Yesterday I celebrated the glorious 143^rd birthday of America’s Hat by going to the festivities at the Vancouver Convention Centre, where local favorites Hey Ocean! played a cool set against the backdrop of the Vancouver Harbour. Super groovy drummer Daniel Klenner got his own drum solo, which was certainly not what I was expecting from a jazzy pop band. More on him later.

The real surprise came when the singer Ashleigh gave a shout out to the drummer they’d been working with in the studio for the past while — Mike Marsh.

Now at one point during the set, Dave the bassist announced on the mic that he could see his car being towed. Hilarity ensued, and he threw his keys to the producer of their upcoming album, who went to move the car. I saw the producer man talking to a couple of dudes after the crowd had dispersed, so I went up to talk to them, and lo, one of them was Mike Marsh.

But was he the Mike Marsh? From Dashboard Confessional, I asked?

Why yes, yes he was.

So I borrowed a random guy’s pen and got him to sign the only thing I had on hand. The back of one of my own band’s sticker.

It’s too bad that Chris Carrabba was the King of Emo at one point and there’s a kind of stigma among musicians who listen to Dashboard. Because that band is awesome and Mike Marsh is unreal. Check it out.

Here’s him in the studio tracking drums for the song “Hey Girl” from the album A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar:

And “Carry This Picture” from the same album. The creativity and the relaxed feel of this shuffle beat is just astounding. Mike starts at 0:38, and the unbelieva-shuffle starts in the second verse at 1:46:

I found Daniel after that and talked to him for a bit. He had a super funky fat sounding snare, but I could see it was only a piccolo, which was weird. Apparently it was just the snare that came with his first Mapex kit which cost $300 altogether, and he had the snare side skin tuned barely above wrinkles. I guess it goes to show that when the drummer knows what he’s doing, it’s never really about the drums.