Cahyo Budiono breaks record as longest-playing drummer

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Cahyo Budiono of the Purwokerto-based Zaragoza Band broke on Monday Indonesia's record for the longest- playing drummer, playing his drum set for 12 hours and 40 minutes straight.

The previous record was established in 1988 by a more prominent musician, Jelly Tobing of the Bharata Band, who played eight hours without stopping. Tobing's feat was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.

Cahyo, who made his record-breaking performance in the Central Java town of Purwokerto, was entered into the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI). The museum was established in 1990 by Indonesian "funny man" Jayasuprana.

Only two days earlier, the museum entered Indonesia's first twin marriages. Two twin girls from Yogyakarta married on Saturday their twin sweethearts in the Bantul regency.

"I'm very satisfied," said Cahyo a few hours after breaking the record. He said he practiced with four different bands for ten solid hours a day for the past month.

On the day when he broke the Indonesian record, he was accompanied by 12 different groups playing various kinds of music, including jazz, rock, pop and dangdut.

"I didn't practice in order to boost my stamina. I practiced for the sake of improving my musical skills, so that I could keep on playing music rather than just beating the drum for hours," Cahyo said.

The museum's manager, Paulus Pangka, said that with the latest two entries the museum now has 296 records in its collection, about ten of which were also recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.

"We have four categories of records: the most, the first (to happen), the rarest and the most unique," Paulus Pangka said. Cahyo's drumming feat was entered under the most category -- which also includes the tallest and the shortest men in Indonesia.

One of the rarest was the twin marriage, while among the most unique was a man who had 30 fingers and a lamb with two heads. (swa)