Do I care what I look like when I play? Of course. I don't want to be up on stage if I have a bad case of bed head or something. I feel if I want to be taken seriously as a musician by band members and audience members, I need to do more than just play well (though that is a major factor in being taken seriously as a musician). I feel I need to *look* like I'm taking what I'm doing very seriously.

Do I care what my drums look like? Somewhat, but it's not as big of a deal to me as how I look personally. I am a little obsessive about keeping my crashes exactly the same height, my toms being parallel and positioned perfectly, and having the front of the kick drum being parallel with the front of the drum riser or drum stage if I am on one, but other than that, I'm not TOO picky most of the time. Sometimes I can be, though.

Im cosmetics conscious. For the longest time i didnt like the look of my 22'' BD onstage opposed to my 24.  Its a fact, color affects mood, do a google search. My set up wont change positionally if it takes me out of my comfort zone. Ive basically got my 16'' floor tom behind my 14 because it rounds the kit out cosmetically. A two mounted one floor set up reminds me to much of a J.C.Penney catalog kit. The color of a kit can make or break a sale for me. Blue sparkle kits are it!.

When i saw Aerosmith recently Joey used two kits. One was a 4 piece blue sparkle kit with white DW lugs and it was flippin gorgeous! under lights. Blue sparkle tops the list but right up there are crushed glass, champagne sparkle, copper sparkle from Tama, and DW's green to natural Tamo ash. Certain drum colors can depress me. I am a color FREAK!!.

What ways do you like to rout cords/cables, Louis? I usually just wrap them around the mic stand before I plug them in. Is this how you like to do it or are there any other ways you know of that are better? Either way, routing the cables neatly really does help the overall appearance of the stage to look much better.

I love your simile about live music and food, btw!

This is gonna sound dumb, but what's a sub snake? Is it one of those little boxes that you plug multiple XLR cables into (like where you use one for the drums, one for the guitars, etc.)? I'm sorry; I just don't think I've EVER heard the term "sub snake."

I learn something new every time I'm on here...it's great.

Well said, and I agree completely. I definitely care about how my kit looks. Everything has to be comfortable, but I have most definitely been known to sacrifice 100% comfort for something closer to 90% if I feel that it will improve on the look and image I'm going for on stage. I will, for instance, never have a crash right in front of me, because it might obscure my view of the audience and/or band members in front of me (and vice versa, I want them to be able to see my stupid drummer faces too).

I play a standard five piece (10 and 12-inch mounted toms with a 16-inch floor tom), because it's what I'm most comfortable with. However, that also means that I'm very aware that my kit can very easily be made to look like that generic catalogue or "novice" setup. For this reason alone I know that I will probably never be 100% comfortable if I set up my toms on a kick drum mounted tom holder, because I don't want that look to my kit. I'm not proud of it, but I know that when I see drummers with that "standard" 5-piece setup (unless we're talking about house kits and the like, obviously), I really do tend to label them as "novices" right away (even though I've been proven wrong time and time again). I have no idea if a non-drummer (or non-musician) would ever notice how a drum kit is set up, but I don't really care. So in these cases, the look of my kit actually affects my comfort level when playing, even if the setup itself might be 100% ergonomically correct and comfortable.

So, yeah, I will never place anything in a directly uncomfortable position just for looks, but I am willing to make sacrifices up to a certain point if I feel the improvement in looks is worth it.

Did that make any sense at all?

Talking about cords and stage clutter, one of the coolest shows I've seen was John Mellancamp and he had a stage with no clutter at all.

All the mics and instruments were wireless, the monitors were under crates in the stage, the believe the drums mics were wireless as well. The whole stage was clean looking. On top of that everything was a beige color...the mic stands, the drums, the cymbals stands...it was the best stage set up I've ever seen, it was all about the people and the music. I thought this is the way to go.

Yes, I care very much for aesthetics.  Of course the most important thing, mentioned numerous times by others, is playability and comfort.  I always have that stuff worked out way ahead of time and using a rack is a big bonus because everything stays the sames.  Adjustments are in fractions of inches.  When I'm all set up and have made sure everything is where it's supposed to be and everything is comfortable to play then I do like to look at my setup and the overall stage setup from the audience perspective. 

I find that reviewing videos is very good for critiquing yourself.  I have made many adjustments in my playing and performance from what I observed myself doing.  What looks good as well as what sounds good.

Definitely. I play in a hard rock band, and for those big rock songs I definitely go for the big arm movements, both for the backbeat hits and the big crashes.

genious, I am definitely going to use that.

I'm with you Dave, if you got it use it.