Grand Funk,Black Sabbath,
...Deep Purple, Allman Bros.,The Stones,Hendrix and all the early 70's groups.
I added Ziljian cymbals to the kit and the drums couldn't keep up. They wouldn't project at all.
And the tuning was always kinda dead !
I did, however add a U.S.Mercury 9x13 and another 16x16 tom to the kit.

Then, there it was! Boing! One of the snare lugs gave out. That was my wake up call.
I don't know what ever happened to those drums?
My first pro set was a all fiberglass Pearl set in 1975, I thought I'd like 'em....Nope.
Been playing Ludwigs ever since.

All in all, a Great beginner's kit.
Thanks,
-boone

[Wishbone1961]

Sounds almost like my story....
Christmas 1974. 13 years old... My very first kit. U.S. Mercury "Pro". Did they take it up a notch??? Highly unlikely EXCEPT my kit was the infamous "Psychedelic Red". Don't know how many of those are out there now.
I was playing BTO, KISS and more that first year. They weren't the greatest for sure. Used to have trouble just getting heads onthe drums, they were so out of round...I used them for 5 years and moved up to the Pearl Export (except they werent called Exports just yet.)
My US Mercury drums got sold to someone else after I covered them in white contact paper. Then they burnt up in a fire in that persons house....
So now, 35 years later, I am still playing. Been through many kits since that time. But now I just went out and bought a set of Ludwig Element SE drums in "psychedelic red". Even though these are one of their import lines these drums are unbelievable in quality compared to drums back then...
thanks for letting me share my story...

[Wishbone1961]

my drums