Drum Band

The eight musicians piled their instruments on the stage of the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom, and set to work tuning them -with a sledge hammer. This did no particular damage, because the "instruments" were made from 50-gallon steel oil drums. Tuned up, the Trinidad Invaders Steel Band gave a surprised New York Herald Tribune Forum audience something far more harmonious to listen to last week than the clangorous world affairs they had been discussing.

Even to a man with a tin ear, oil-drum music is an advance over the ashcan-and-bottle music of the Trinidadian '305. By pressing out graded circles in the bottom of a section of drum, the Invaders get a melody job (the "ping-pong") with a range of two octaves. Other refinements: "alto pans," "tune-booms." and "bass-booms." For their Manhattan audience. the Invaders beat their way through some celesta-like calypsos and a Mambo in F. One listener compared the sound to that of "a Jovian steel guitar." Consensus: certainly the best back-alley balalaika of the fall season.

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