Gary France… his huge warehouse in Hume destined to become the noisiest place on the block. Photo by Holly Treadaway, Sage Photography
As he straps me into a stair lift – all abilities are catered for – I see historic photos of American drummers on the left and Australian drummers on the right.
Once upstairs, it’s time to gasp at the handmade Calypso steel band that’s just arrived from Trinidad. France leaps to the steel drums to give me a foretaste of what’s to come in the ACT’s first percussion-specific centre.
France just manages to restrain himself from performing on the Javanese gamelan installed, the same one he brought to the ANU School of Music where he worked for two decades, for a time heading up the faculty.
Drums are the lifeblood of the ebullient American-born drummer from Syracuse, New York, the son of a band trumpeter who took him to see jazz drummer Buddy Rich when he was a kid and set him on the stairway to percussion heaven.
Trained at that jazz-centric institution, the University of North Texas, he came to Australia in the late 1980s to teach at the WA Academy of Performing Arts, later moving to Canberra. He has been an Australian for 27 years.
Now France has joined his Australian wife Sandy, composer of the Canberra bushfire opera, “From a Black Sky”, in purchasing and fitting out a huge warehouse in Hume destined to become the noisiest place on the block.
Maybe not all that noisy, for in his state-of-the-art drum laboratory, loosely modelled on piano labs where students can study simultaneously, you put your headphones on and drum for your life, but only you and your tutor can hear the full sound.
The Groove Warehouse is now open to students and, in what France believes may be a first, sessions cost only $16. They’ll be subsidised by The Groove Store, which is already packed with new percussion instruments and rare historical drums collected over a lifetime. He’s hoping the low tuition rates will see pupils coming back for many classes each week.
Initially France himself will do much of the tutoring, but soon Emma Zen, of Rocking Horse Music, will join him for the “Kiddiecussion” initiative, classes for adventurous mums and bubs.
The excitement is palpable, but drums can be meditative too, France says, as he tells of the gong set ordered from China.
“But sure, young people love the energy of drums” and with that in mind he is working up a drumming group with the Brumbies.
At 57, France loves playing everything from the marimba to the vibraphone, often dressing up to match the culture. He plays jazz, classical and popular. He plays bongos, Indian tabla and xylophone instruments that make melodies and gestures towards drums from the “big five of drumming” – India, Africa, Indonesia, Cuba and Brazil. He also finds time to edit a drumming magazine, “PERCUSscene”.
Right now he’s cooking up an open day on April 11, with Cuban music group El Son Entero doing a workshop the day before, April 10. It’ll be a chance to show off the airy space lit with natural skylights, the stage with seating capacity for 59, the Drum Lab, The Groove Store and The Groove Café where tired parents can sit.
It’ll be fun, France says, “I’m saying it’s okay to be a musician – look here, I could have you playing ‘Billie Jean’ in five minutes,” France threatens.
It’s a tempting thought.
The Groove Warehouse Open Day, at 5/1 Sawmill Circuit, Hume, April 11, 10am-4pm, all welcome, bookings and info groovewarehouse.com.au or 6260 2847.
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