Ha! I hear you! At least there's zero branding on the watch dial except for barely seen coffee bean. I live in the Bay Area and at this point I'm used to the $8 coffee but it could be worse.....now, where did I put my artisan Polynesian beard brush...hmmmm

That is an excellent question...it has been a bit up and down but I'm getting used to it now. A little bit of a hair puller at first and I couldn't quite get the perfect fit. I have it now where I think it will be cool, albeit a tiny bit tight when my wrists swell. After experiencing my Christopher Ward Sealander bracelet everything else seems to pale in comparison unfortunately, but the quick release on the Brew bracelet is pretty solid, def better than Vaer's. One down side is that there's a weird size for the lugs - just under 20mm. Very odd.

First off, I think it's a little slice of awesome that you wear your explorer drumming - amazing, first rate watches, that can handle that kind of shock AND mechanical - that's the shizz for sure. I was warned early on here on Watch Crunch by well intentioned members, that wearing a hand wound or automatic watch while drumming or near electronic music equipment was a big no no. So I moved on to thinking mostly about quartz.

Secondly, I have always wondering how watches fared for drummers when everyone wore them all over the world. Especially as jazz moved into early r&b and early rock and on and on - did drummers in the 60's and 70's - pre-quartz - just have to get their watches repaired all the time or.....did they stand up to it?

I have literally watched videos of Steve Gadd play with a watch on a VERY loose bracelet play over and over again, and I think he's wearing a rolex, but I could be wrong. It's a funny topic - how have jobs that have a lot of shocked based movement affected watches over the years - might be a question for a watch maker!

And lastly - I am at some point going to get a Formex Essence 39 with its suspension case thingerbob. I reached out to the company and asked them directly what they thought of their watches and drumming and they were pretty confident!

You know, I am always curious when I see drummers rocking automatic watches and Chad Smith plays the drums very hard. Makes me wonder how that Daytona stands up!

But also, up until the quartz crisis, all musicians, and everyone really wore mechanical watches. Sometimes I feel like an idiot focusing on quartz only for drumming but at the same time, I don't make a ton of money so if I can have some great quartz watches, a few automatics and have less repair costs and headaches, that seems to be the direction I'm heading. But you could be totally right, all of this could just be silly. I've heard very conflicting things about shock to watches - pros and cons. It's just hard to know for sure!

I love the 556 RS - may get it some day, but that's not quartz. Can't remember, does Sinn have quartz watches that are under 40 or under in mm?

I would have been in trouble had they brought that out.

The G-Shock is fun, but sometimes I wear a suit and tie to gigs and other times something else - so I like variety, plus I don't play metal or stadium pop gigs - mostly jazz based stuff. For more formal attire gigs I now have a Junghans Max Bill quartz which is great. I have the Seiko solar Speedtimer for something more casual. A couple of more watches and I'll have a nice selection of quartz to pick from for different gigs!