This was my first NAMM. This was my first day and everything had been great. I met a lot of stars, I played a bunch of drums and cymbals. I've met amazing people and I've seen amazing equipment and ideas. It's Friday Night and I'm on my 7th Wind.

It was 6:15PM and the Sabian Live Party was about to open its doors so we were there early to get a good spot because we anticipated that event to be over packed due to Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was playing that night with his other band. So, I pit stopped by the restroom and while I was washing my hands, this crazy old guy next to me looks at me (picture almost Orville Redenbacher if you will) and says “Hey! I recognize you from somewhere…”. Now mind you that this is my first fully accomplished day at NAMM where I spoke to probably 500 people that day and everything is a major haze right now due to the amount of things happening around me.

So, I entertained this curious man and divulged him by saying “Where possibly from?” and he says “I don’t know, where are you from?” I couldn’t resist whipping it out and I said, “Hi, I’m Eric and I’m here representing a website called Drummer Connection.com and we are an Online Community built by Drummers for Drummers…” and he says “Woooooow….” with a 5 second stunning look on his face as he pauses. Talking about taking it in! Anyways, that was that, and unfortunately, until I met him again, I did not remember his name.

Doug Klug - Or is it Orville Redenbacher?
You have to Keep Reading!

[G2:3793 size=460]Sabian Live Event
[G2:3806 size=460] Sabian Live Event

Later that night, the Sabian event was building up and this guy (Doug) was outside talking to some of my friends, so I went out there and we began talking again. I learned his name was Doug and he was a drummer and he’s played with everyone from Herbie Hancock to Jay Leno and beyond. This man was super energetic on top of everything. He really loves to talk. I invited him over to the table with the rest of our crew to hang out. That turned out to be a fun experience as he told us stories about the days of Motown to every single NAMM event he’s been to. The man has more stories than anyone I’ve ever met and in a few hours, he took us around the world from 1950 to 2008 in stories that will rival anything that can be read today. It's like having a grandpa from the world war tell you stories, except in the music industry. On top of that, he persistently picked on Damian about time signatures to the artists playing on stage. To no surprise, Doug is also a mathematical Genius and it shows more and more as our journey began. Is Doug a Rain Man?

Throughout the evening, our conversations persisted. Doug and I also had discovered we had an aquaintance in a drum manufacturing company which was suprisingly remarkable considering the circumstances. When I met that aquantance the next day, it was verified that this man was Doug Klug, the incredible.

Doug Klug has played with Herbie Hancock, Jay Leno and list of more names than I can remember. Did I say that already? It was repeated to me many times, so I figured I'd say it again....

[G2:3359 size=460]Doug Klug, Damian King and Myself
[G2:3362 size=460]Doug Klug, Eric Rosebrock (me), Dom Famularo, Keith Thomas
[G2:3932 size=460]Chad Smith on Stage

After the Sabian Live event, I was hanging around out in the hallways with Morgan Rose from Sevendust, John Blackwell from Prince, Casey Grillo from Kamelot, Brann Dailor and a bunch of other artists were there. We ended up outside with Damian, Keith, Myself and Chris C. had just come into town and joined us at the event. Ironically, we were with Doug Klug at the front door talking about what we should go do. You see at NAMM, Sleep isn’t possible. So you just go until you wake up, you never really fall asleep, you just remember waking up, tired, yet ready to go. Anyways, Doug Klug, who is now our official NAMM 2008 Host because his friends “Dissed Him” as he says… decides that we need to go to the Hilton and watch this band because his friend Leroy is On Stage and he wants us to meet him. You see, we exchanged a few stories during the Sabian event with Doug and we were a crew now. So, if Doug was going somewhere, we were bound to follow the man because it was going to be interesting.

