I agree that he was often bull-headed strong about his opinions, but in rereading the "pro drummers" thread, I get the impression Matt egged him on and baited him in a very passive-aggressive way. I hope he didn't get banned for reacting in his normal aggressive-aggressive [hehe] way, and that the mods saw how he was sorta pulled into it.
The passive aggressive angle might be difficult to validate seeing as how the guy claimed he couldn't read my posts, because he had placed me on something he called
permanent ignore. So if he couldn't read my posts how was he drawn in?
And it only got sillier.
My first encounter with trkdrmr was in the Pearl Demon Pedal thread back in January. Jeff Almeyda made a few general positive comments about the pedal, and was immediately blindsided by someone with other allegiances, which mostly consisted of a huge testimonial that you can still find at the Trick site. He self titled it
The Mother of All Testimonials. I was also pretty sure he was one of those guys at the Drumsmylife forum, where many of the more disgruntled older guys walked off and joined this Grooveworkers site. A couple of the guys who ocassionally pull the mad guy stuff at other places come from that group, although most of that crowd are really good guys.
Now Trick makes great products, and at no time in that thread did anyone ever say anything but positive things about Trick. But the Demon Pedal had just been debuted at NAMM, some of us had tried it out there and people were interested. Moreover, he was pushing Trick by essentially slandering Axis and Pearl. Some of us got involved because we felt that Trick was being as misrepresented as the companies he was flagrantly attacking. Then he played the
children card with me and I walked away. Been there done that.
Sometime later I watched him anilhilate a cymbal thread with even greater elevation than before. In doing so he went after a brand new cast. I wasn't even there for that one.
By the time he got to me with responses to posts he claimed he couldn't read, he was involved in flaming three different threads
at the same time. This included a lambasting of Unix Drums with Unix right there in the thread taking it like a consumate professional. People were so embarrassed about what happened, that they actually felt the need to apologize to Unix, while the other guy stayed defiant and just kept coming.
During the foolishness, I told him drum forums might not be the place for him, but that I still appreciated his service to his county, because I considered the two issues separate. I don't know anything about the syndromes and conditions previously mentioned, so I wasn't going to guess at the root cause.
Then he
really went after it when nobody took the bait. Mods came in. Story over.
I think most people would call that covering the bases, as opposed to
passive aggressive, which with respect I consider an overused term for things I'm not sure it was originally intended for.
The Jay Norem thing perplexed me. He's happy at his present forum. They do what they want over there in a semi b-slapping clubhouse fashion. Yes, I agree that he is a really fine musician, which varies sharply from the other guy, who said a lot of big, big things but never successfully verified his skillset. Still Jay often avoided true discussions in favor of prearranged opinions and stances that defied waiver. After a while
yeah, yeah I got how he didn't like gear, new sticks etc. And to me at least, the whole PW chess club whatever thing just seemed to fall flat. The day he got mad at the forum, I left a post at the other site, that he immediately destroyed 50 different ways.
No problem, I thought.
He's mad about something, so I'll take it somewhere else. But it was funny, seeing as how we had never shared a harsh word until that moment.
I just think there's a certain kind of poster that comes to these places, that doesn't try to feel the vibe, and is used to controlling the show. When he doesn't get his way, he tries to start a fire, because he's not sure if he wants to take his football and go home.
Sometimes things just are what they are.