April 25, 2020
Hi, from the road!!! It felt sooooooo good to get out of the house and go somewhere yesterday. Georgetta and I drove four hours from Memphis to Mt. Vernon Illinois to deliver a vintage Slingerland Radio King drum set to Harry Cangany, who drove there from the Indianapolis area. It was a beautiful, blooming, sunny spring day along the Arkansas side of the Mighty Mississippi River, "Ol' Man River". We had a good visit with Harry, who is my doppelganger in many ways; drummer, former drum shop owner, drum history writer, and incurable drum collector addict. https://www.notsomoderndrummer.com/columnists…
We had a nice "tailgate social distance lunch" and all wore our fashion accessory masks. Georgetta and I drove back on the Kentucky and Tennessee side of the river and stopped in Metropolis Illinois to meet with a very tall man who wore a cape. Super fellow. Then we proceeded to zig-zag along the confusing two lane highways of Kentucky, barely eluding the sounds of dueling banjos, until we reached Brownsville TN, the home of Tennessee's largest metal sculpture, - Billy Tripp's "The Mindfield" - one of our favorite places because we did some datin' and courtin' there about three years ago. Then a quick dash home on I40 to our humble abode in East Memphis. https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14826
Here’s the drum set I refurbished - 1955 Slingerland Radio Kings
April 30, 2020
Hi, from my bunker in Memphis TN. during this time of “Corona virus bullets flying and no one is bullet proof”. I am very fortunate to have a couple of big rooms in my house to work in that are full of drums, and great music on the stereo that I can listen to all day while typing away and restoring gear for my home based business. I have a view from my desk of my nice backyard full of flowers and the great “Memphis trees”. I want to thank everyone who is not getting to be as safe as I am while they do their very important jobs away from their homes; All the health industry workers, the food industry workers, the delivery and trucking industry, the first responders, the city workers, all the essential workers I can’t think of at the moment and everybody else on the front lines of protecting us and keeping us supplied. Thank you for keeping us safe. I know you need to make a living but there is also an element of courage and bravery needed to do what you do; to be face to face with the public, not knowing who is contagious and who isn’t. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Next, WE ARE GIVING AWAY A FREE SET OF ISTANBUL MEHMET CYMBALS! what are you waiting for? Get off your butt and go register. It costs nothing. You have to answer a handful of questions for our survey. That’s it - really! No strings attached. They are great sounding cymbals. Here’s the link https://drumlink.com/category/contest/
This month’s issue is full of long, in depth articles. It seems some of our illustrious writers have had plenty of time to write lately. If you are like me during this pandemic lockdown, you have “cabin fever” and need plenty of reading material and other stimuli to keep your brain occupied and separated from the constant uncertainty, the barrage of confusing news, and from just plain old boredom. There should be several hours of drum nerd material here to keep you entertained and enriched. Plus, lots of pictures. Drummers love pictures, especially of shiny and sparkly drums with lots of bling! I’ve always said that drummers are like crows - they are attracted to bright, shiny objects.
If you’ve been thinking about buying the back issue collection of 30 Not So Modern Drummer paper magazines still in print, this is a good time to do it, for two reasons: #1 - $49.00 is the lowest price we’ve ever sold this for and #2 - We will be running out of some of the issues soon. We’re down to one box of some of them. The shipping is included ($13) so you’re only paying $36 for the copies. That’s $1.20 per issue. This is a limited time offer. The price will go back up to normal at some point - $100. Here’s the link to the back issue collection on DrumSellers.com
So what are we going to do about back issues when they run out? There is a plan. A grand plan (all my plans are grand…some are grandiose). That plan is to offer every issue since the first one in 1988 for sale as digital downloads, and as print issues from a “print on demand” service. One of our writers, “Drum Yoda” Richard Best, has volunteered (thanks!) to scan all the issues and it’s looking pretty good so far. Richard is also scanning and editing every individual article since 1988 to post on the website in the “Archive” section. Those will be free to read, or course.
Thanks for tuning in,
George Lawrence, drum community organizer, pied piper and instigator.