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Morgan Rose (SevenDust) and Me -- Thanks Keith for the finger over the flash :)
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Me and Chris C, my good Friend from Clearwater, FL
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Damian King and Brann Dailor

 

The Hilton: Where Doug Was Named "Dig-Dug"

Now, to understand Doug, perhaps we can give you the inside nickname we gave him. We call him “Doug Dig-Dug Klug” because the man can shovel through a crowd like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It literally resembles the Dig Dug game from back in the 80’s.

 

Doug knows literally everyone, if not personally, it’s by association. He shares something with you the first time he meets you and if he accepts you, you feel it. The man is truly a people person. It’s funny to watch him work the crowd because he can’t take 5 steps without really knowing someone at some point or another at NAMM. This is his playground. He’s like a bottle full of knowledge shaken and ready to be released. He’s bottled up and NAMM is where he lets loose. Watch him as he storms through the Hilton Hotel like a veteran

 

So it's around 11 PM or so and Leroy Emmanuel and LMT Connection Performed with NEWWORLDSON at the Anaheim Hilton. This man Leroy ROCKED the house down in such style. I had the honor of meeting him after his performance when Doug Klug introduced us. Leroy Emmanuel is an amazing man. When he meets you, its as if he already knows you. He can spin a rhyme about you that makes you think he knows everything about you. The man is truly amazing and it was an honor to meet him.

Leroy Emmanuel, LMT Connection

Our new friend Leroy Emmanuel has an astounding history and has recorded with Marvin Gaye (Let's Get it On), Gladys Knight and the Pips and countless other historical artists. It was an honor to be introduced by this wizard named Doug to such a brilliant man (Leroy). Leroy -- we'll meet again.

Doug Klug Gets Validated: "He's like a Zappa on the Drums!!"

Ok, call me what you want, I doubted the guy at first. But something told me to stick with Doug Klug because it would not be a waste of my time. My friend Chris however, has been around the Music industry a bit longer than I have and around big events, so he was a bit more skeptical. This video breaks it down for you. We were following Doug Klug after Leroy came off the stage and Doug was taking us to meet his "Dear good friend for Life" (Leroy). The video here, shows us on our way to that event, then Chris starts talking to some dude about Doug. The summary of the conversation is this:

Chris "What can you tell me about that guy?" (Pointing at Doug Klug)
Dude: "Have you heard him play drums?"
Chris: "No"
Dude: "OH MAN, he's F*ckin Bad Ass! He's like.. a Zappa on the drums, f*ckin Bad ass!"

So, now we heard from an outside source that this man wasn't fooling us. Damian knew it, I didn't care, and Chris was Skeptical, but now it's been validated verbally. We'll carry on with this guy for awhile.

 

Saturday: Meet up with Doug

The night wound down somehow and we caught up with Doug the next day. He mostly played phone tag with me which was the happening thing if you are with a group at NAMM. Doug rang me up rambling something about being at Kinkos trying to get color prints of his Modern Drummer story from when they did a feature on him, but the Kinkos employee was not allowed to do that for copyright reasons, so being the people man he is, Doug had the kid convinced to show HIM how to make the copies so he could hand them out to people to prove he was really Doug Klug.

Saturday afternoon around 5 PM Doug calls me on my cell phone. He was on another Level somewhere and wanted to meet up with us. I was over at the Roland Booth fighting for a chance at the Roland TD-9 module which has me intrigued into wanting an upgrade... Doug had also claimed he was the best V-Drum player in the world, so I had to see. Now, It's been 24 hours since I've known Doug and I haven't seen him pick up a stick yet, so I'm curious. I start off on the TD-9 and he comes up to me as I'm layin down some beats. I hand him the mis-matched pair of sticks I found laying on the floor and I got up from the TD-9. Doug sat down and started ripping it apart. He was complaining a little because it's not the TD-20, but this fellow didn't have any problem on schooling me right there.

