Except, possibly, for the late Johannes Severinsen (pictured below right), who invented the instrument in 1940, and who was shot down and killed on stage in 1989 by an 85-year old alzheimer patient, for making too much noise, which is saying a lot, as it happened in an old people's home for the exceptionally hard of hearing, in Fjöerdefiord, Iceland.
Johannes himself had been profoundly deaf since early childhood, and in the course of his life gradually lost the last small bit of hearing he had, because he always had to play louder and louder to be able to hear himself - and thereby making his hearing worse and worse, until there was nothing left.
Shamus O'Donnell, an unemployed Irish bricklayer, inherited the "rumsterstang" from the late Johannes Severinsen, and was seen (and heard!) playing it at the recent Danish Festival of Fools, where he broke the decibel record for "loudest absurd one-person music act", for which effort he received a small pewter trophy mug, and a set of deluxe monogramed earplugs.
He will be playing again in the fall at the Aarhus Open Air Folk Music Festival, and I'll keep you all posted about this classic music act, probably the most significant of its kind in quite a while. In particular, his personal rendition of the famous 50s rock song Be-Bop-A-Lula, in a duet with former Finnish chorus bass singer Hümää Hümääläinen, is definitely something worth seeing (if not actually hearing).
The "rumsterstang" is played by banging one end of it against solid objects like for instance the floor, tables or walls, and hitting the attached tambourine and cymbals randomly with a small stick. For further effect, the player may at intervals shout "hooray!" or "yipee!", or recite poetry or shopping lists in a very loud voice.
The only other known "rumsterstang" in existence (a hand-made copy of Severinsen's original) is currently on display at the Royal Danish Museum of Sound and Acoustics, in Kloppenborg. You will note that the "drum stick" is longer than the one used by O'Donnell. This was because it was also used to point with, as the owner also ran a small country school for deaf children, and he would use the "rumsterstang" to determine the degree of deafness among his pupils, whilst pointing at the blackboard.