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Neil Coghill
Drums
Home-Whitewood, Sask.
In 1966, at the age of 4, Neil began taking a real interest in
banging on things...of course this was a subject of much
consternation for his mother as many of the objects he chose to
hit were breakable...so...she set him up with cardboard boxes
and hung pot lids from a broomstick laid across 2chairs. He
banged along with the record player, developing his early roots
with The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, The
Supremes, and Buddy Knox. He chose his sticks carefully from a
nearby caragana hedge and later graduated to a pair of wooden
spoons which were much more
uniform in size and weight. By the age of 6 he was dying to
hit a real drum {the toy drums he got for Christmas just did
not cut it .The paper heads broke the same day}...so he
joined the school band. This provided a snare drum and
stand, lessons, and real cymbals!!...{which he took home and
hung from the broom stick}. In grade 6 he received a phone
call from a boy in grade 8 asking to start a rock band...Issinglass
played for captive audiences in the local school gym. Still with
no real drum set Neil roped big marching snares to wooden chairs
and got at it. Cymbals were {you guessed it!} hung from a broom
stick. In grade 7 Neil got his first drum set. He taught himself
to play them in the basement and soon after in the loft of his
parents barn...{something about the volume of the new drums).
Neil was in many different high school rock bands...the members
kept changing as they either quit or moved away. Most of the
bands were called Rage. They would set up their own dances and
play in neighbouring towns-{no bookings}. After high school,
Neil spent a few months on the road with a Calgary band called
Action and then moved back home to Rocanville.
For the next few years he spent time with several rock bands and
even an old time band where he learned the importance of hitting
lightly and the use of brushes. He became interested in country
music and in 1993 helped form the band Shifty Morgan.
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