We all got the beat.

In our hearts, it goes bump bump bump eternally till we die.

This doesn't mean we can all dance (dance is the outer body and limb interpretation of the beat), but we can all find a rhythm.

And some of us amplify this eternal bump for everyone else.

Us crazy drummers. Beat manufacturers. External heartbeaters.

Most of the music I listened to before I was ten came from Broadway musicals. Story songs with sweet voices and entire orchestras behind them. But I found the beat and tapped it out. I'd sing along, too, but I'd always find the beat, even when it was hidden and not played by percussion instruments. This was a sign.

I started taking drum lessons in fifth grade (couldn't play drums in band until sixth grade, because of some strange rule made up by the band teacher), banging out rudiments on a snare drum. On my tenth birthday, my parents got me a blue CB-700 five piece drum set with Zildian cymbals. And I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

My teacher told me to play along with the radio. I didn't know what he meant because the only thing I listened to was baseball games and talk radio. Apparently there were tons of stations playing all kinds of music on the radio. I had no idea at the time.

When my family moved to New Mexico, though, there weren't any talk radio stations, so we listened to the one that had DJs who talked the most. It was a pop radio station.

And suddenly I understood.

I spent my high school years playing along to a blasting a huge stereo. Mostly hard rock. I was influenced by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin--even though I never listened to any of those bands (except "Twist & Shout" from Ferris Bueller). Eventually I'd catch up to my roots, though.

But my foot was too heavy for jazz (the only band in school utilizing a drum set), so it wasn't until college that I joined a rock cover band. Mach 5 (probably after Speedracer, but this wasn't mentioned--I thought they wanted to be a speed metal band at first). The bassist and one of the guitarists were great. We had no singer. And the other guitarist was tied to our "manager," who never got us a gig. But it did give me a chance to figure out how to play music with a few other guys. And watch as the whole thing got built up and torn down in a matter of a couple of months.

Drummers are the long suffering members of any band, pretty much characterized as crazy cavemen who forget to tie their shoes. Ids beating out the eternal heartbeat. And, even though I'm a pretty smart guy, I've always felt like I lose massive amounts of IQ when I'm playing. I don't necessarily lose them, but rather transfer the intelligence into my muscles and limbs. My head doesn't need (and shouldn't try) to think, so my body takes the smarty pills. There might be something to the caveman thing.

I drifted in and out of playing drums for the next ten years or so. I always dragged them along, however, to every place I ever lived. I never sold that CB-700 set off. I gave away a few things to other drummers (I know so many drummers), but I kept the heart of the set. And my primo cymbals.

In early 2003, Old Beans formed. Three friends (eventually four) who felt they should put a band together before they got too old. And I was, after all that time, a really real rock drummer. Four and a half years, fifty-five shows and twenty-something songs later, I felt old and tired. Worn out from it all. And I put the drums up in the shed. I started working on learning how to play guitar, and didn't know if I'd play drums regularly again.

And then in late February, about the same time the Golden West burned down in Downtown Albuquerque, I got a call from a guy who's band had broken up a few months before. Did I want to play again? Maybe join this group he was putting together? See if it felt right? Would the phoenix rise again?

Paper Sleeves debuted Friday night at the Atomic Cantina. Pretty songs about breaking up with girls. Pop rock. Thirty minutes at the end of the night. It felt great.

And the beat goes on.

Matt Sleeve boom boom baps again on June 3rd at Burt's.