Saturday: Heading out and the Jam Van

We left and met up with the other guys at the room at around 6:15PM. Our rally point has been established and we were ready to go out and see what is happening. Earlier that day, Our Keith Thomas was given VIP Passes by Chad Smith to a signing and release party over at the Menage Hotel where Iron Steel featuring Morgon Rose from Sevendust was going to be there in the red carpet room. We wanted to investigate this, however, Doug kept chanting on about how HEART was going to be playing somewhere and he insisted on that.

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So, our planning strategies were getting us nowhere. I had a 12 pack of Red Bull in my room, 3 of them chillin on ice in a Hilton ice bucket, and I've got Chris, Keith, Damian, Doug and myself and the old man Doug is chugging one of the red bulls. It's not long before the red bull can flies across the room and Doug is on his way down to the lobby chanting "We gotta find out where HEART is playing... I gotta see them". We lost Doug in the crowd (on accident?) for a little while. We had his cell phone and we'll let him get HEART out of his system.

Meanwhile, we meetup with DJ and then while situating some quick dinner, we were notified by Doug that he's at the JAM VAN at the Corner of the Hilton.

We're off to the JAM VAN. I've been hearing stories of this JAM VAN for two days now and I need to see it for myself. Doug was about to play too, so we got in there and recorded him. At this point, the man has impressed me beyond all belief. Here's Doug in the Jam Van:

(I have about 15 minutes of this video to upload, I'll put more up later.)

After Doug blew the JAM VAN apart for about 15 minutes, Chris stepped out of line for a moment of reflection and briefly got back in there and was going to give it a go. However, the Hilton Security for who knows what reason shut down the Jam Van. Here's some pictures from there:

 

Doug Klug Confesses: If it weren't for you guys...

Ok, so Doug Klug tells us a cool story and he confesses that he's happy he met us:

GI Joe? I don't know what Chris and I were thinking? But it was the same thing. Perhaps this guy is a Super Hero?

After this, Doug took us to the Sheraton where we ended up watching an Eagles Cover Band for a little while and then we moved on. If I got this information incorrect, I am terribly sorry, please let us know and we'll fix this article. Here's some shots from there:

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Saturday Night: EMODA.com Iron Steel Release Party

Anyways, we're a younger crowd and we had those VIP Passes to go see what was happening. I didn't know much else about this other than we were given those passes and it was worth looking into. Besides, Doug offered to pay for the taxi if we didn't like the Sheraton concert we were at, so we held him to it. $8.45 bet he lost there.

This party was pretty cool. We went over to the Red Carpet Room and watched the interviews from the red carpet. We got to see Morgan Rose again and then we split back to the Hilton only to end up at Del Taco after a long cold walk.

Saturday Night: Eating Del Taco and Telling Stories with Doug

Ok, so the Release Party was pretty cool. We wanted to go to Taco Bell and grab some food. It was midnight and only a few of us head eaten. We didn't know what else the night had in store for us other than we had to be at the Airport by 2 PM. We had the cab driver drop us at Taco Bell and we were going to go inside. 11:55 PM the doors were closed and locked and they wouldn't serve us. It's Anaheim Blvd down by the Holiday Inn so we walked a block further and found Del Taco.

I'll have some soft tacos, for here please.

(Just missed him by one hour, eh Doug?)

 

Saying Goodbye to Doug Klug

After our delicious Del Taco which I still think Taco Bell has the upper hand on (Damian), we caught a cab back to the Hilton where things were still bangin at around 1 AM. I hung out in the lobby for a little while and after watching Doug make about 6 laps around the Hilton, decided to head to my room.

Damian kept up with Doug for another hour or two and lost him somewhere. We haven't seen him since that time and he hasn't returned our calls or voice mails. It's strange really, almost as if he disappeared or was some sort of dream. NAMM happens so fast and to be wound up in a human element situation with a man like Doug Klug, it's as if someone put us in this man's path and we forever made a friend.

Doug, wherever you are, return our damn calls! Keep Safe and we'll see you soon!

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Doug Klug: "I sure talk a lot of SHIT but I can sure Back it up!"

-- Outside the Jam Van. Validated.