by ABAKUA » Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:39 am
That rim does not appear to be crooked, but rather on an uneven angle downwards due to uneven tensioning of the rods. If you tighten them uneven you will find the rim comes down lower on one point of the drum. This will cause premature wearing out of the skin and of course uneven pressure on the drum causing unnecessary stress on the barrel.
With lower strength metals used for rims or very very old rims, you can find warping of the metal ring.
As for why this would be with the conguero for afro cuban allstars, remember where they come from, fresh rings etc are not that easy to come by in Cuba these days. Having said that though, I doubt this would be the case with this particular conguero.
Another possibility is that they were not his drums, I know when I have been on the road, on tour, I have had to use drums supplied by production and at times they have not been in the best of conditions.